February

12th 2015

DIESEL for Successful Living

MS Intelligence Marketing - Brand Management

GROUP 1
Tho BILLET
Edouard HOMASSON
Laurie KEVORKIAN
Clara LIPPI
Anne MIGNERE

DIESELs brand image and values

DIESEL, known as the pioneer of Italian casual wear , is a clothes international brand
present in 50 countries. The positioning of the brand is as Denim & casual wear,
between Armani jeans and GAP. Renzo Rosso who founded DIESEL in 1978; wants his
brand to be recognized by whole world because of the choice of its name: DIESEL. This
word is one of the few words pronounced the same in every language.

DIESELs positioning is clearly enhanced in its advertising. They play with humour,
creativity and irreverence towards established rules. They want to make the consumer
confused by using shocking or inappropriate messages. DIESEL is often seen as a non-
conformist brand.

Its advertising campaign named DIESEL for Successful Living shows they want to
give paradise to their consumers. DIESEL offers clothes, which helps consumers being
self-actualized in their life. The communication is based on artistic campaigns,
colourful, sexy and fashion ads. According to not being taken seriously, DIESEL makes a
point of being ironic. They want to be fun and then use sarcasm, but this humour is
sometimes misunderstood. The persons whom understand this tacky advertising are
mainly the DIESELs targets: teenagers looking for original clothes. Because at this age
they do not want to be classical and in the crowd.

After the irony, a second value for DIESEL is the quality of the products, because for
Renzo Rosso, the durability and the high quality of the DIESEL fabrics are very
important, although this quality is derided in the ads.
Their image is a pioneer of creativity, showed by building the Pelican Hotel in South
Beach and it is a mirror of DIESELs philosophy. The originality of the rooms is
remarkable and easily makes awareness to the brand.

The success of DIESEL came from this very strong image and awareness among
customers. Through this image and awareness Diesel is differentiated from its
competitors.

Diesel, a fast growth

The sales, the importance and the brand have grown a lot and have grown fast, in 1997
DIESEL generated 260 billion turnover.
So, DIESEL decided to follow the trend of the diversification. DIESEL launched a panel
of products not linked to denim clothes: glasses, perfumes, etc.

The licenses they have, made up a larger portion of the DIESEL retail. Maybe this scheme
have not been enough controlled by the brand and the instructions of DIESEL have been
not enough respected. That is why the DNA of the brand may have been scattered.

As DIESEL had a huge success in late 1990s, the unconventional image has been
deteriorated as the brand suffered of commoditization because everybody wore
DIESEL clothes. Older people start wearing DIESEL clothes and the irrelevant and young
image suffered from this phenomenon.

StyleLab, an opportunity to be seized

D-DIESEL, the main clothing line of DIESEL was hugely diffused around the world and
led to the beginning of commoditization of the brand. Renzo Rosso wanted to prevent
this phenomenon and offer to his designer and new opportunity to create. So, he decided
to launch a new clothing line.
At this time, the trend was about market segmentation. Basically, people not only want
to wear well clothes at work but also out of the work, in the town or at home, they
wanted to be Casual Chic. Renzo Rosso saw in this very attractive High Casual Wear
segment the opportunity to go upmarket by reaching a higher social level of consumers,
while enabling his designers creating on new fabrics and cuts. At the same time, that
could add a Premium image to D-DIESEL line and lead the way of Armani Jeans.
As the design of DIESEL has always been imbued by a lot of creativity, Renzo Rosso
wanted to create a DIESEL Laboratory in which the designers could express their
creativity and then keeping alive the innovation in the DNA of DIESEL. It is why he
called the new line: StyleLab.

Recommendations on the StyleLab Strategy

We think that the best strategy to launch StyleLab is an endorsement option.
Firstly, with the sub-branding option DIESEL would overshadow StyleLab and this last
could suffer from the commoditization of the D-DIESEL line.
Secondly, with the independence strategy, the StyleLab line would not benefit from the
awareness and the success of the DIESEL brand and could be seen as a weak new
entrant brand. It would be even more difficult to make a name in a quite competitive
market with big actors as D&G and Miu Miu.

It is why the endorsement strategy would balance the two first. StyleLab would benefit
from the quality image and the awareness of the DIESEL brand and enable its own
positioning as a High Casual brand with a Premium image.

We thought about this king of logo that would
enhance the fact that StyleLab is a line of the DIESEL
brand.

However, we have to watch out for avoiding the
reverse effect: suffering from the commoditization
of the brand and the bottom of the range of D-DIESEL products. To do so, market
researches can be important and would point DIESEL to the best strategy. They should
carry out awareness studies concerning the two lines with the difference strategy to
anticipate consumer behaviour concerning the StyleLab line.

To conclude, launching StyleLab would allow DIESEL coming out from commoditization
it is suffering, going upmarket and reaching new customers and encouraging creativity,
the core identity of the brand. DIESEL could remain at the cutting edge of fashion
because StyleLab success would benefit from the huge revenues and the strong image of
the DIESEL brand, but also from its own Premium positioning. However a leading
position is very difficult to maintain through years because of systematic
commoditization of consumer goods.