Consumer Behavior

UnME Jeans: Branding Web 2.0

Overview:
Brand Manager of UnME Jeans, Margaret Foley, is facing an increasingly complex media environment in
which its traditional media plan that focuses on television, print, radio and advertising has become less
effective due to lower audience, increasing advertising clutter, and consumers tuning out. She learns new
Web 2.0 social media options to determine whether they can better achieve their branding and advertising
purposes Working with her advertising agency, Margaret must effectively use her brand management
skills to choose which social media channel, if any that she should incorporate into her current advertising
media plan. The advertising agency suggested three viable options Zwinktopia, Facebook, and YouTube.
Zwinktopia is also a great option as a social media platform. Facebook is a social networking, profile
page site, and YouTube is a user-generated video-sharing website. All of these options will allow UnME
Jeans to build a two-way dialogue with its customers. I suggest that Foley pursue the Zwinktopia social
media channel as a starting point to take advantage of the emerging Web 2.0 and also make a minor
investment in the other options to develop their web 2.0 presence.

Introduction:
UnME Jeans was one of the most successful players in the junior denim fashion. The UnME brand
focused on the individuality of teenage girls and encouraging teens to speak out against pree pressure and
conformity, who coveted their designer-style jeans that featured glitter, jewels, and various forms of
metalwork. UnME jeans were sold in more upscale department stores and specialty retailers and at
premium price. The UnME brand was delivered to their target consumers using television advertising
spots during popular programs for teenage girls, like Gossip Girl, American Idol, and One Tree Hill. In
addition, they had a corporate website and used online banner and display ads on the most popular
websites for teenage girls. This case introduces emerging Web 2.0 social media in virtual worlds, social
networking sites, and video sharing sites, and explores the opportunities and risks they present for brands.
The case allows to grapple with the strategic and tactical decisions that accompany marketing
communications strategy and to combine information on consumer behavior with an understanding of
brand objectives, in order to assess and evaluate new social media options. Exhibit 1

Target Market:
Target market is teenage girls ages 12 to 24; there is a greater indication of possibility to reach their target
market by taking advantage of the Web 2.0. The research done by her advertising agency show relevant

Consumer Behavior
changes to the behaviors of people close in age to their target market. This research include: In 2007, the
average consumer was devoting 23% of his or her media consumption to online channels as compared to
5% to newspapers and 3% to magazines.

Issues & Analysis:

Brand Manager of UnME Jeans, Margaret Foley is faced with several issues in making her decision to
change her advertising media plan. Foley can better analyze her options in the process of making a
justified decision. The key issues faced include:
There is a clear indication that consumers media habits have evolved due to the proliferation of new
technology like the personal computer, magazines, DVD players and iPods. There are more outlets
available that resulted in the change of how their market consumes media. Much of these changes were
geared towards online outlets, especially among the younger audience. The company must make sure that
they can quickly respond to the rapidly changing consumers trends. This will ensure they are in front of
competitors and use their advertising budget most efficiently. Since their advertising budget is relatively
small, this is even more important for them.
Consumers are increasingly pried upon by advertisers resulting in less effective advertising results.
Consumers are becoming less capable of remembering the besieging among of 5,000 ads they come
across in a single day. The issue of clutter was already making its way to the online advertising world.
This also enhances to the reason to be more creative in advertising. Some consumers may see several ads
for jeans in a single day. This eventually causes the consumers to ignore many ads, even if they are
directly in front of them
New technological advances are now allowing consumers to skip or even delete ads. Their increased
control of the media is resulting in the urge for marketers to think of more creative ways to get their
message seen. The 70% of viewers were able to avoid watching television advertising all together goes to
show how the companys television advertising dollars may not be put to the best use. Since consumers
can also skip over ads on the internet, there is not a simple answer. Now Margaret must understand that it
is more important than ever to engage the consumers and make them feel involved. This will also benefit
the brand as the consumers try to get their friends involved.
The media horizon came from online advertising was predicted to grow six times more quickly than
traditional media between 2006 and 2009, it was still premature which resulted in concerns of its longterm viability. Marketers did not feel secure enough to believe that this was part of the next generation
and not just a fad that will quickly pass.

Consumer Behavior
Options:
Zwinktopia is also a great option as a social media platform. Zwinktopia offers UnME Jeans the ability
to encompass all of the Web 2.0 cultural values. The virtual world is embraced by members that are
similar to the target market of UnME Jeans. Members of Zwinktopia are able to express themselves
without their real life limitations. Similar to Second Life, this virtual world has a market economy with a
plethora of products that were available in the real world. Zwinktopia and UnME almost represent the
same goals and standpoint but just do so in different manners. This media platform also had its
disadvantages. Second Life had over 200,000 different products and services available for sale in their
marketplace, SLexchange with over 30% in the apparel category. With the assumption that Zwinktopia is
similar, there is a lot of competition and there would have to be major initiatives made to distinct UnME
Jeans from other brands.
Facebook is a great platform for interaction and having a two-way relationship with current and potential
customers. Users are easily connected to each other with the positive sense of community and have access
to things their friends are interested in. Facebook will help the company encompass at least 3 of the 4
Web 2.0 cultural values. With Facebook, both of these options can be taken advantage of with their ability
to target users based on their profile information. They can do this by providing incentives to consumers
for having the ads on their pages or placing them in other effective places. Providing incentives will more
than likely be required to also counter the issue of consumers on Facebook not being predisposed or
inclined to look at ads while on the site, since that is not their original intent.
YouTube is a user-generated video-sharing website. UnME Jeans has the ability to gain consumer interest
with unique video advertising campaigns. Just like Facebook, YouTube encompasses at least 3 of the 4
Web 2.0 cultural values. This will help the company to become entwined with their consumers new
lifestyles. YouTube has already experimented with different advertising models and can provide insight as
to the pros and cons of different models. User participation is easily encouraged and can make the users
feel like they are a part of the brand. YouTube is a costly option but can potentially be recovered quickly
due to the high traffic. UnME Jeans must also be prepared to counter negative feedback. YouTube users
frequently share experiences with friends with their personal videos, which mean they may also share a
negative insight to the company. Exhibit 2

Decision Criteria:
The UnME Jeans was effectively take advantage of Zwinktopia and gain an understanding of the other
social media platforms.

Consumer Behavior
Alter Media Plan:
Margaret Foley can effectively complement her current media plan without making an increase to her
current budget of $13.5M. Television is currently $10M of their budget and has successfully helped them
to gain brand recognition despite the increased prices and advertising clutter. There has yet been a drastic
decrease in effectiveness to justify making a substantial cut in the budget for television advertising. The
proposed 20% decrease is not minute but yet reasonable due to the vast opportunities available online.
$0.3M of the yearly budget will support the Zwinktopia platform. An overall increase of $1.5M in these
two categories will help the company to implement more traditional advertising mediums and potentially
gain increased success with the changes of media habits. Finally, UnME should invest $0.2M to
additional social networking. This would allow them to gain an understanding of the opportunities
available in other social media platforms to later justify possible increasing the investment with pursuing
the other options.
Customer Engagement:
Margaret Foley must have a clear understanding that any option chose can be unsuccessful if the company
fails to engage the customers and create a dialogue for two-way communication. By effectively engaging
the customers, they create value in the fact that they will want to educate their friends about the brand and
get them involved. The ideas presented by the ad agency helps to promote customer engagement with the
ability to allow them to design their own jeans to be selected by the panel of celebrity judges. To further
engage the community, they should expand on that idea. They should allow the Zwinkies to vote for the
submitted jeans and then the top 3 to 5 jeans should be picked by the celebrity panel. This will give them
the feel that they played a larger part in the selection process and help UnME Jeans gain a better
understanding of what the customers want.
Control Measures:
These new forms of advertising may require untraditional means of accessing the success. It is important
that control measures are in place to aid in this process and ensure future success. The control measures
will differ depending upon the platform being assessed.

Recommendation:
I recommend that UnME Jeans choose the Zwinktopia media option while also making smaller
investments in the other two social media outlets to help them company fully understand the current and
future changing consumer trends. I think that Zwinktopia has an audience that will be receptive to the

Consumer Behavior
brand story and since they are already vested in a virtual market it may help the reach the goal of boosting
sales with the decreased desire to skip/ ignore ads. Zwinktopia already fits the target demographic of
consumers; therefore the company would only have to make small efforts to ensure they are reaching their
target market. This option will allow UnME Jeans to easily continue conveying their message of
encouraging young women to be unique, promote tolerance, and appreciation for differences of opinions
and taste. The digital environment of Zwinktopia allows users to live their ideal lives without the
conformity of peer pressure and judgment. The absence of these factors can help the users to appreciate
being unique in their real lives.
Although they may be faced with a large competitive environment on Zwinktopia, this may be beneficial
to the company. They may be able to gain access to which competitor stores the avatars are most
frequently visiting and use this information to do additional research about how they can improve their
brand. The competitive environment will also put an increased emphasis on creating unique ads that will
better attract customers, these ads can be later put to use on other platforms. If they successfully counter
the direct competition, their brand presence can contribute to fostering future growth. There may be
clutter resulting from the competition but not as much as they are facing on with television ads.

Consumer Behavior

Exhibit 1:
Strengths

Weaknesses

Fashion trend leader

Strong position as a niche market

Weak brand awareness

Less experience with social network of
web 2.0

Opportunities

Market in web 2.0 lower the cost of ads

Emerging of web, there are more channels

Threat

Change of consumer habits

Lack of control over social media content

Exhibit 2:
Media

Budget/Year

Zwinktopia

350,000+600,00/years

Facebook

200,000+100,000/year

YouTube

300,000+40 CPM