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Telegram：ukassignment021 The London College of Fashion 伦敦时装学院
BA (Hons) Fashion Management （荣誉）文学士时尚管理
Stage 3 Case Study Examination – Briefing 第3阶段案例分析考试 - 简介
Tuesday January 10th, 2012
1.Introduction 简介
SuperDry brand, but set in the strategic context of the group as a whole. The group floated its shares on the London Stock Exchange in March 2011 and is now preoccupied with developing and protecting Its brand, extending its distribution network including expansion into a growing number of international markets, growing its IT and HR functions to support a rapidly expanding business and consolidating its customer base. Expert opinion is divided about the future prospects of the business, as is evidenced by the volatility of its share price since the float (see below). As such, it is an ideal organisation for you to explore in terms of your learning whilst studying for your BA and will determine whether you can synthesise evidence of varying quality from different sources to arrive at robust judgements and insights across all the disciplines of fashion management.
2.Origins and History 起源和历史
Supergroup as we know it today owes its existence to two men – Julian Dunkerton and James
Holder, who merged their skills and experience less than two decade ago to launch a unique and
dynamic brand. Aged 19, Dunkerton found himself unemployed in the early 1980s and, to supplement a £2,000 family loan, applied for funds available from Prime Minister Thatcher’s Enterprise Allowance Scheme to start his own business. With a meagre £40 a week to live off as well as start the venture Dunkerton rented a market stall in Hereford (soon moved to Cheltenham) and started selling leisure clothing under the Laundry Athletics name. By the late 1980s the young business had opened its first retail shop in Cheltenham trading under the Cult Clothing name. This concept sold both group own-brands products and contemporary “cool” 3rd party brands such as Bench and Carhartt to a target group of, mostly male, young customers. Further stores quickly opened in the university towns of Oxford, Birmingham, Cambridge and Edinburgh. Cult Clothing continues to expand at a modest pace today with 21 shops operating in 2011.
In 2003 Dunkerton was joined at the company by Julian Holder, founder of the Bench brand (in Europe) who had expanded his own business very quickly but had eventually run into cash flow problems and had gone intoadministration. Together they resolved to launch their own brand. Holder was appointed Brand & Design.Director, and the two men took off to Tokyo (Japan) looking for inspiration. In the words of Rosamund Unwin (2011) “Dunkerton...........and Holder jumped on a plane to Japan, the ‘home of graphics’, looking for inspiration. It was there, over a late night beer session, that the decided on the SuperDry name.”Dunkerton claims to have thought up the name on the basis that all the Japanese graphics they came across were “Super something.” He gives Holder credit for the rest of the brand identity (see section 4).
Some years later, reviewing Superdry for her column in the Daily Telegraph Saturday magazine,
Mary Portas commented somewhat unkindly, that her experience “makes me wonder whether
Julian’s superbrand was a stroke of genius or a stroke of luck.”
In December 2004 the first Superdrystore was opened in London’s Covent Garden selling the company’s new own brand. Around the same time a third partner, Theo Karpathios joined the firm, bringing with him wholesale skills and contacts so that serious wholesale distribution of the brand, both at home and internationally started that year too.
3.The Target Customer
In his public statements Julian Dunkerton often stresses that the success of Superdry is in large
measure down to the identification of an opportunity in the market. As Michael Martens, CEO of
Superdry USA, explained to Womens Wear Daily (5/5/11) “we target the college student to the young
professional – that’s our core”. University students get 10% discount, and expansion has been
concentrated on towns, both at home and abroad, with large university populations. This brings the
brand into direct competition with Abercrombie & Fitch and Jack Wills, but for key KVIs such as T-shirts or hoodies it is 15-20% cheaper. When compared to brands like Cinch or G-Star Raw it has a much broader product range with less dependence on denim. Dunkerton and Holder believe that the brand is much more about Lifestyle than it is about Fashion. Thus it has had greater appeal for males than females. although the core target market is 15-25 it extends upward.
4.The Product Range
Dunkerton is said to have started his business selling just five T-shirt designs. Since then the rangehas grown to cover sweat shirts, hoodies, jeans, jumpers, jogging bottoms, jackets, shirts, rugbyshirts, polo shirts, leatherwear, and all kinds of accessories. Recent additions in autumn 2011 includeunderwear, eyewear and men’s grooming products and fragrance. (both licensed).
Examples of Superdry’s Autumn/Winter 2011 range. Although billed as a unisex brand,only 37% of sales are said to be womenswear (Independent,21/6/2011). Since womenswear accounts for nearly double the sales of menswear in the UK, this implies a much lower market share and highlights the opportunity, identified by Dunkerton to grow the womenswear business. This may require a greater input of “fashion” and with it, acceptance of the mark-down risk. According to the company, half the total number of references are womenswear, which is clearly performing at a lower level of sales per SKU than menswear. The recent growth in the number of lines is shown
Source: Supergroup
Commenting on the Spring 2011 range, Drapers writes: “Superdry is never about trends. For spring
there are 8 lightweight jacket options with double zipper and in-built collar details, 16 vintage-wash checked shirt styles, 6 options on hoodies and 13 pairs of jeans. Cargo shorts also make the cut in both plain and checked versions. Polo shirts are affordable at £34.99 but a hooded flannel shirt does take the mick a bit at £74.99” (Drapers 6/5/11). Prices range from £15 baseball caps to £300 leather jackets.An added complication for Superdry is that it wholesales to some 360 accounts in the UK and more internationally. These stockists are also concerned to underpin their business with a regular flow of new lines and styles. In 2011 the company introduced its first “short order” wholesale range with a6 week order to delivery lead time. Many stockists were growing concerned about spasmodic deliveries and growing competition from nearby House of Fraser concessions and company owned stores. This move has helped sustain the wholesale business with 42% of doors increasing autumn 2011 orders over 2011 and a further 37% placing similar quantities. 79% of Superdry accounts polled told Drapers that Autumn 2011 sales were up on the previous year.
Product Design
Rosamund Urwin, writing in the London Evening Standard (15/2/2011)describes how “they designed five slim-fitting T-shirts, including thenow famous Osaka 6, all in retro colours, inspired by vintageAdidas. Nobody had thought of doing a vintage-inspired label and nobody had mixed American and Japanese symbols before. They were an immediate hit.” Dunkerton admits that the Japanese themed T-shirts, using the Kanji and Hiragana forms of Japanese handwriting gave the brand a kick start. Dunkerton is quoted in the Financial Times (15/9/2010) as saying: “you wouldn’t say ‘born in Cheltenham, as a brand. Japan is very cool in my opinion.” It did no harm either that David Beckham, the celebrity captain of the England football team,latched onto the look and was extensively photographed wearing first an ”Osaka 6” and later a “Brad” jacket . As the Supergroup prospectus puts it “The group aims to set fashion trends by creating future classics.”
Dunkerton is quick to stress in interviews that “we are not reliant on one product, one bit of branding or one logo. We are not a one logo wonder, we are a lifestyle brand”. (Evening Standard, 13/7/2011) In the same paper Holder commented earlier in the year: “French Connection UK had one type of graphic style – it became saturated – we have hundreds of designs. We call it the “pub test”: you could go into a pub and see 25 people wearing Superdry but they wouldalllookdifferent.” (15/2/2011) Furthermore, “every item works with others – we think like a retailer, not just a designer.” (Holder to Arbonne, Journal du Textile, 12/5/09 – translated). Victoria White, Editor of Company magazine, is one who thinks they have got it right. “I think Superdry has tapped into a Zeitgeist look. Its Skins meets Gossip Girl.” she writes.
Concurrent with the new focus on womenswear Superdry has been upping its investment in product
design. In a recent interview with Juststyle.com Dunkerton states that they increased the design team to25 designers in 2011. He admitted that previously the company’s design strategy had been rather unsophisticated, for example selling one style of man’s shirt and changing the fabric patterns every six months. The company now has three collar styles and has hired a full-time fabric designer for checks,with plans for new styles throughout the season. It is also planning to expand into women’s logoprinted tops “in more interesting shapes.” Chinos will be offered in a range of four cuts, “use betterquality fabrics”, and be more sophisticated than the previous offer.According to Singer (21/6/11) improvements have also been made to the denim offer which nowgenerates 4% of sales (compared with c.45% at Diesel – indicating the extent of the opportunity).
Overall, the brand does have a design and product development strategy which is explicitly Articulated to investors in their June 20th 2011 briefing. It comprises:
Vintage Americana/Japanese inspired graphics
Super soft hand feel cotton
Premium fabric
Vintage detailing
World-leading hand drawn graphics
Impeccably tailored fits
Diverse styling
Affordable price points (from shareholders statement, 2010) 实惠的价格点
In December 2011, Jonathan Pritchard, retail analyst at Oriel Securities, was quoted as saying:
“Superdry’s management are trying to freshen up its appeal to 16-19 year olds, which implies it had probably waned”, but he added “The range is starting to evolve: that’s reassuring. We have long felt that heavily logo-ed garments are losing their novelty”.（我们早就认为重标志服装失去新意） (The Guardian 15/12/2011).
Despite their insistence on individuality, as the Superdry look becomes more recognizable it also
becomes exposed to counterfeiting. Holder, in his interview with the Standard explains: “If someone tells us something is a trend, we go completely the opposite way.....Supergroup has almost 100 legal actions under way to stop rivals ripping off its designs. “It’s a weird compliment, mostly a pain in the arse. Our legal team is busy and ferocious.”（这是一个奇怪的恭维，大多是痛苦的屁股。我们的法律团队是繁忙和凶猛的。）www.ukassignment.org (ES 15/2/11) (see section 6 below).