Diesel for Successful Living - Branding Strategies for an Up-Market Line Extension in the Fashion Industry

Table of content

• The evolution of Diesel’s identity page 3

• The analysis of both brands: Diesel & StyleLab page 6

• D-Diesel and StyleLab: How closely should they be associate

in the mind of consumer? page 10

• Three possible branding strategy for the StyleLab brand

and their variants page 12

• Diesel: a continuous evolution since 1978 to

the present page 14

• References page 17

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1.1 The evolution of Diesel identity

The fashion industry is very complicated, large and ever evolving as taste and preference of consumers evolve. There are no standard fashion companies. The industry has a wide spectrum of enterprises working in the apparel, footwear, home textiles and accessories markets. As well as being made up of various kinds of companies like retailers, design source and selling companies, companies with their own manufacturing facilities and others who outsource production but retain control over parts of the production process.

The nature of fashion is constant evolution each year or season as new labels are presented at every turn of the season to keep up with the change of market trend in the industry. That’s why firms in the fashion industry must constantly reinvent themselves and maintain its cutting edge while remaining firmly positioned as a strong brand with staying power. Moreover, companies functioning in the high fashion segment often face a different kind of pressure as compared to those functioning with commodity fashion goods.

All of these aspects combine to make the fashion industry one of the most complicated industries. Yet, various issues can be noticeably recognized as common across the industry.

- Consumers have the power

- Supply chains are complicated

- Product launching and delivery takes time

- Companies must be able to manage a product mix

- Inventory control maintenance is important

- Impact of the latest technology on the fashion industry

- Copyright issues for fashion designs Consumers have more power

Today's buyers have more purchasing power then ever before.

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Diesel was born in 1978 under Renzo Rosso and Adriano Goldschmied. From the onset Diesel has always wanted to be differentiated from its competitors in the market. Its Identity has gone through three sessions since Diesel first came into the market.

First Era, Diesel started out as a Jeans “culture” clothing line with a cutting edge bearing the slogan “Only the Brave” targeting at people who desire to look tough and brave having the greasy rockability character. Defining themselves as a �jeans and workwear’ clothing company and trying to find their place in the context of the 80s fashion, they try to differentiate themselves from the rest by innovating and selling jeans that looked worn. Through the 1980s to the early 90s Diesel stuck to this concept.

Second Era by the early 90s Diesel Changed its identity from just a a simple Jeans label into a major fashion Brand and also changed its slogan campaign to “For Successful Living”. This Era is noted as the Quirky Urban Fashionistas giving its users the satisfaction of standing out from the crowd a need to feel different and provocative. Diesel was not only identified as just Jeans label as they diversified into the clothing line, Shoes and Fragrances as well. Here, rather than advertising with the regular style of advert in the fashion industry it associated itself to Political issues, social conventions, religion, sexuality and fashion itself. Its audience this time were intelligent urban Fashionistas rather than the “Brave wannabes”.

In the Third Era “Conscious hedonism”, Diesel went from an affordable fashionable urban street wear to Fun, imaginative and colorful fashion. This Era covers the year 2000 till present where the consumers became aware of what they needed to express 4

themselves and had controlling power in the level of demand. Diesel’s following campaigns were/are centered around the idea of pleasure, staying young, urban daydreaming and loving nature as an ecological impulse.

With the help of the Internet and the