COMPARISON OF MARKETING STRATEGIES AT HUGO BOSS AND ZEGNA
Men's fashion traditionally does not garner the same attention as women's fashion with designers and models often generating as much news in women's fashion as the clothes themselves. However, men's fashion is a significant market, with strong competition at various price and quality levels. Designers who want to market clothing at the high end of the price spectrum do so by focusing on product quality, but also by creating an image of exclusivity for the product. Customers who are willing to pay $1,000 and more for a single suit expect that only a select number of retailers will carry those suits; conversely, the market for these products is small enough to where designers must be careful where they place the suits to avoid saturating the market. Zegna and Hugo Boss are two of the competitors in the high-end men's clothing market, and their marketing strategies bear some similarity to each other as well as considerable difference. This research considers the marketing strategy for both companies, the use of the Web to further the marketing strategy, and recommends a future direction for Zegna.
Both Hugo Boss and Zegna target the high-end market for their clothes. As early as 1997, both companies had broken the $1,000 barrier for suits, a level that was considered significant. At that time, there was a considerable difference between an $800 suit and a $1,000 suit, although many in the industry were of the opinion that the differences among $1,000 suits grew less significant as the prices continued to increase. Hugo Boss was--and is--considered more accessible by many within the industry, and has traditionally offered products at somewhat lower prices than Zegna. Zegna, in turn, is considered by some industry insiders to be the more exclusive line.
In 2003, women's clothing contributed just 3.7 percent of total sales at Boss; however, the company has announced...