It's an addiction I swear. Today, Crystal and I went to the mall. No worries, I've lessened my load by returning an item to Forever 21. So I only spent a net of $15 today so I'm very much proud of myself. This means eating dinner at home. Crystal needed some new shoes so we went to Aldo to look around. After trying on many different pairs of shoes with me really loving these gold wedges but I opted out of them because they gave me about 3 or 4 inches and made me into an overgrown beanstalk (no thanks). Crystal bought a pair of going out shoes however and when we checked out the box turned into the bag. This was incredibly ingenius and I cannot get over how great I think it is. Aldo gets to SAVE MONEY on bags and they are adding goodwill and creating a greener brand image. Ingenius! A handle comes on the side of the box and they put a little sticker to make sure the box stays closed. On the sticker lists an URL to a webpage (http://www.aldoshoes.com/us/nextstep) explaining their "Take the box, not the bag" campaign where they also give you suggestions on other ways to use the shoe box (to store photos, to organize cds, etc. Innovation doesn't have to be huge or a new product. Little improvements such as these are so simple yet no one has ever thought about it. Small improvements can lead to big changes. I absolutely love it.
Austin has influenced me and I definitely try to be more aware of being green. I've purchased those reusable shopping bags for when I go grocery shopping, and I try to use minimal amounts of bags as possible by sticking purchases in my purse or putting items into a bag I already have. I love how green friendly and green aware Austin is.
More on shopping and brand perceptions, one area in retail that facinates me is undergarments. It's been interesting how much undergarments has grown and has created different images. Victoria's Secret even launched a new sub-brand (Pink) for the younger crowd. American Eagle also came out with an undergarment store (Aerie) to compete with Victoria's Secret's Pink line. I just love how the panty industry is growing to become more than just undergarments but a fashion statement as well. Notable mentions are Gap's Gap Body line and Abercrombie&Fitch's Gilly Hicks.
v.s.
Besides that, I'd like to focus on two big time lingerie stores and their brand perception: Victoria's Secret and Frederick's of Hollywood. Both stores essentially sell lingerie and they have both modest to wild variations. Frederick's of course has more outlandish ones. However, when people think of Victoria's Secret, people think of VS as being more classy, sophisticated, and classic. Whereas, the brand perception associated with Frederick's is more wild, dirty, and trashy. Which is ironic when you think about it because how classy can sexy underwear really be? As I mentioned before in my previous posts about how people associate themselves with the brand image that they buy, I've noticed that people hold their VS bags loud and proud and try to hide their Frederick's one like it's naughty to purchase from there. Which is even more ironic because Victoria is now not so Secret and Fredrick's of HOLLYWOOD (glam, center stage) is being stuffed amongst other bags and merchandise. Interesting how your feelings for a brand can affect your liking of the product. For some reason, stockings from Frederick's feel so much dirtier than stockings from VS but in the end it's just stockings.
1 comment:
i think its a master and slave situation with brands and people. people identify themselves with certain brand, such as rich with A&F and pretentious with Mac. so the brands try to cater to those people by guessing what they identify themselves with using mass focus groups and research. and people think they have the choice but subconsciously go with brand more so than the quality of the product.
anyways. lets go shopping for lingerie sometime.
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