Culminating Day 3: Marketing

Analyze any ONE of the Brands owned by your chosen company, according to the 4P’s and
2C’s of Marketing (review marketing slideshow for 4P’s 2C’s). Consider in your explanation:
How are marketing concepts learned incorporated and displayed on the business’ website.
Complete the following chart:

Branding

1. Brand Name: Old Navy

2. Logo: (1 mark)
Copy and paste an image of the logo here

3. Product Life Cycle: Describe what stage of the PLC this brand is in. Provide reasons to
support your answer. (4 marks)
Old Navy would be considered to be in the maturity stage of the Product Life Cycle,
probably being the most mature and popular brand out of all of the brands owned by Gap Inc.
Old Navy is known for their up-to-date, trendy, and cheap clothing that appeals typically to a
younger target market, which means that they can consistently stay relevant in the market
and continuously gain sales. By ensuring their clothing and accessories stay up-to-date with
the recent trends, people will continue to buy their clothing, which is why they are still in the
maturity stage. At this point, all major production and distributions costs are also fully paid
for (especially since this brand has been around since 1994), meaning they can make the
most amount of profit possible.
As a company, Old Navy wants to stick out from other popular clothing brands because
they want to stay relevant and get as many sales as they possibly can, implying that they will
stay in the maturity stage of the Product Life Cycle. The company does this by promoting 3
main values as part of their “imagine mission”, which is their goal to make people feel more
welcome and a sense of belonging with their brand. These values include opportunity,
sustainability, and inclusivity, as they want to leave a good path for potential employees,
customers, and for the future of the environment. By promoting their products themselves
through unique advertisements that explain the benefits of buying their products, what makes
their products different from other competitors, and ensuring the design of their clothing is
properly geared towards their target audience, Old Navy as a brand can ensure a vast amount
of sales that will keep them relevant in the market and in a higher position compared to their
competitors. These aspects of their company make them stand out from other brands, and
along with them making consistently trendy clothes (almost acting as the blueprint for what
 other business’s clothing should look like if they’re trying to stay up-to-date with popular
trends) they are able to stay in the maturity stage of the Product Life Cycle, as they have been
in this stage for quite a long time now.

The 4 P’s of Marketing

a. Quality
Old Navy ensures that all of the materials used to make their clothing are fully sustainable
and ethically-sourced, which is an appealing factor for many consumers that want to make an
impact on the environment. Knowing the clothing you are buying is coming from ethical
producers will get more people to buy your products because they aren’t supporting any
morally wrong actions by buying the products. Old Navy also promotes a “materiality
assessment” on their website, which is the brand’s way of ensuring the materials being used
to make their products follow their values and are good quality for the customers buying
them, which is another important value of Old Navy’s – customer satisfaction.

b. Design
Old Navy has made it one of their efforts as a brand to make clothing for any shape, size,
and colour of person, while still ensuring the clothing they are making is relevant to popular
trends nowadays. If they make clothes that are most sought out and popular currently, this
will increase their overall sales as a company. So when Old Navy designs their clothes, they
keep popular styles, colours, and looks in mind to ensure they are gaining as many customers
as they can for the products they are designing, as people will be more drawn towards that
are “in-style”. Old Navy also ensures all of their designs are accessible and available for all
kinds of people, ensuring plus sizes are available and that none of their clothing is considered
“offensive” or morally wrong (produced unethically).

c. Features
The Old Navy website is very clear about all of the features that come with a certain piece
of clothing you may be purchasing. They list all of the various colours and sizes that that
certain product is sold in, and they even have a size chart with measurements for online
shopping so you can properly determine your correct size in their clothing, as sizes vary
among different businesses. This ensures that the consumers are buying the proper item and
will be satisfied when it comes in the mail and fits them properly. They offer photos of the
product (some with models trying them on to see how it fits a person, some off a model),
various product details about how the product is made, what materials they are made of
(mainly cotton and polyester), how to properly wash the product so it doesn’t get ruined,
reviews of the product from previous customers who already bought and tried on the product,
and how the item fits a person (if it is tight, relaxed, soft, etc). All of these features listed on
their website give the consumer information about what exactly they are buying, and with all
of this knowledge it will make the customer feel safer about actually buying it (since they
know so much about it from these lists of features).
d. Benefits
Old Navy offers many different benefits to buying their products that will attract
customers to want to purchase from them. They offer a rewards program, called Navyist
Rewards, where you are able to get free shipping on almost all online purchases and collect
points to get free items. This acts as motivation for customers to shop online with them, as
many people don’t like to pay for shipping (especially for big orders), and by using this
method of marketing, more people will sign up for their rewards program, meaning more
sales in the end. They also offer 30% off your next purchase (in-store or online) if you sign
up for their newsletter, which is a really simple task to do to get a good discount, meaning
many people will sign up for their newsletter and more people will see the advertisements
they send out. If more people see the advertisements in the newsletters, more people will
want to purchase from them, once again increasing sales. And finally, they offer many
clearance sales and discounts all the time, which is an attracting aspect of their business to
lure more customers in. For example, they are currently offered up to 75% off on the entire
online store, which is a very good discount that many people may take up on, increasing the
sales of Old Navy. All of these benefits of their products not only benefit the customers
because they get many discounted and/or free things, but the number of sales for Old Navy as
a brand will increase as well.

2. Describe the Place/Channels of Distribution for your brand. Identify as many direct and
indirect channels as you can. (2 marks)
Old Navy offers their products in various different channels of distribution, the main ones
being physical retail brick-and-mortar stores (typically found in shopping malls) and through
their online website (e-commerce). You can typically find more stock online than in your
local store, but there is availability and accessibility for almost any person through these two
channels of distribution. An example of a direct channel of distribution Old Navy offers is
their online website, as when you make a purchase it goes directly from the manufacturing
centre to your door, meaning there are no places in between that take the products before you
get them. Another example of this would be if you potentially picked up the product straight
from the warehouse instead of getting it shipped to your door, which would be an even more
direct channel of distribution for Old Navy. However, an indirect channel of distribution that
Old Navy offers is their physical stores, as they go from the manufacturing centre to the
stores and then to the customer, meaning it isn’t quite direct, though there aren’t many
factors taking the products in between the manufacturing centre and the physical store. As
well, if you buy Old Navy clothing from a 3rd party website, re-sellers, or thrift stores, these
all act as indirect channels because they don’t go directly from the producers of the product
to the customers, there are many stops in between. These are the various channels of
distribution offered by Old Navy as an overall brand.