Case Studies on Best Practice in External Marketing Communication Cases on OppoSuits (International, 3 years) Streekmolen (National, 3 years) WoodWatch (International, 2 years) Srprs.me (National, 1 year) Written in May 2015 by the Utrecht, The Netherlands team: Kristin Atmann, Juella Emanuels, Tiffany van Erp, Jurjen Hartveld, Tijmen Hoogenboom, Danique Schoonhoven
Opposuits Introduction of Opposuits (International, 3 years) Being worn to be wild, OppoSuits are extremely suitable for very serious business meetings, stag do's, weddings, fancy dress parties, festivals and sporting events. OppoSuits comprise a 3-piece set consisting: jacket, trousers and tie. Opposuits makes suits. Outrageous ones. An OppoSuit is the exact opposite of a regular business suit (apart from the quality and the fitting) and is made out of a ridiculous and unusual pattern in a well-fitted design. The high quality fabric similar to proper boring suits enables you to wear your OppoSuit over and over again, so please don t think it s some sort of a disposable fancy dress costume. The fact that a full suit, including a tie, can be delivered to your doorstep for an incredibly reasonable price 7 euro s just seems too good to be true, right? It does indeed though we re dead serious about it and truly believe that OppoSuits should be affordable to everyone. What makes Opposuits an entrepreneurial company? How innovative are they? What started out as an idea of three friends that were travelling through Southeast Asia has grown into a very successful adventure that has taken Opposuits halfway across the globe. In just under three years they have set up a range of over 30 designs, got customers in over 50 countries and a lot of media coverage. Their strengths lie in their core beliefs. They still stand for the same values as they did three years ago. Opposuits want to provide men with quality, yet affordable suits. Their suits represent men who don t take themselves too seriously but still want to maintain a sense of style. The last couple of years have clearly proven that there is a substantial group of men who think the same. Creativity and innovation The founders discovered the market for the product after they produced 2000 Orange suits which they sold in The Netherlands within 3 days during the European Soccer cup. Opposuits is suits that is inbetween fashion and costumes. This has never been done before and with this product they created a whole new market. They want to stimulate the creativity within the company and therefore they send out an email every Friday to all employees where they have to respond to with ideas like new names for suits, new designs, landmarks where suits can be photographed etc. This summer they are for example also launching a new suits for in the summer with short trousers and short sleeves which they are planning to sell in the south
of the U.S. and Europe. Next to that they are also launching a new low-cost and lower-quality suit that can be used for only one night. Furthermore they have many more ideas but they simply cannot keep up with the demand to launch more products yet. They are very focused on maintaining their quality and service instead of just expanding in terms of sales. While they are still growing significantly though. Furthermore they are always at least one step ahead of their competitors due to their creative designers which always focus on themes instead of trends. In 2014 they also won the best small/medium enterprise award in London due to their extraordinary creativity, growth and potential. The jury was mostly impressed by the fact that in just a few years Opposuits has developed itself into a small/middle enterprise with sales of over a couple million in more than 1100 shops in over 50 countries. Corporate Sustainability Opposuits is also a corporate sustainable company. The suits are made in a very professional factory by the world s best suit makers. Their kids go to the local tailor school and do not work in the factory. New OppoSuits designs are tested in a secret lab by bearded men in long, white coats. The founders believe that every single person in the whole chain should benefit from what they do. Furthermore the suits are of course washable and reusable due to the high quality so that they can be used for a long time. They also believe in keeping their business lean and mean. With this they mean that they want to keep focused on what they are good at instead of going for growth and money while losing quality and service. They for example don t only sell a tie or jacket and really want to stay focused on their core business. The following quote from Steve Jobs clearly represent where the founders stand for: Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.
What makes Opposuits an example of best practice with regards to external marketing communication? How are these practices implemented? The message and mindset behind Opposuits Opposuits can be seen as best of practice with regards to their external marketing communication practices because of their mindset and brand image they communicate. They have a strong idea about their own brand and company image and this shows in the founders of the company, the people that work there, their office and their external communication practices. The image that they would like to be seen as is that they are young, fun loving and have a sense of style. This comes forth in their message, which was described by one of the founders as the following: We do not take ourselves too seriously, however we do like to be the center of attention. We are not a fashion brand but we want to show the world we do have a sense of style. We love quality and that is why we want to release products in which you can and maybe want to be seen. In general this mindset means that they stick to it both nationally, in the Netherlands, as well as internationally. Opposuits will not change its fundamental ideas, to uphold a strong uniform brand image across the globe. As one of the founders described, they want to be seen as the Coca Cola among colas. Whenever you order or see a crazy suit, you say Opposuit. Customers and publicity In general the customers Opposuits aim fore are likeminded men, young, fun loving and maybe a little bit crazy. These men are usually found online and thus opposuits started their marketing strategies from social media. Because they were on a relatively small budget when they started the company they soon learned the trait. This small budget also meant that publicity could only be made use of when it was free. And thus, Opposuits has a PR team that has extensive connections to all the media, in order to get free publicity whenever there is a new product or interesting news to be told media such as radio, newspapers, magazines, blogs and tv-stations are contacted. They are then provided with the neccecary info and asked if they would like to write something about it. Usually this is received well, mainly because of the wow effect of the suits, and thus can be seen as a successful strategy. In general the composition of their marketing practices is 80/20, meaning that about 80% of the marketing productivity goes to online (social) media and the other 20% goes to offline (traditional) media.
Separate activities Besides the above mentioned media, Opposuits is also attending various events and festivals throughout the year and around the world. Although a festival is not always the best way to reach potential customers, mainly because about 50% of all the people there will be interested, of which only about 70% will be men, the target group. Of these men, probably only 25% will remember it after which only a few will actually look at the website. The remaining will remember, but not actively have been triggered to look up or buy the product. One of the mayor events they are visiting each year is Glastonbury festival in the UK. To enhance their penetration at these festivals, they combine it with local actions such as tagging in Facebook and photo competitions, under the name Social Suits; worn to be wild. Furthermore, Opposuits mentioned that throughout the year they generally only make use of the online media. However, for special holidays and occasions, the more traditional media are used. As an example you could take the 4 th of July or Christmas, for which separate, traditional/offline campaigns have been put in place. To enhance the effect of these campaigns, free publicity and large online advertising has been put into place as well. By multi channeling the campaign, Opposuits made sure that, in line with the festivities, an adequate campaign was launched over multiple media and platforms, to create an as high as possible conversion rate and demand for their products. Famous people Of course, whenever there is a possibility, Opposuits makes sure to use famous people to promote their suits. For example, during last year s Christmas campaign, their Christmas line of suits was booming and very much sought after. The suits got promoted in, amongst others, the Jimmy Kimmel Live show, Fox business news, RTL boulevard (Dutch), Bloomberg TV and one of their suits was worn by NBA player Spencer Hawes (LA Clippers). Besides these, a lot of other on and offline channels picked up on the hype, skyrocketing the attention for the brand Opposuits. Short summary In the end, it is clear that there are two mayor points why Opposuits external marketing communication strategy works. First and foremost, they have a strong mindset and thought when it comes to their appearance. This mindset is translated back and forth between their suits and the company. Their company is the product and their product is the company; young, daring, stylish and fun. Secondly they make excellent use of free publicity, online (social) media and multi channeling, to reach the biggest target group possible.
How is Opposuits utilizing the new communications features? Social media As mentioned in the previous section, Opposuits grew through their extensive use of social media. They are, amongst others, active on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. They use these channels for content marketing purposes, communication with their fanbase, release of new products and for marketing of their existing products. They learned that by using social media, there is essentially nowhere to hide and thus they handle an honest business method, in which transparency of operations is used and honesty is key for good communication with fans and customers alike. Social media is seen as the way to directly communicate with customers and fans and has led to multiple creative ideas that have come from the community. By including the community in their business and listening to what they have to say, Opposuits make sure that they seek, obtain and retain the attention of their community. Online Media Online media can be seen in the forms of blogs and video services like Vimeo and Youtube. On these platforms, like with social media, new products are launched, photo and video competitions are maintained and forms another way of communicating with the community. Responses As mentioned before, honesty and transperancy is key and thus Opposuits actively engage in discussions on the online/social media. They respond honestly whenever negative feedback has been posted, given that it is indeed with enough feedback to give a proper response. Opposuites noted that of course it is important to take every complaint seriously. However, nowadays everyone is active online, of which some are very easy going and others really like to complain. If someone explains the complaint it is easier to respond than when someone gives a random shout, especially when this person is doing this more often, regardless of the company. Therefore Opposuits is more sensitive to real reviews or feedback, and seeks a conversation with those who take the time to give them. Besides that, Opposuits still delivers physical products and thus, failures are always possible. Whether it is a missing item or a wrongly fabricated item, both are handled with respect and they always seek a way to solve the issue.
Differences between on and offline communication features The differences between the on and offline communication features is that the offline communication usually takes a much longer time to sink in, thus leading to a slower response time. Take for example newspaper articles, people usually read these on certain times, not willing to search for a product directly. However, they do remember it and might look for the product later on after other stimulation. At one time this lead to almost a zero response and it was much harder to trace back the traffic coming from these offline channels. Online communication has much more immediate results and is therefore also more volatile. However, the upside of this is that it is also traceable and therefore more manageable. For example, at one time Opposuits released an online campaign, which turned out to become very succesful. This resulted in a direct overload of traffic on the website of Opposuits, crashing it multiple times. Data management and customer targeting All the traffic and conversion from online sources and social media can be measured and this is exactly what Opposuits does. Every online campaign and advertisement is coded and because of that, the response can be tracked and traced. This leads to extensive results and feedback on every campaign, making it easier to form and select online strategies in the future. Because of this extensive data tracking, saving and analysis Opposuits makes sure that they reach the right customers on the right place and time. They have a detailed profile of their customer and they know where they can be found online. Data management is one of the mayor keys behind the online success of Opposuits.
International issues As previously mentioned: Opposuits is a very international company which has sales in over 50 countries. It is founded in The Netherlands and quickly entered the rest of Europe, North America and Australia. It is especially popular in Western countries. Cultural differences The founders thought that Belgium would soon follow after the Netherlands because it is a very similar country in terms of culture. They didn t expect very high sales in Germany because Germans are more reserved but this eventually turned out exactly the other way around. The German market is very popular and the customers are more daring, fun and adventurous while the Belgian sales turned out less than expected. For the Belgian market the Red Devil suits was designed and for the German market they designed The Bavarian Oktoberfest proof. Furthermore they designed the The Orange suit with a focus on Dutch people during the Soccer Championships and other national holidays, as well as the light blue suit with the tulips: the tulips from Amsterdam suits. The green suits Patrick is especially designed for St. Patricksday and the stars and stripes suit is made for the American market. Another three suits are launched especially for Halloween and another five for Christmas. They also launched a suits for the U.K. market with the British flag, called the Mr. Jack, one for the Danish market with the Danish flag, called the Dynamark, one for Mardi Grass, one for the Irish, etc. Their most recent launch is the Cannaboss suit. They decided to launch this because the legalization of marihuana has been a very hot topic in America. They also adjust their way of communicating in every country because of cultural differences between countries. In America it should be very extravagant, awesome and cool, while in The Netherlands the product is more just fun. Germans on the other hand are more decent while the British are full on crazy on the other hand. In the end this is only a change of words, not of product positioning.