Msc. Economics and Business Administration
Brand and Communication Management
Handed in: May 2016 By: Carolina Fossati N° of Pages: 79
N° of Characters: 150.766 Supervisor: Jan Maagaard
T HE PENETRATION OF THE BRAND C ALZEDONIA IN
D ENMARK
A
N ANALYSIS BASED ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR AND MARKETING COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN
Master Thesis
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
ABSTRACT ... 1
CHAPTERS CHAPTER 1 – Introduction ... 2
1.1 The company...3
1.2 Internationalization process...5
1.2.1 Entry Strategies...6
1.3 The case of Sweden...9
CHAPTER 2 – Theoretical Frameworks ... 11
2.1 Perspectives on consumer behaviour...11
2.2 Consumer Behaviour...13
2.3 Consumers' Attitudes...15
2.3.1 Attitudes' Formations...15
2.3.2 Strategies of attitudes' change...16
2.4 Communication campaign...20
CHAPTER 3 – Methodology ... 26
3.1 Survey...26
3.2 Interviews...32
CHAPTER 4 – Data Analysis ... 37
4.1 Survey...37
4.2 Interviews...41
CHAPTER 5 – Danish Hosiery Market Analysis ... 43
5.1 Market Overview...43
5.2 Tights as the main subcategory...45
CHAPTER 6 – Findings ... 53
6.1 An overview on demographics...53
6.2 Calzedonia in Denmark...53
6.3 Variables worth to be considered: price, quality, accessibility, variety...55
6.4 Communication's approaches...57
CHAPTER 7 – Calzedonia's communication campaign ... 65
7.1 Communication objectives...65
7.2 Target audience...65
7.3 Positioning...66
7.4 Marketing Mix...67
7.5 Design the Communications...68
7.5.1 Message strategy......68
7.5.2 Creative strategy......69
7.5.3 Message Source......71
7.5.4 Marketing Mix Planning....73
7.5.5 Overall campaign's evaluation...77
Limitations...78
Conclusions...79
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 80
APPENDICES Appendix 1 ... 84
Appendix 2 ... 91
Appendix 3 ... 96
Appendix 4 ... 97
Appendix 5 ... 117
Appendix 6 ... 126
Appendix 7 ... 138
Appendix 8 ... 139
Abstract
The study is based on the following research question: "How can Calzedonia proceed to the Danish market penetration by pivoting on consumers' behavior analysis and on previous internationalization communication strategies?".
First of all an overview of the company and its internationalization strategy is provided, in order to introduce the reader to the main topic.
The analysis is based on considerations gained from theoretical constructs discussed in the first part of the paper. Models from consumer's behavior are taken into account and analyzed according to the current topic.
A survey and a series of qualitative interviews will be conducted in order to gain insights on consumers' behavior: they represent the focal point of the research, where the information on the results will come from.
Also, a market analysis on the hosiery category in Denmark is necessary in order to provide general information on the topic and give an overview of the market before the penetration from Calzedonia.
Finally, by pivoting on several aspects gathered from the research methods, a communication campaign will be designed, with the aim of influencing consumers on a change of attitudes in the hosiery purchase.
Chapter 1 -‐ Introduction
The topic of this thesis has been chosen because of personal work experiences and because of the growing importance of the fashion Danish market in Europe1.
The paper focuses on Calzedonia, an Italian company that will be introduced more in details below. Denmark together with other Scandinavian countries represents the
"missing" part in Europe of Calzedonia's internationalization strategy.
The paper will be focused first of all on consumers' behaviour in the hosiery market in Denmark, in order to collect insights that will be useful in the second part of the research, where strategies of attitudes change in hosiery's purchase will be discussed, by designing a communication campaign for the launch of Calzedonia in Denmark.
The research question to be answered is: "How can Calzedonia proceed to the Danish market penetration by pivoting on consumers' behavior analysis and on previous internationalization communication strategies?".
In order to illustrate the complete structure of the paper, the figure shown below specifies the individual blocks of each section:
1 Revenues in the fashion Danish industry have grown of 4% from 2014. Data available at: Fashion United UK (available at: www.fahsionunited.uk).
Figure 1: Structure illustration -‐ Own image
Below an overview of the company and of its internationalization strategy is provided.
1.1 The Company
Calzedonia is an Italian company born in 1986. Nowadays there are about 26.000 employees in the world, who work in 43 countries.
The company owns several brands: Calzedonia was the first one born and it is specialized in hosiery and beachwear. This is also the largest brand in terms of stores and profit:
Calzedonia counts 1.962 stores all over the world in more than 40 countries. Intimissimi was born in 1986 and it covers the underwear category; there are 1.368 stores in more than 40 countries and the rate of growth is very high. The brand Tezenis was born in 2003 and it is dedicated to a younger target and both underwear and clothing are sold in 520 stores. In the latest years, another brand has been acquired, Falconeri, which addresses an adult target, selling high quality knitwear. The group has decided to face another challenge
Company’s*introduc1on*
Analysis*of*
consumers’*
behaviour*in*hosiery*
purchase*
Aim*of*the*research,*
theore1cal*frameworks*
and*methodology*
Introductory*part*
Research*objec1ve*1*
Market*
environmental*
analysis*
Research*objec1ve*2*
FINDINGS*
on*consumers’*
behaviour*
AHtudes’*change* Communica1on*
Campaign* The*op1mal*media*
mix*
End*part*
Limita1ons* Conclusions*
in 2012, entering the field of food with the chain Signorvino, only in Italy at the moment, where wine and typical Italian food is served.
From last year Calzedonia Group owns also a brand of wedding dresses, Atelier Emé.
The success of the company comes from different factors such as the wide assortment of products proposed, the large attention to the fashion design and above all the extremely convenient value for money. Quality materials are chosen and attention to the design is always pursued, giving to the products a very recognizable style that always follows the latest trends of the fashion system.
The entire company is characterized by an internalized structure: every process, from production to distribution is conducted internally. The business strategy of internalization leads the company to have a great control and influence on all the decisions, by executing transactions within the organization rather than relying on outside markets. In a vertical organization such Calzedonia, the staff has very well defined roles and responsibilities.
This paper will focus on the brand Calzedonia and its hosiery collection. The reasons behind this choice are based on several observations obtained from an interview in Calzedonia's headquarter with the head of the international department and its employees2. As a matter of fact, the brand Calzedonia owns 1.357 stores outside Italy, more than the double of the second brand of the group, Intimissimi (832 stores -‐ data updated on 29th of February 2016).
Also, Calzedonia affects the entire company's income for more than 40%, gaining the most of the profit from international countries. This is why has been considered reasonable to conduct the study on this brand and to discuss on the opening of a Calzedonia store in Denmark instead than an Intimissimi or Tezenis store.
Moreover, the hosiery collection stays in the stores for the whole year, while the beachwear collection is available only during the summer season and the months immediately before, and has its peak of sales in the months of June and July. Obviously, it is
2 Date of the interview: 10th March 2016; all the information in this chapter have been provided during the interview
the hosiery collection that concentrates the largest slice of revenues during the whole year.
Because of this, the choice to put the focus on the hosiery category in this paper it is assumed to be reasonable and to lead to consistent results.
1.2 Internationalization Process
The process of internationalization began in 1990s. Calzedonia opened his first store in Spain in 1992. According to CAGE model by Ghemawat (2001), when a company starts its process of internationalization there are some factors that need to be considered. The framework suggests Cultural, Administrative, Geographical and Economic dimensions as the guidelines in the process of internationalization (Ghemawat, 2001). During the interview with the Head of the International Department, clearly emerged that the first international market was chosen on the basis of its Cultural and Geographic dimensions, that were incredibly similar to those of the headquarter market, Italy. The initial process of internationalization, in fact, was much easier in the Mediterranean countries: between 1992 and 1996, after the opening in Spain came Turkey (1995), Greece (1995) and Portugal (1996) 3 . These are considered countries with low psychic distance (Johanson&Valne, 1977), where the mindsets of consumers are more similar to the Italians' and where the penetration should therefore be easier and have positive results.
Data show that countries of Southern Europe are very profitable for the company (Pambianco news, 2013).
The expansion continues every year, and Calzedonia is now present in the following countries (besides Italy, Spain, Turkey, Greece and Portugal): Austria, Poland, Hungary, Mexico, Cyprus, Croatia, Slovenia, Russia, Czech Republic, Serbia, United Kingdom, France, Slovakia, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Romania, Qatar, Luxembourg, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Kuwait, Hong Kong, Japan, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Latvia and Lithuania4. In 2016
3 All information are provided by Calzedonia's international office
4 ibid.
Calzedonia opened its first stores also in Malta and Chile, adding other two countries to the list. The next big challenge will be the opening of the first store in USA, which will be located in New York. This is currently the biggest project that the company is pursuing in 2016.
1.2.1 Entry Strategies
When companies internationalize in foreign markets, they have to face difficult decisions.
In particular, they need to decide about the right entry strategy to be used in each market.
The literature lists several strategies to expand on a new market, however the focal decision refers whether to marker the product primarily by captive agents (such as company sales force and company distribution division) or by independent intermediaries: this is an issue of downstream vertical integration (Anderson & Coughlan, 1987).
According to Irene, employed in the International Department, also Calzedonia follows this distinction, considering the type of market they are entering.
Some markets are penetrated using a direct channel, by the creation of direct subsidiaries.
The subsidiaries reflect exactly the same functions of the headquarter: each subsidiary have a commercial departments, a visual department, a communication department, an administrative department, a country manager who is responsible for the decisions in that country. This implementation has the objective of creating a "mini" Calzedonia headquarter in each market. However, the main inputs and actions come from the Italian headquarter, where corporate strategies are elaborated and then communicated to each subsidiary. The company, in fact, wholly owns its subsidiaries, putting high control over foreign activities and also over the amount of resources committed to the foreign markets.
Calzedonia in this way has the chance to maintain the control over important factors such as quality, operations and technology, however costs are also high because the investments require large amounts of resources (Roth, 1992). According to Srikanth and Puranam (2011), subsidiaries in a multinational enterprises are subject to two different inputs: first, they belong to the multinational enterprise and therefore they have to obey and follow the indications from the central corporation, secondarily, but not less
important, they are embedded in a business network that includes other actors. In Calzedonia, subsidiaries have space for local market initiatives, as the main reason for their existence is to gain insights into different countries realities. However, the main information starts from Calzedonia Italy and they are spread around the subsidiaries. Also, the firm executes a role of coordination and control: the main strategies and also the decision whether a strategy will be applied to that subsidiary or not are chosen by the headquarter.
Certainly, when implementing an internationalization strategy, it is necessary to take into account the dimensions of the integration-‐responsiveness framework (Roth and Morrison, 1990). The pressures for global integration are industry's forces that necessitate worldwide business resource deployments for strategic pursuits; in contrast, local responsiveness pressures are industry forces that necessitate local contexts sensitive decisions (Roth and Morrison, 1990).
Nevertheless, there are other markets where the creation of a subsidiary would not be successful. In these cases Calzedonia needs to collaborate with a local partner, a society who is responsible for the strategic expansion in that market, with the support of Calzedonia Italy. This entry strategy is necessary when expanding in difficult countries, where cultural, religious and economic barriers are very high. The most important case refers to Arab countries, where issues of religion and culture are high and difficult to overcome, and there is the necessity of a local organization which functions as an intermediate. In the Arab countries, for instance, many of the images proposed by the communication department of Calzedonia Italy for advertising, are usually rejected. As a matter of fact, the different culture does not accept the representation of the image of the woman as in Europe. Calzedonia often proposes images where the legs of the woman are very evident, wearing short skirts or only tights: this is not accepted by the customers in those countries where the religion is offended by the use of sensual images. That is why there is a need for an intermediate who knows and understands the tastes and the
necessities of the consumers in these countries, and who spreads the guidelines to the headquarter in order to succeed in the expansion.
When entering in a new market, Calzedonia often follows a path that has been consolidated along the years. The company does direct experiments on the territory.
Tester stores are opened in the focal points of the towns chosen and customers are observed directly when entering the store. District managers and other strategic figures of the company are those who observe and collect considerations on the consumers' behaviour: evaluation of the products, reactions to the prices, special requests, observations of the main competitors, etc.
It has been observed that in the fashion retail field it is extremely common to conduct in-‐
store experiments (Gaur et al., 2003): in fact, companies are able to investigate the environment chosen in a controlled setting, with the chance of experimenting live learning.
The process of internationalization succeeds if the path is followed step-‐by-‐step: first of all there is the observation and data collection; if the results are positive, then comes the pursuing of brand awareness of consumers in that country. The company needs to find affiliates and local partners who can be entrusted to enlarge the franchising network.
Calzedonia, however, has chosen to be very careful in the choice of its affiliates: the company has some past negative experiences with entrepreneurs who wanted to invest their money but who did not own the necessary know-‐how to grow such a business.5 That is why Calzedonia has decided to entrust in the coordination of each country an internal manager who needs to be grown inside the firm, starting from Italy. This is considered necessary in order to maintain coherence within the management of the resources, and to transfer the policies and the know-‐how acquired from the headquarter to the subsidiaries.
However, this choice represents a limitation in terms of managerial resources: according to the head of international department, it is very difficult to find as many valuable managers as the amount of countries that should be covered. Specific experience and
5 Information from internal source
know-‐how take time to be acquired and the company is still young as young are the employees.
On the other hand, Calzedonia is able to compensate the lack of numerous managerial resources with a great financial ability in expansion. Financial resources are at a high level and lead the company to good chances of internationalization.
1.3 The case of Sweden
In order to get closer to the Danish market, part of the interview has been focused on the Swedish market. The reason behind this choice is that Sweden is the only Northern European country where Calzedonia has expanded so far. As mentioned above Scandinavia represents the missing piece to complete the map of Europe of Calzedonia. Calzedonia has decided to start from Sweden in 2013. The subsidiary is still considered as a start-‐up, as the step of observations and collecting information is not completed yet. Currently, there are six Calzedonia's stores in Sweden, all located in the area of Stockholm. The positioning of Calzedonia occurs pivoting on the uniqueness of the concept: the store is specialized in hosiery and there are no other competitors in the territory that offer the same variety and the same value for money as Calzedonia: as a matter of fact, prices are kept similar to the Italians, according to the currency, guaranteeing a convenient but valuable purchase.
The following lines will report some of the observations collected until now in the Swedish market:
-‐ The great majority of the customers who enter into the store are women, who purchase for themselves and also for the rest of the family (man, kids)
-‐ Consumer appears very surprised when they are informed about the price compared to the quality of the products
-‐ Compared to other countries, Calzedonia received a very low amount of complaints from Swedish consumers
-‐ The consumers really appreciated the line of tights "Made in Italy" which was the most sold during the past season (2015/2016). This line collects a series of high quality tights that present different specific and functional characteristics, such as seamless tights,
shaping tights, control top tights, etc. The packaging is very well designed and the prices are also a bit more expensive than the basic lines.
-‐ Weekly promotions are very well appreciated as well as in-‐store events. These are the occasions when the highest peak of consumers enter into the store.
-‐ In Sweden there is a strong activation for the communication of the brand using the digital channels: fashion bloggers and influencers are at the moment one of the main channel used to create brand awareness
These were the most important observations collected directly from the stores on Swedish consumers. The coordinator of Calzedonia's Sweden confirmed that overall the consumers' responses are very positive, products are highly appreciated and the market has great potentialities. The biggest difficulty is to let the consumers enter into the store. Once this obstacle is surpassed, customers rarely get out of the store without any purchase.
These considerations were fundamental in order to proceed to the analysis of Calzedonia in Denmark, as they give meaningful insights on the feasibility of the research.
Chapter 2 -‐ Theoretical Frameworks
2.1 Perspectives on consumer behaviour
Many studies have been conducted in order to give meaningful results in consumer's behaviour researches.
According to the study conducted by Østergaard and Jantzen (2000), starting from 1940s four different approaches about consumer behaviour studies have followed. At first the focus on the research was on the buyer perspective, where the concentration was on buying and on understanding how buying takes place, where the metaphorical concept of the consumer is that of an animal, as this perspective associates the human being's characteristics to those of an animal. The individuals are said to be undergoing an ongoing stimuli-‐response process where the fundamental needs are the mechanisms directing its behaviour.
Then, the consumer behaviour perspective, where the focus was on the consumer and where theories were developed in order to understand how consumers would react while they received stimuli from the outside world (according to a logic of stimuli-‐response).
The space between stimuli and response is called the black box, which indicates what happens inside individuals when they receive stimuli. The consumer is studied closer to its daily life and the market place. The consumer is now related to a computer, behaving rationally according to a logic of stimuli-‐response relation. The logic has now shifted from
"needs" (physical needs) to wants (related to the brain of the consumer).
The perspective shifted then to the consumer research, here the consumer it is assumed to be no more only rational, but also emotionally and narcisistically determined. The consuming individual is conceived as a tourist who is looking for new experiences through consumption. In the consumer research approach, the individual consumes on the basis of emotions and creates meanings in life for himself (Østergaard and Jantzen, 2000).
Finally, the fourth perspective is called consumption studies. In this approach the consuming individual is evaluated as a tribe member: he still has some of the emotional aspects of the tourist, but the individual is no longer viewed as an independent self who is
trying to collect experiences (Østergaard and Jantzen, 2000), instead he is a part of the tribe that shares its same symbols and values, and in which he can recognize himself.
Figure 2: Framework on consumers perspectives (Østergaard & Jantzen, 2000)
In this paper, aspects mainly from consumer behaviour and consumer research will be taken into considerations.
The reasons behind this choice are explained: the first perspective, where the consumer is compared to an "animal" has been simply excluded for its outmoded methods and theories, that nowadays have been overlapped in favour of new findings and more modern theories.
The consumer behaviour perspective, instead, includes models and theories that are assumed to be relevant in this study, as will be shown further below.
The consumer research studies will result useful to the case as its focus on the emotions
and on consumers' seek of experiences, allows marketers to pivot on these points and create expedients to lead consumers' attitudes to changes.
Consumption studies will not be considered in this paper as their focus on the consumer as a tribe member, and its relationships with the others, would require a much deeper focus and researches.
2.2 Consumer Behaviour
The decision making process is an important tool that will be used in this research. Central to these models is the belief that consumers go through a decision process of varying complexity, depending on the nature of the decision they are making, with a number of possible variables which influence this process at a number of stages (Wallace et al., 1992).
It is believed that the buying process begins with need recognition. The steps of this process are: need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and post-‐purchase behaviour. The recognition of a need by a consumer can be caused in different ways, and the classifications used are: internal vs. external stimuli, classification by type of need (functional, social, need for change), or by the Maslow's hierarchy needs (physiological needs, safety needs, need of love and belonging, need of esteem, need of self-‐actualization). In this study some of the above mentioned elements are considered to be more relevant than others, as the product category that is taken into account enhances more some of these aspects than others. For instance, external stimuli such as exposure to advertisements or to a billboard are assumed to be more relevant than internal stimuli (as the category chosen is hosiery).
For what concerns the type of need categorization, functional needs refer to a special characteristic of the product that results useful to the consumer, social needs refer to a desire for integration or belongingness in the social environment or for social recognition, while needs for change have their origins in a desire for the consumer to change. Also in this case functional and change needs are considered as more relevant to the case than social needs, as the last concerns more likely goods which are able to elevate the sense of integration of the consumer (e.g. a car, a luxury product, etc.).
Same considerations are meaningful also for the Maslow's hierarchy needs categorization.
Each step of the pyramid in crescent order is able to satisfy certain types of needs, more related to expensive or status-‐symbol goods.
The information-‐seeking step depends also on the complexity of the choice to be made, but also to the level of involvement of the good (Kotler et al., 2012). The consumer will try to make his opinion to guide his choice and his decision making process through internal information (already present in the consumer's memory) and external information (advices from friends, reviews from other consumers, the press, etc.).
Special attention is on the third step of the decision making process of the consumer: the alternatives evaluation. Different people evaluate the characteristics of one product in different ways, therefore there are many aspects that are considered during this phase.
These depend on many factors and variables, and on the attitudes that the consumer has formed toward the product or the brand. According to the information processing perspective (Østergaard & Jantzen, 2000; Blackwell et al., 2001), the interaction between the consumer and stimuli on the environment is an ongoing cognitive process in which the consumer develops beleifs and attitudes towards the environment. The information processing perspective presupposes that the consumer, in order to avoid cognitive dissonance seeks an equilibrium where there is balance between the consumer's attitudes and the actual environment (Østergaard & Jantzen, 2000).
The final steps of the decision making process consist of the act of purchase and the post-‐
purchase behaviour. In this paper, however, the focus is in particular on the three first steps: the purchase is the objective of a series of actions undertaken in the steps before and the post-‐purchase behaviour will be not deeply considered, as the focus will be on the pre-‐purchase actions.
The decision making process is a good point of departure for the research, however, it will be evident how many other factors will occur into consumer's decisions of purchase, and how the different stages of the model only represent a framework that results useful in order to individuate processes of consumer's behaviour.
2.3 Consumers' Attitudes
2.3.1 Attitudes formation
In order to respond to the aim of the paper and to the research question, it is worth to consider one of the main topics regarding the studies of consumers' behaviour.
According to the above mentioned consumer decision making process, consumers' overall evaluation of likes and dislikes toward a product, a brand, a service or a company, will obviously condition their attitudes toward them, and consequently their choices in terms of alternatives evaluation and final purchase.
By examining consumers' attitudes, in fact, it is possible to determine consumers' preferences and, according to them, using the most correct strategies in order to accomplish the objectives.
As mentioned above, attitudes formation is one of the main topics to analyse when talking about consumer's behaviour. The formation of consumers' attitudes is strongly influenced by personal experience, the influence of family and friends, direct marketing and mass media (Schiffman et al., 2008).
As we come in contact with others, especially family and close friends, we form attitudes that influence our lives.
Recognising the importance of direct experience, marketers frequently attempt to simulate methods to get the consumers to try the product. If a product proves to be to their liking then it is likely that consumers will form a positive attitude and be likely to repurchase it.
Also, in countries where people have easy access to newspapers and a variety of special-‐
interest magazines and television channels, consumers are constantly exposed to new ideas, products, opinions and advertisements. These mass media communications provide an important source of information that influences the formation of consumers' attitudes (Kotler et al., 2012).
In this paper a crucial point regards the attitude formation toward a certain product category, in particular toward a special concept of buying.
As it will be shown later, Calzedonia proposes itself as "a store for legwear": in fact everything that regards hosiery it is sold (socks, tights, leggings). The main point, however, is that in countries where the brand is not well known, people usually buy their hosiery in big retail chains or in other stores that offer different products category. This consideration has been assumed according to generic information about consumers' habits found in databases6.
For this reason, the most important aim of this paper is to understand the issue of attitudes' change in shopping habits. The concept regards particularly the shift from considering hosiery as a generic product category that can be purchased everywhere, to considering hosiery as a special product category, with the same importance given to other items.
2.3.2 Strategies of attitudes' change
In order to change consumers' attitudes towards a product, or, as in this case, toward their shopping habits, marketers can pivot on several alternatives.
It is important to state that, as well as attitudes formation, attitudes changes are learned, they are influenced by personal experiences and other sources of information, and personality affects both the receptivity and the speed with which attitudes are likely to be altered (Schiffman et al., 2008).
The literature lists different strategies that are used in order to change attitudes, and below each of them is discussed.
a) Changing the consumer basic motivational function
This strategy's aim is to make particular needs prominent to the customers, by using the functional approach. According to this framework, attitudes can be classified in terms of four functions: the utilitarian function, the ego-‐defensive function, the value-‐expressive function and the knowledge function.
6 Euromonitor International, Hosiery in Denmark (available at: www.euromonitor.com)
First of all, the utilitarian function helps attitude changing by showing an utilitarian purpose of the product that consumers may not have considered: there is no evident utility in changing shopping habits for hosiery that could be immediately transferred to the customers, therefore the utilitarian function is not considered appealing or relevant to the case.
The ego-‐defensive function, instead, has the aim of offering reassurance to the self-‐concept of the consumer. In this case, the characteristics of Calzedonia's claims (such as quality offered and attention to the latest trends in the fashion systems) may have a connotation that could fit in the ego-‐defensive function, however the validity is considered too weak, therefore the dimension is not relevant.
The value-‐expressive function refers to the reflection of the consumers' general values, lifestyle and outlook. If they recognize themselves in one product or brand that expresses their values and lifestyle it is likely that they have positive attitudes towards that product or brand. Calzedonia's image is that of a trendy and fresh brand, which try to satisfy all the tastes and expectations of different types of customers. This is considered the most fitting function of this model to the case.
Finally, the knowledge function tries to satisfy the "need to know" of the consumers. In this case, however, this function is not considered relevant to the aim of the paper.
To sum up, several of the functions are deemed not to fit perfectly to the case analysed: the framework is interesting, in particular for what concerns ego-‐defensive and value expressive function, however it is overall considered too weak to work out with the case.
b) Associating the product with a special group, event or cause
According to the literature, it is possible to alter attitudes toward products, services and brands, by pointing out their relationship to a particular social group, event or cause.
Companies regularly include mention in their advertising of the civil and public acts that they sponsor to let the public know about the good that they are trying to do (Schiffman et al., 2008).
This strategy however it is not pursued by the company of the case, event though could be considered appealing for further studies.
c) Resolving two conflicting attitudes
Another attitude change strategy is implemented if a consumer can be made to see that its negative attitude toward a brand or a product is really not in conflict with another attitude: this may induce him to change its evaluation of the brand, by moving, for instance, from negative to positive (Schiffman et al., 2008).
A product may be able to offer the resolution for two conflicting attributes that the consumer is experiencing, and therefore create a positive attitude towards it. The strategy is however not considered relevant for the case, as the brand does not have this purpose and nor have it the products sold.
d) Altering components of the multi-‐attribute model
"Multi-‐attribute attitude models portray consumers' attitudes with regard to an attitude object as a function of consumers' perception and assessment of the key attributes or beliefs held with regard to the particular attitude object" (Schiffman et al., 2008).
There are several variations of this type of attitude model, however the best one that has been chosen as a framework in this case is the "attitude towards object model". As a matter of fact, this is especially suitable for measuring attitudes towards a product category or specific brands. According to this model, the consumer's attitude towards a product or specific brands of a product is a function of the presence or absence and evaluation of certain product-‐specific beliefs and/or attributes. Also the attitude towards behaviour model and the theory of reasoned action model were taken into consideration by the literature: the first is the individual's attitude toward behaving or acting with respect to an object rather than the object itself; the second represents a comprehensive integration of attitude components into a structure that is designed to lead to both better explanation and better prediction's of behaviour (Schiffman et al., 2008). However, both of them are considered less relevant than the attitude towards object model, as this focuses
exactly on the purpose of this study, by measuring attitudes toward a product category -‐
hosiery-‐.
Multi attribute models have implications for attitudes-‐change strategies; here are different useful insights in order to implement attitude changes:
1) changing the relative evaluation of attributes 2) changing brand beliefs
3) adding an attribute
4) changing the overall brand rating
Here below there will be a brief discussion about them and their applicability to the case.
1) First of all, changing the relative evaluation of attributes refer to the capability of marketers of catching the opportunity to persuade consumers to "cross over" among different versions of the same product. In the case studied, this strategy can result very interesting and relevant to the aim of the paper, as the purpose is that the consumers switch from buying their hosiery in a certain kind of stores, giving them a relative importance, to buying them in specialized stores as well as they do for other items. For these reasons, this strategy will be surely considered further in the discussion.
2) Changing brand beliefs means changing beliefs or attitudes about the brand itself. In this case it is evident that the brand results almost unknown to the majority of Danish population, as there is no physical and no online stores where they could have experienced it. Therefore, for the initial phase of the expansion of the company, this strategy results untimely, and should be considered better in a second step, when the brand awareness will be at a higher level, and consumers could be persuaded to change from one brand to another.
3) Adding an attribute can be accomplished either by adding an attribute that has previously been ignored or one that represents an improvement or an innovation. This strategy may have interesting implications to the case studied. Hosiery, as a matter of fact,
should be seen also as a fashionable item, an accessory that in some cases can change the outfit of the women. The aim of the company is to adding an attribute to the product category in this sense: this is why the strategy is considered functional to the case.
4) By changing the overall brand rating, a company wants to alter consumers' assessment of the brand directly, without attempting to improve or change their evaluation of any single brand attitude. As usually this strategy is used to set the brand apart from all its competitors, relying on some forms of global statements, it is not considered relevant to the aim of the paper, considering the level of extremely low brand awareness of the company in Denmark.
To sum up, it is evident that frameworks for consumers' attitudes changes are extremely important in this study. In order to let the customers switching their shopping habits in the hosiery category, it is fundamental to understand the strategies and motivations to pivot on in order to succeed in the purpose. According to the considerations above, altering the components of the multi-‐attribute model results to be the best framework to use in this case, particularly using the strategy of changing the relative evaluation of attributes and adding an attribute to the product category.
Further in the paper the selected framework and the effective applicability to the case will be shown according to the results of the research.
2.4 Communication Campaign
As the aim of this study is to understand how consumers can change their attitudes toward their hosiery shopping habits, the final part of the study will be dedicated to a communication campaign that will have the objective of driving the consumers to try the new store and starting to build the brand awareness necessary to get successful results from the new market.
The purpose is to conduct interviews on a small sample of consumers collected during the previous phase where attitudes were studied and understand which would be the best
communications strategies to follow and how to use it in order to implement a change on consumers' attitudes.
As a matter of fact, according to previous observations of Calzedonia's managers, the biggest problem for the company when opening a new store consists in making the consumers going into the stores: when they are in, they will rarely go out without any purchase7.
It is believed that through an effective marketing communication campaign people could consider to change their attitudes and shopping habits, by pivoting on the right techniques and on the most appealing marketing media mix. The communication campaign will be implemented after the results from the survey will be analysed, as the survey will measure the propensity of Danish women to change their attitudes, while the interviews will be the focus on which marketing mix should be used in order to appeal them.
In order to implement the strategies of attitudes' change, different methods and process have been studied and evaluated. First of all, hierarchy-‐of-‐effects models were taken into account, as they are often mentioned in the literature. These models, however, assume that, during a process of attitudes' change due to a communication action undertaken by marketers, things have to happen in a certain order, implying that the earlier effects form necessary conditions in order for the later to occur (Vakratas et al., 1999). According to these models, consumers go through three different stages in responding to marketing communications: a cognitive, an affective and a conative stage, or a think-‐feel-‐do sequence.
The first steps comprise the cognitive dimension and lead the consumers to engage in a mental process in order to obtain awareness and knowledge of the brand communicated.
The affective stage emotional or feeling responses occur which are associated with the advertised brand, and attitudes towards the brand are formed. Eventually, the conative or behavioural stage refers to undertaking actions with respect to the advertised brand, such a buying the products.
A very popular framework is the DAGMAR (Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results) model. This was published in 1961 by Russell Colley and represents
7 Based on the interview with Calzedonia's international office
an important step in communication: since then, advertising goals have emphasized the current stage of the buyer in the purchase process rather than just immediate sales effects.
This insight also helped marketers to use measurable goals since communications effects on sales were impossible to isolate because of the interaction effects with other marketing mix variables (DePelsmacker, 2012). The communications effects or goals that are distinguished in the DAGMAR model are: Category Need, Brand Awareness, Brand Knowledge, Brand Attitude, Brand Purchase Intention, Purchase Facilitation, Purchase, Satisfaction, Brand Loyalty.
According to the DAGMAR model, during the communications process nine effects can be established. When marketers are defining their communications strategies, they will have to select the most appropriate communications effects or goals from the list above mentioned. Every promotional campaign should be organized with one of these communications objectives in mind. The choice of the right goals depends on the problems that have arisen in the preliminary situation analysis of the market, brand positions, competition, opportunities and threats. In that sense, communications objectives are only an intermediary way to reach marketing goals of a higher order, such as sales volumes, market share, distribution penetration, etc. (Colley, 1961). It is undeniable that this model represents a fundamental step and a meaningful point of departure when planning a communication campaign.
However, of disagreement exists regarding the sequence of the different stages, and several researches have developed alternative models. It is evident that the three stages of conative-‐affective-‐conative have some limitations in the reality, as not all the consumers will react to advertising and to communication following this path. There are many variables that need to be considered in the process of purchase: consumer goals, characteristics of the product type, the situation the consumer is, involvement in the product category and social, psychological or cultural factors.
In the following years, Vaughn realised a model called the Foot-‐Belt-‐Cone Grid where four different situations of buying are distinguished, based on two dimensions: the high-‐low involvement and the think-‐feel dimension (DePelsmacker, 2012). Involvement can be
defined as the importance people attach to a product or a buying decision, the extent to which one has to think it over and the level of perceived risk associated with an inadequate brand choice. The think–feel dimension represents a continuum reflecting the extent to which a decision is made on a cognitive or an affective basis (see the image below, from De Pelsmacker, 2012).
Figure 3: Foot-‐Belt-‐Cone grid (DePelsmacker, 2012)
Purchase decisions in the first quadrant are characterized by high involvement and rational decision criteria. Here, the consumer first wants to learn about the product. The second quadrant concerns product decisions of high involvement, but for which less information is needed. In this case, the consumer first wants to be emotionally attracted by the brand image, then he collects information, and finally undertakes some action. In the third quadrant, product decisions are located that require a minimum of cognitive effort and tend to become routinized because of habit formation. The assumed sequence is first buying the product, then learning what its major advantages and disadvantages are, and finally developing an attitude after product or brand usage. The fourth quadrant reflects decision-‐making regarding products which can be termed ‘life’s little pleasures’. The
