Marketing Communications Mix

Advertising

Initially I would try to steal clear of costly advertising whilst the brand is still growing. The only advertising I would use would in the future though would be magazines, such as Grazia, Glamour, Elle, Elle Girl, Vogue, Teen Vogue.

Ability to deliver a personal message	Low
Ability to reach a large audience	High
Level of interaction	Low
Credibility given by target audience	Medium

P.R

NAILED will rely heavily on PR and use it to it’s full potential. We would gift celebs such as Cara Delevigne, Rihanna, Lady Gaga (adding high credibility if they endorse the product/brand), and more C list celebs such as cast members from Made in Chelsea and TOWIE. Product placement in Made in Chelsea would be perfect at reaching our target audience, but scores low on personal message, interaction and credibility.

Ability to deliver a personal message	Low
Ability to reach a large audience	High
Level of interaction	Low
Credibility given by target audience	Medium

Personal Selling

Music festivals - such as Reading. V, Wireless and Creamfields will be the perfect opportunity to reach our target audience with pop up stalls offering nail art. It would score high on all 4 measures on the effectiveness rating as it would really help the brand become an experience

Ability to deliver a personal message	High
Ability to reach a large audience	Medium
Level of interaction	High
Credibility given by target audience	High

Sales promotions

Products will be available to purchase online on the website as well as through an App, with all tutorials linking directly to the products specifically used.

Ability to deliver a personal message	High
Ability to reach a large audience	Medium
Level of interaction	High
Credibility given by target audience	Medium

Direct Marketing

This will come in the form of a monthly newsletter sent to all members of the website, as well as occasional emails on promotion and offers, but nothing irrelevant to the target group that could be considered spam

Ability to deliver a personal message	Medium
Ability to reach a large audience	High
Level of interaction	Low
Credibility given by target audience	Low

Social Media

We will use as much social media as possible, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr. This will be effective as there will be a lot of image sharing.

Ability to deliver a personal message	Medium
Ability to reach a large audience	High
Level of interaction	High
Credibility given by target audience	High

Press release

#NAILEDIT

Tired of wearing the same lacklustre, chipped red polish day in, day out? Blown all your funds on a new handbag you can’t afford and will now be spending the rest of the month with cuticles to rival a mechanics? Praise the Nail Gods, NAILED is your new hand saviour.

An exciting new nail company started in 2012, NAILED is your go to company for all nail desires. Inspired by the likes of Zooey Dechanels iconic ‘Tuxedo nails’ at the Golden Globes, the UK based company has built up an online community of avid nail artists and lovers uniting in their shared passion for all things NAILED.  And not forgetting their extensive line of nail products all dedicated to helping you create the magic at home – taking you from chipped to hip in no time!

With an online following of almost 20,000 in fewer than 3 months, found Amy Lloyd Daley has been blown away by the online community her brand has created.

“I’ve always been really creative and find sitting in a salon so boring, as well as something I just can’t afford whilst studying. I studied Art at college and really love getting inspired with my own nails - I started getting people stopping me in the street and asking for tips and advice and thought there was really something here. I don’t claim to be a ‘nail technician’ and I don’t have any formal beauty training, I just really love incorporating quirky designs in to my outfits.

I started blogging in my spare time to give quick tutorials to my friends on how to recreate some of my most popular designs, and before I knew it I was being followed by people from all over the world. At this point I realised I’d been given a great opportunity to share my passion for NAILS with my seemingly willing pupils”

With products starting from £5, NAILED stocks an online nail range including an endless rainbow of polishes, strippers, dotters, gems and any other embellishment you can possibly fathom. All products come with a small booklet of design ideas, as well as details on how to share and upload your designs with the rest of the community once you’ve #NAILED IT

Tweet:

Have you #NAILEDIT? Check out www.NAILED.co.uk for all your fashion-forward nailspiration. #GetNAILED

Brand positioning

Dahlen’ (2010) brand positioning check list

Which market or markets do we want to target?

NAILED will be targeting young women, aged 15-24, Mintel has noted this group to be the highest users of nail polish.

What is the customer profile and behaviour of the target market?

They are likely to have low income and therefore be more inclined to paint their own nails as opposed to going for a manicure. They will be fashion conscious, strive to stay on trend and willing to push boundaries further than older women.

In terms of grooming they will be well kept and see make up and nails as an extension to their outfit, almost an accessory. They will enjoy having fun with their look and not take themselves too seriously.

Work-wise they will be mainly students, or work in fashion/marketing/events – not corporate environments.

People buying these products won’t necessarily be fully qualified beauticians, but will have an interest in beauty and also be inspired by creativity and fashion.

Who are and will be our main competitors?

I have identified 5 main competitors to the NAILED brand

Nails Inc & OPI are both well-established nail brands. The average cost of one of their polishes is around £11, so they are relatively pricey in comparison to the rest of the market. 

Nails Inc incorporates a ‘British’ theme around it’s branding, and names it’s polishes after places in London – ‘Victoria’ and ‘Sloan Square’

OPI also names it’s polishes, but alternatively going for more quirky, different names that distinguishes the brand as fun, i.e. ‘gargantuan green grape’ and ‘Lincoln park after dark’

Models Own is a brand of make-up, with an extensive nail polish range including nail art pens. They cost roughly £4-5 per polish, and £6 for pens. The concept around the brand is that it is the same make up models wear.

Andrea Fulerton is a nail brand which focuses more of nail art than simply just polishes. The range includes gems and stickers and accessories, and is stocked solely in Superdrug stores. Nail pens cost roughly £8.

WAH Nails is a small nail art brand which focuses on quirky nail designs. They have a salon in Topshop as well as one other in the UK. They do not currently provide their own products, only technicians who do the designs.

What is the point of difference to select amongst the alternatives?

In comparison to the competition, NAILED will provide consumers with more inspiration and tutorial advice on nails designs, as well as the opportunity to share and view others designs

How do we ensure that our target audience perceives our brand as the superior alternative?

Creativity and innovation will give us an edge, so we’ll need to continuously change things up and not let our designs and products become dull. Our strength will be playing on our creativity, and portraying nails as more of an ‘art form’ than our competitors. Adding in a social media aspect will help create a sense a ‘community’ amongst our target group.

Can we ensure we have a better position than our competitors?

Initially I think ensuring we have a better position will be a potentially slow process, and building our social media fan base will be key to our success. Once we have a big enough online following this will hopefully translate into consumers choosing the brand for its creativity

Brand Positioning Map

Looking at the brand positioning map we can see low quality is not something that beauty brands can generally get away with - unless they are also very low budget.  In terms of pricing and quality NAILED will have to aim to position itself among its competitors but will struggle to get a price or quality advantage over them. 

The Consumer Perspective

What is it& what is it for? - An innovative and exciting range of nail products

What does it do? - These products help you to creative distinctive, fun nails at home, for a lot less than it would cost in a salon

What will it do for me? - The product ranges allow you to creative something unique and personal to you, differentiating your style from others.

What are the benefits for me? - As well as being far more cost effective than visiting a nail salon, creating your own distinct designs allows you to explore your own creativity as well as tailoring your nails to your own outfits

Why is it different to my regular brand? - NAILED focuses on more than just nail polishes and gems, it provides you with online support to help you learn and create something special

Will it be worth using this brand long term? - Absolutely – as you change your designs can change with you. The only thing stopping you is your imagination! 

Logo, packaging and brand name brainstorm

Potential names

• Nail It – Too unoriginal , boring
• Nailed it – I like this, but not for a brand name, potentially tag line? Or social media hash tag - #NAILEDIT
• NAILED – I like this, simple, conveys what the brand is about whilst being short, snappy and memorable
• NAYLED – I think playing  around with the spelling potentially loses the idea of what the brand is about

Look of logo

I’ve decided to steer away from an elaborate logo. I think the name ‘NAILED’ is bold, and brave and straight to the point, and I don’t want to take away from this with fiddly, elaborate fonts.

These are some considerations:

Colour

When looking at the above colour connotation chart, I’m immediately drawn to purple, due to its take out of ‘creativity’ as well as red/pinks meaning ‘excitement’. I think both of these words are suggestions I would like attached to my brand

 Packaging

In terms of Nail polish bottles, I think these are key to distinguishing my brand from others – branding is usually kept minimal as not to distract from the colour within the bottle. It is noticeable however that different competitors use bottle shape to distinguish their brand

Out of my competitors, I think Andrea Fullerton’s range is the only to really distinguish itself through its packaging. Noticeably Models Own and Nails Inc have almost identical packaging, despite the price difference (£4 per bottle Models Own, £11 per bottle Nails Inc)

Potential bottle shapes for NAILED

I think the most distinctive in comparison to other brands bottle would be the triangular bottle.

Secondary Research

Some key findings from Hand, Nail and Foot Care - UK - January 2011   Published on Mintel

·         Nail colour is largely the domain of younger women with usage trailing off once young children are on the scene.

·         Badly groomed (bitten) nails are often associated with nervousness. Conversely, groomed nails have a positive impact on confidence to some extent for the majority (58%) of adults.

·         Nail colours are often touted as an inexpensive means of updating women’s wardrobes and staying abreast of fashion trends. It may also be considered a relatively inexpensive pick-me-up at a time when most consumers are obliged to keep a close eye on their spending.

·         There is also increased activity on the retail front. Superdrug, for instance, began opening Andrea Fulerton Nail Bars in October 2010 in some of its stores, while Tesco is currently trialling salon services – including nail bars – at a handful of its doors. Boots is reportedly planning to devote dedicated areas in its stores for nail items.

·         Sales of hand, nail and foot care are forecast to grow by 35% between 2010 and 2015 to reach sales of £265 million. With consumers’ discretionary budgets under pressure as a result of general economic gloominess, growth in the hand care segment will likely be driven by increased frequency of use.

·         Women who shy away from using nail polish because of its perceived awkwardness may be convinced to enter the category by innovative new product formats that deliver fashionable finishes in a fiddle-free snap.

·         Younger demographics (15-24) represent the highest volume users of nail varnish and adults aged 45-54 the least

“I treat nail polish as an accessory and use it as a way to introduce colour to any outfit.”

– Female, 16-24-year-old, ABC1

Market Research

Taking in to consideration the target market (16-28 females) the easiest way to gain some more insight in to this group would be to conduct a questionnaire and distribute it on Facebook. This means I am guaranteed respondents who are social media savvy, and I’m also aware that the vast majority of people on my friends list meet the age criteria.

The demographics of my respondents are as follows:

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Frequency of Professional manicures

Among my target group, almost a third rarely/never get professional manicures, with an extra quarter stating they get them occasionally. This adequately backs up my belief that my target market is more inclined to at-home beauty treatments, as almost 90% of respondents admitted to painting their own nails at home

At home nail care

From these figures, I believe even a percentage of those who get professional manicures regularly (weekly/monthly) still paint their own nails at home, meaning resistance to DIY nail care would not be a barrier.

To get further insight, in to why my target group actually paint their nails in the first place, I used an open ended response question to get a bit more insight. The results are shown in the below Word Cloud

Why do you paint your own nails?

The word size corresponds to the amount of time it was mentioned by respondents. Immediately here we can see the main reasoning is because it looks good – ‘pretty’ & ‘nice’ and perhaps more interestingly, ‘Bored’ sticks out higher than I would of originally expected. The idea that giving yourself a manicure is not just for visual purposes, but also defies boredom is excellent news for my brand as nail art would be perfect to combat this.

Following on from this, the respondents were shown the following nail art designs to get some general feedback on how they found them

The results ...

 From the above word cloud the response was overall very positive, and seems to really appeal to the target group.

I’m conscious though that appreciating the nail art and actually wearing it though are two completely different things, and wanted to make sure my nails were something people would wear and whether they thought it would be something they could recreate at home. 

Wear-ability

Almost 70% of respondents would wear these nail designs – which is encouraging.

When asked how they then felt about being able to recreate these themselves the results were as follows

Over 50% said they would feel comfortable, or at least feel comfortable attempting to recreate these designs themselves. In order to combat the 47% who feel they wouldn’t, it shows I perhaps need to consider adding a more tutorial based element to the brand, perhaps by putting small ‘how to do’ leaflets in the packaging, and on the website.

I was intrigued to see why some people would not wear these designs, and the results are illustrated in the below word cloud when they were asked –

‘why would you not wear these designs?’

The main take out I have got from this is it is all down to personal taste. There are no immediately obvious words other than glitter don’t seem to be popular with this group. Mainly I think it is all down to personal taste, and some people are going prefer a more natural nail.