NEW YORK — Call it brand differentiation disease.
Consumers’ growing ennui with fashion brands becoming ever more alike has resulted in the third straight increase in the share of Americans who say the labels and logos of their apparel hold less significance than they did a few years ago. More than two-thirds of adults, or 67 percent, now find brand labels and logos much less or less important, up from 64 percent last year and 61 percent in 2003, based on Brand Keys’ Fourth Annual Fashion Index.
Not surprisingly, the portion of people who attached more importance to brand labels and logos versus a few years ago has fallen to 8 percent of women, from 10 percent in 2004, and to 7 percent overall, from 8 percent. The share of men who said those names and symbols gained in significance held flat at 6 percent.
Six names were new to the Brand Keys fashion index this year: L.L. Bean, Tommy Hilfiger, Isaac Mizrahi, Kate Spade, Old Navy and Dockers. The array suggests the consumer’s quest for value has intensified when evaluating brands most important to wear, Robert Passikoff, president of customer loyalty specialist Brand Keys, suggested.
To some extent, the newbies also indicate a preference for American brands, Passikoff said, as Giorgio Armani (rated third most important) and Adidas (fifth) were the only European names to place among adults’ 10 favorites. Bean tied with Levi’s for fourth; Hilfiger tied with Adidas for fifth, and Mizrahi was sixth. Mizrahi, Bean and Spade figured among women’s favorites, ranking fifth, sixth and seventh, respectively, while Hilfiger and Old Navy placed sixth and seventh with men.
Also, women’s second favorite brand to wear in 2004, Giorgio Armani, and sixth favorite, Louis Vuitton, were not designated by women as one of the 10 most important this time around. However, the two European names that did rate among their top choices to wear this year — Versace and Chanel — advanced to third and fourth place, respectively, up from a tie for fifth place in 2004.
Meanwhile, Ralph Lauren, deemed the third most important brand to don overall, was not among women’s top 10 for the third straight year, while Calvin Klein slipped to seventh place with women, from third place in 2004.
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The rankings came by way of a first-quarter phone survey of 3,750 women and 3,750 men, a representative sample of 7,500 people who named 57 brands as their own favorites to wear, and evaluated whether those names and their corresponding logos had become more or less important compared with a few years ago. Brand clutter appears to be weakening brand differentiation, as evidenced in a larger pool of favorites. The 57 names noted this year marked increases of 12 percent, from 51 names in 2004, and 39 percent, from 41 names, in 2003.
“Differentiation is becoming so difficult for everyone — and it’s particularly true in the clothing arena,” observed Passikoff, in divulging the index exclusively to WWD. “There’s been [a leveling of] quality available; there are less significant differences at various prices and store channels. Poor marketing compounds the effect.”
One victim of this syndrome, in Passikoff’s view, is Gap, which this year disappeared from the fashion index’s array of people’s favorite brands and logos to wear, after placing 10th among women and fifth among women and men combined in 2004. “Gap is a brand that has mistaken a marketing opportunity for a brand opportunity,” Passikoff maintained.
Rather than aiming its appeal at shoppers seeking basic apparel, Passikoff said, Gap built its recent marketing efforts around spokeswoman Sarah Jessica Parker, whose association with HBO’s “Sex and the City” was more suggestive of a glamorous fantasy. “The issue is what people are willing to believe. Joss Stone is more real, less glitzy,” he added, referring to the English soul singer who will be spotlighted in Gap’s summer marketing campaign, slated to break in early May.
Gap officials declined to comment.
Prior to Parker’s three-season stint as Gap’s first spokeswoman, Passikoff said, “They had good basic clothes at basic prices, highlighted by song-and-dance commercials. Now, Target has that.” (On the other hand, during Gap’s two-year earnings slide from 2000 to 2002, some other marketers criticized the retailer for too much of a reliance on basics like khakis and song-and-dance routines in its ads.)
Following Gap’s spring campaign, Parker’s final run in the brand’s ads, Stone will make a one-time appearance in the retailer’s summer salvo; she was selected to impart the sultry, sensual image the brand is seeking for its white jeans, said Trey Laird, president and executive creative director at Laird + Partners, Gap’s lead creative agency. Pointing out that music is part of Gap’s heritage, dating back to the store’s offer of records and jeans when it first opened in 1969, Laird added, “Joss has her own sensibility; she likes to do things her own way. That gives her a lot of credibility.”
But Gap wasn’t the only notable disappearing act in Brand Keys’ fourth fashion index.
Two sports labels took a tumble, failing to rank among the overall top 10 for the first time ever: licensed apparel from Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League. The popularity of the MLB brand was possibly hurt by the sport’s ongoing steroids scandal, while the NHL brand’s allure was apparently dampened by the hockey season’s suspension based on another measure, the Brand Keys Sports Fan Index. In 2004, by comparison, NHL-wear was the seventh favorite brand or logo to wear and MLB-wear placed 10th.
Athletic powerhouse Nike, while repeating as the most important name or icon for people to wear, did not rate as one of the 10 favorites of young adults, ages 21-34. Nike was seen as meaningful to don by 29 percent of 35- to 44-year-olds, who ranked it first; 16 percent of 45- to 59-year-olds, who ranked it eighth, and 22 percent of all those surveyed, for whom it led the list of individual brands.
“Nike may have reached a saturation point among young adults, who have displayed a preference for labels such as RBK and Keds,” Passikoff offered. “People ages 21 through 34 are still defining themselves,” he said. “Nike is a brand that is so ingrained, it has become like just another company.”
More broadly, noted trend forecaster Irma Zandl, president of youth marketing specialist Zandl Group, “Everything related to sports has been trending down.” Young Americans, in particular, have been expressing less interest in such things as wanting to meet or model themselves after professional athletes, watching sports on TV and sports participation, she said.
While licensed apparel of people’s favorite sports teams, including the National Basketball Association and National Football League, continued to carry more clout than individual brands such as Nike, the share of those finding it much more or more important to wear still has eroded. Team apparel attained that level for less than one-third of women, or 30 percent, down from 36 percent in 2004; 50 percent of men, versus 55 percent, and 40 percent of adults overall, against 44 percent a year ago.
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