Who could have ever predicted that 2020 would have been the year society was going to become unhinged by a shortage of toilet paper? Imagine being the marketing director for Quilton; they can put their feet up for the rest of the year with the copious amounts of publicity from videos circulating for months on end depicting middle-aged woman getting into brawls over your products!
Unfortunately, this isn't the trend for most brands that supply products and services within the retail industry. It's almost weekly that you will hear on the news that another brand has gone into voluntary administration or that hundreds of brick and mortar stores are being closed across the country. In the previous blog, we reviewed the importance of a firm to practice strategic agility, especially when faced by a significant challenge like COVID-19. In this blog we will review a brand that has evolved their digital marketing strategy to adapt to the current environment allowing it to remain profitable against all odds.
Cue Clothing Co is the largest clothing manufacturer in the country and prides itself on being Australian owned and operated for the past 52 years (Our Story | Cue, 2020). Cue Clothing Co represents three brands; CUE, Veronika Maine and Dione Lee. Over time, the company has been recognised as an innovator; they emphasise holding high ethical standards and continue to manufacture the majority of products onshore. These few factors, plus continuous endeavours to sustain a strong customer relationship management, have guaranteed them always to have a steady and loyal customer fan base. Even with this, how has the brand evolved their digital marketing strategy to adapt to the COVID-19 environment? Let's review it now.
Customer Engagement and Social Media Strategy
One of the Cue Clothing Co's strengths is their customer relationship management, and COVID-19 wasn't going to hinder that. The biggest challenge during periods of lock-down was to keep the brand name alive during isolation. Customers of the brand were all invited to join a Facebook group for their local area based on the address they had provided on their membership account. They were encouraged to post daily photos in the group to show the other members what Cue Clothing Co pieces they were wearing for the day while working from home. By enabling a supportive, fashion community, the brand ensured their products are worn and their name at the forefront of their customer's minds.
Multichannel Distribution Strategy
It's no secret that customer traffic in brick and mortar stores is at its lowest and is varying the country dramatically, depending on each state or territories current COVID-19 restrictions. Cue Clothing Co has now facilitated a way for customers to shop comfortably from their own homes with virtual styling sessions with their local stores. It provides a personalised and innovative way to shop online with the assistance of a trained stylist in real-time, with no additional cost to the customer. By doing so, it closes the gap between online and in-store shopping. All members of the Cue Clothing Co's three brands receive e-comms inviting them virtually shop so they can still feel a sense of normalisation and provide an escape from reality.
Target Marketing Strategy
Finally, the last piece to Cue Clothing Co's response to COVID-19 was to engage their digital marketing efforts towards essential workers. From a PR perspective, this was perfect, and from a strategic point of view, this was genius! The campaign offered essential workers such as doctors, nurses, school teachers, fire and policewomen a discount not accessible to the general public on the whole range of products supplied by the brand. The image to the right become the front of all digital marketing advertisements, providing so much traction that reports and articles have been written about the brands resilience, you can view one below by double-clicking on the image. By doing implementing this as a strategy, Cue Clothing Co was able to target professional's whose income was not negatively affected by economic factors, whilst seemingly appearing generous to those who are needed most in the current crisis.
What do you, the reader, think about the strategies that Cue Clothing Co have implemented into its digital marketing to survive the challenging environment from COVID-19. Have you seen any other brands make similar adjustments if you have comment down below what they are?
References:
Chaffey, D., Ellis-Chadwick, F., Isaac, H., Mercanti-Guérin, M. and Volle, P., 2017. Marketing Digital. Montreuil: Pearson.
Cue.cc. 2020. Our Story | Cue. [online] Available at: <https://www.cue.cc/Company/our-story>
Linkedin.com 2020. [online] Available at: <https://sk.linkedin.com/company/cue-clothing-co-?trk=similar-pages_result-card_full-click>
Ragtrader.com.au. 2020. Cue Clothing Co. Is An Example Of Resilience In Tough Times - Ragtrader. [online] Available at: <https://www.ragtrader.com.au/news/cue-clothing-co-is-an-example-of-resilience-in-tough-times>
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