Old Navy Company’s Marketing Strategy

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Introduction

In this report, I provide my views regarding the Old Navy’s marketing strategy that hinges on the development of online video adverts targeting young men aged between 25 years and 35 years. I also investigate the validity of the assumptions underlying the marketing strategy and provide recommendations on how to improve the company’s marketing campaign.

Choice of Young Adult Males as a Target Market

Targeting young males for the promotion campaign of the Old Navy is a creative marketing idea because this market often influences the purchasing decisions of their peers and family members (Marketing-Schools, 2016). This way, this marketing strategy could increase the company’s customer pool (Brand Index, 2011). Nonetheless, targeting young males within the age bracket of 25 to 35 is a common strategy for consumer goods companies, such as Old Navy, because this market is often associated with positive brand attributes, such as freedom and happiness (Elliott, 2011). They also bring cultural relevance to fashion, which is a positive brand addition to Old Navy.

Assumptions Made About Mobile Media Campaign and the Viewing Habits of the Target Market

The use of mobile marketing premises on the understanding that Old Navy would get returns that are more precise through a careful selection of its customers. Similarly, Old Navy would easily benefit from an increased efficiency of its advertising campaigns using mobile marketing. Since the online market campaign targets consumers within the age bracket of 25-35, the main assumption made regarding the viewing habits of the youth market is that it is technologically perceptive, has different types of devices (such as smartphones, computers, and tablets), and that they often check their messages.

Validity of assumptions

The above assumptions are valid because they correctly capture the mobile phone behaviors of much urban youth. For example, the assumption that most members of the target market have a smartphone is true because research has shown that more than 72% of the US population has a smartphone (McPhillips, 2016). The level of smartphone penetration in other countries is even higher because South Korea has the highest smartphone penetration percentage of 88%, followed by Australia, which has a smartphone penetration of 77%, and Israel at 74% (McPhillips, 2016).

Nonetheless, the high percentage of smartphone penetration in America is only illustrative of the potential of Old Navy’s mobile marketing campaign because people do not necessarily need such advanced mobile phones to receive mobile media. Therefore, the assumption that most young people have a mobile phone is valid.

The assumption that many people often check their mobile phones is also true because researchers have shown that people often check their mobile phones several times a day (McPhillips, 2016). For example, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers (cited in McPhillips, 2016) did a study to investigate this issue and found that the average phone user checks his/her phone more than 150 times a day. By most standards, this is a high index, meaning that there is a high probability that users would read the advertising messages. Other assumptions mentioned in this report also revealed that the target market is technologically well informed and would easily understand the messages sent through such devices.

These assumptions are equally valid because research studies have similarly shown that the most tech-savvy population in America was born between 1982 and 2002 (Crang, 2012). The target market of young adults between the ages of 25 years to 35 years falls within this bracket of analysis. Implicitly, we could say they are tech-savvy. Men are also arguably more tech-savvy than women are. Since Old Navy targets men, we could also deduce that they are serving a tech-savvy population (Tansley, 2013). Based on these findings, the assumptions made about the viewing habits of the target market are valid.

Recommendations Regarding the Marketing Strategy

Using mobile media as the main advertisement strategy is a wise option for Old Navy because this type of marketing campaign would have a strong impact on the company’s strategic marketing conversation (Smith, 2015). This is why some researchers say that mobile media is no longer an up-and-coming marketing strategy, but an effective way for companies to help their customers to understand their brand story and value proposition (Elliott, 2011).

This way, they have an opportunity to build relationships with their existing customers and develop new ones with prospective clients. Nonetheless, to improve the effectiveness of this marketing campaign, it is crucial for Old Navy to place the view adverts on the landing page because studies have shown that this strategy could increase conversation rates by more than 80% (Elliott, 2011). The company would also benefit from the increased customer traffic of users who would see the advertisements before they get to do anything else on the company’s website. Most of them are even likely to share such videos with their friends because many mobile phone users share such videos with their peers.

Old Navy could also use video viewing statistics to promote lead scoring as a way of increasing the company’s marketing return on investment (ROI). The company could do so by capitalizing on text-asset downloads (Litt, 2015). To illustrate this assertion, we could analyze two cases of two users who visit the company website.

One customer visits a couple of pages and downloads information about his favorite brands. The second customer visits the same company website, hits some pages on the site, watches a four-minute video, and spends 20 minutes watching a webinar. Automatically, the second customer should get a higher lead score, considering the volume of online content consumed during the period he visited the website. Regrettably, Old Navy’s marketing platform does not track this prospect interaction as a unique feature of its marketing campaign.

The company should push its advertisement content into individual contact records to increase marketing ROI because without doing so, the company would simply be implementing its online marketing strategy without proper direction. Stated differently, the company would not understand how its marketing campaign influences customer-buying behaviors.

Thoughts about the Creativity of the Campaign

Although the online advertisement is a promising type of online marketing technique, if implemented wrongly, it could fail to achieve its goal. This is why Kaplan (2011) cautions marketers to investigate how well this strategy would fit into their overall business plan. Indeed, research has shown that 70% of marketers failed to realize their goals through online marketing in 2013 (Litt, 2015). In this regard, the company needs to evaluate its marketing implementation strategy to understand how it would align with the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, as outlined below.

Strengths

Innovative advertising and marketing has popularized the brand
Old Navy has affordable brands
Customers have a good family shopping experience

Weaknesses

Intense rivalry and competition in the market
Low switching costs

Opportunities

Increased opportunities in online marketing
The company could increase customer loyalty through a loyalty program

Threats

Use of online marketing could increase competition between expensive and affordable brands and decrease customer switching costs
Decreased customer loyalty

Based on the above-mentioned opportunities and threats, Old Navy needs to understand how to milk the value of its marketing strategy to get the most ROI through lead scoring and other techniques identified in this study (Kaplan, 2011).

Summary (Recommendations about the Online Promotion Strategy)

The increasing popularity of social media should be the inspiration for the development of the Old Navy’s media campaign. More importantly, the company should rethink its product strategy to find out how it aligns with its new marketing strategy. Creating online videos is one way of capitalizing on the growing social media popularity across the target market population, but, going forward, the company should evaluate different aspects of its marketing strategy to see whether they align with its new marketing strategy. In this regard, the managers should evaluate whether the company’s product, place, pricing, and promotion strategies align with the social media strategy. The goal of doing so is to make sure that all components of the company’s marketing strategy capitalize on social media marketing opportunities. Therefore, none of the Old Navy’s marketing components should clash with its social media marketing strategy. The purpose of making sure such a strategy works is to provide its customers with a better shopping experience. Indeed, on social media, appearances, and experiences matter.

References

Brand Index. (2011). Men Hear Old Navy’s Call to “Dress Like a Guy.” Web.

Crang, D. (2012). Next generation strategies for advertising to millennials. Web.

Elliott, S. (2011). Old Navy replaces mannequins with music. Web.

Kaplan, M. (2011). Behavioral differences between men and women influence shopping. Web.

Litt, M. (2015). 3 Ways to Improve Marketing ROI with Video Content. Web.

Marketing-Schools. (2016). Youth Marketing. Web.

McPhillips, D. (2016). The 10 Countries with the Highest Smartphone Penetration. Web.

Smith, C. (2015). The surprising facts about who shops online and on mobile. Web.

Tansley, I. (2013). 8 reasons why men are trading in-person shopping for online retail. Web.

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