New brand identity repositions fashion retailer for success

Sussan Brand

 

Repositioning Sussan in the Competitive and Challenging Market of Women’s Fashion. Truly Deeply cre­ates a new brand strat­egy and iden­tity for national retailer Sussan, repositioning the brand and it’s offer to the market.

Background
Sussan is a women’s fashion retailer with 170 stores located around Australia. Positioned at the lower end of the market, the positioning was summed-up in our research phase by one customer as; “selling Garfield t-shirts to overweight women from the suburbs”.

Challenge
The business was under pressure from both competitors on one side, and squeezed margins on the other. A failure to build brand equity and loyalty with any specific demographic was compromising the ability to own a space in the market and build a premium into margins. After years adrift, Sussan needed to re-define it’s relevant niche and go after a core customer with razor sharp clarity.

Insight
Our research provided a clear platform for the re-positioning of Sussan based upon a newly defined core customer who was being poorly attended-to by the market. The new core customer we defined was the busy young mother. Whether inner city of outer suburb, working in the office or in the home, the stylish young mother had few fashion options that were genuinely suited to her lifestyle. This was the opportunity we seized to reposition the Sussan brand.

Strategy
Truly Deeply worked with Sussan to define a new brand value proposition focused on the busy, stylish mothers of Australia. Our essence, values and brand narrative provided direction for the whole business from garment design and ranging to staff training, from store layout and visual merchandising to digital and marketing.

“The new positioning breathed life immediately back into the whole organisation, and through them back into the stores and out to the customers. The brand direction touched every part of the Sussan experience from the look of the range to how many garments graced the floor of the stores. The infamous ‘rack of frilly nighties’ was banished from the front of the store to a small space on shelf. With the offer right, the new store look, marketing and visual language was just the icing on the cake,” says David Ansett, Chief Creator of Brands, Truly Deeply. 

Design Solution
“We never saw our role as to re-design the Sussan word mark. In fashion, the brand mark plays a consistent anchor role, around which the new range and campaign imagery revolve. From the start of the project we believed the direction of cues for the campaign imagery and visual merchandising would be our greatest weapon for re-positioning the brand in the eyes of those customers who had long-since deleted us from their fashion consideration set,” says David Ansett, Chief Creator of Brands, Truly Deeply.

Deliverables
Truly Deeply provided strategic brand and design solutions for Sussan including a brand audit, competitor and market analysis, market research, brand strategy, brand identity design and visual identity execution through online, store signage, packaging, visual merchandising and marketing and DM programs. Internally we helped to develop the staff training as well as the reward and recognition programs along with new range ‘look books’.

Results
Our work with Sussan was a critical part of the business turn-around. Re-positioning the brand was a key strategy for the business revitalization which has seen it grow from strength to strength.

“I am a firm believer in the power of brand to positively impact every aspect of a business, from the way we attract and build loyal and lasting relationships with our customers to the premium margins we can build into our products. The re-positioning of the Sussan brand was a real rags to riches story,” says Meg Hurley, National marketing Manager, Sussan Group.

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