Repositioning a brand is never easy and rarely without pain. I believe the Urban brand is making the necessary changes that will allow it to more fully engage its traditional customer and return to solid profitability.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Like Free People, the Urban brand is planning to grow by expanding product assortments, expanding the brand reach and by improved marketing.
Positioning the brand and regaining trust are all smart things for us to do and those are the litmus tests for any decisions we make.
The way customers relate to brands and how profit is generated has changed so dramatically almost every professional is being challenged to reconsider what they do in order to stay relevant.
So, if you look at what's common among some of the companies I have, including the Four Seasons, NewsCorp, George V, the Plaza, these are all irreplaceable brands in their own fields.
I don't think of myself as a brand. Branding to me feels like a position or identity that's frozen in time. I'm more interested in transitions.
We're in this incredible age where new brands are making people's lives easier, more convenient, more personalized.
Your brand is your public identity, what you're trusted for. And for your brand to endure, it has to be tested, redefined, managed, and expanded as markets evolve. Brands either learn or disappear.
Brands must empower their community to be change agents in their own right. To that end, they need to take on a mentoring role. This means the brand provides the tools, techniques and strategies for their customers to become more effective marketers in achieving their own goals.
Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product.
Forget 'branding' and 'positioning.' Once you understand customer behavior, everything else falls into place.