4MMC7B2:

ANALYSIS AND STRATEGY FOR MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS 1

THE ASIAN INFLUENCE

business model allowing them for control of the entire business process from planning and design to production and sales. In 1997, the first urban UNIQLO store opened in Tokyo and spread throughout Japan and the company sees an opportunity to expand a business globally. In 2001 UNIQLO launches first overseas store in London and the end of fiscal 2010, UNIQLO International had 136 stores overseas.

BY: NARUEWORN N. & PICHNEE U. MARCH 31, 2011

The fastest growing apparels retailer company from Japan. The brand was rank among Japan ten most valuable brands according to Interbrand, a consultancy and also in top 100 social brands in 2011. UNIQLOs parent company, Fast Retailing, is Japans biggest clothing company, with sales of $9 billion forecast this year. The term UNIQLO derives from Unique Clothing which found in 1984. The companys operation continues offering high quality casual wears at reasonable price for men and women at any ages with a touch of style and wide range of products. The company operates in many well-selected countries such as China, Hong Kong, South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Singapore, Taiwan, Russia and Malaysia. HOW THEY DO BUSINESS To run a successful business and ensure the development of products of remarkable quality, UNIQLO adopted SPA business model (Specialty Re-tailer of Private Label Apparel) which first using by GAP, a giant American retailing. By using SPA

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UNIQLO is seeking to build a brand through a network of global flagship stores. Global flagship stores serve as hubs to communicate the message and concept of reasonable price with style and high quality casual wear for everyone that is opposite to competitors such as H&M, ZARA and GAP whom chase after a fashion trend bring its to mass consumers. Apart from using global flagship stores as a hub to communicate and with customers and using advertising campaigns to increase brand awareness and sales volume. UNIQLO also create global communities online which is very useful and effective channel to enlarge and surpass cultural boundaries. A digital environment allowed consumers to gain brand and product experiences independently. A successful digital campaign UNIQLO GRID, allows users on a dedicated microsite to manipulate the UNIQLO logo by using the mouse pointer to click, drag, spin and multiply to their hearts' content. The digital canvas on which they play with the logo is shared by thousands of users across the world making this a genuinely collaborative exercise. Another interesting rewarding creative process is UNIQLO UT LOOP, a part of UT T- shirts campaign which running together with a series of TV spots. Flash-enabled website provides nine different UNIQLO representatives. Use can drag and drop the different characters, complete with noises into sixteen different spaces in order to create a very own mini dub loop.

UNIQLO GRID and UT LOOP both

encapsulate this idea of combining simple elements into a complex and freeform variety

4MMC7B2: ANALYSIS AND STRATEGY FOR MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS 2

CURRENT POSITIONING UNIQLO attempts to expand the market by introducing an existing products especially HEATTECH; a unique functional line of inner wear that offering thinness and comfortable feeling to customers which were developed by the collaboration between UNIQLO and Toray Industries INC.

UNIQLO's overseas business is forecast to achieve net sales of 100 billion yen and operating income of 8.5 billion yen at UNIQLO International for the fiscal year ending August 2011.
CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVE

UNIQLO offers a distinctive Japanese fashion experiences to an international market. Undoubtedly, UNIQLO gets its message across and stands out among a wide competitive set and becomes a global brand in a short period of time. UNIQLO, Japan's leading clothing retail chain currently has more than 840 stores worldwide, the sales had been increasing 55% of revenue; from up to 6 billion US Dollar in 2007 to 9.63 billion US dollar in 2010 which is a high number of the turnover. In contrast, the profit margin is gradually rising from 6% in 2007 to 7.5% in 2010. A low profit has an effect from high operation expenses as the company was trying to resize of all stores in Japan and also open more stores in other continents such as USA, UK and Europe during that time.

By approach issues from customer perspective is another interesting key successful of UNIQLO. The FR Group committed to take all of sales-related activities into account including products, sales floors to services and communications. Regarding to customer feedbacks providing a room of improvement in management divisions. They maintain a customer center that responds to inquiries by e-mail, phone and fax all year round. UNIQLO stores also distribute service questionnaires to directly gather customer feedback. A system is in place through which the customer satisfaction department compiles these comments and reports them in a timely manner to relevant divisions and management, while also responding quickly to customers when required UNIQLO has selected the most strict of existing safety standards in the countries and regions where they conduct business by distributes a monthly safety report to those concerned for training staff engaged in the planning, design and production of products and for improving product quality. There were no product recalls in fiscal 2010, largely due to these initiatives and related efforts.

Ones strength can be ones weakness: basics can be boring Mr. Yanai admits.