UnMe Jeans: Branding in Web 2.

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1. Is UnMe jeans the right or wrong product/ brand for web 2.0? Why?
What are the advantages/ disadvantages does it have to be ported
using social media?
If one thinks of the UnMe brand the brand personality that comes into the
minds of the customer has the following characteristics
1.
2.
3.
4.

Trendy
Has unique identities
Appreciation for differences of opinion and taste
Teenage girls 12-24 years old

Now if one starts mapping out these characteristics with those of Web 2.0
then one can easily say that trendy associates very well with Consumer Cocreation, Social Affiliation & Digital Self Expression. The trendy
characteristics changes goes on with the trend so they are more prone to cocreate new values, owing to the trendy nature they are more likely to indulge
in social affiliation & similarly due to this factor they self-express themselves
about various new trends & nature.
The unique identity characteristic highly correlates itself with digital selfexpression. Such people want to voice their opinion through social media
like blogs.
The 3rd factor maps with the sharing attribute where people from different
segments learn and adopt behaviours from each other.
The last characteristic is the Gen Y who is the target segments for these
jeans and also the users of Web 2.0. According to the Exhibit 7 47% of
teenagers interact on social media & 69% in young adults. According to
exhibit 8 youth want to interact with marketers on a daily basis.
Advantages

From the above discussion one can say that Web 2.0 is a right match
for UnMe as both appeal to Gen Y
Comparative cost is less than traditional media
The brand has the ability to create a trend in the market through Web
2.0
Follow the trend of social communication
The company has the advantage of getting direct feedback from their
customers and change the product or develop new product accordingly
Create brand awareness and attraction to target group effectively

Disadvantages

Dissatisfied customer could create a havoc through negative publicity

as company has less control over social media
Hard to measurement the result
More risky than traditional media
Social media sites dont have much relevant and support content

The company would not be able to leverage over the longer term
Social network could be Fad

2. What benefits would Foley gain from each of the three social media
plans? What risks do they entail? How can Foley manage the risks
and reap the benefits from each of them?

Benefits
o YouTube
1. Since it is interesting & non-ad nature it involves more
participation and there is high involvement from the customers
2. YouTube has the demographic availability so it can be
customized for the different market segment present across
different demographics
3. Can position the ad catering to the different customers like for
high involved customers participatory ads and for lowinvolvement customers in-video advertising
4. Has a large choice of videos from which they can choose, such
videos should match the brand personality so that they target
the right customers
5. Growth of YouTube is 140% year over year
6. High frequency and views per person
o Zwinktopia
1. Users can match their identity with the brand identity. People
who think they want this kind of jeans would pay attention to its
advertisement. It also promotes their ideals
2. Direct target segment available as Zwinktopia is also for
teenage girls
3. Apparels contribute to 34% (highest) among virtual products
available for sale(Exhibit 10)
4. Can be ideal to launch ad inform about new developments in the
real world and generate curiosity.
5. Can be linked to other social media like Facebook and MySpace
o Facebook
1. It has the various segments dependent on the demography
UnMe can use to target the customers. One of the highly visited
sites and also has a high rate of return to the same site as
people generally log in everyday
2. Facebook has a huge information about the likings, interest,
education, living standards which can be used to target the right
customer i.e. advertising to the potential user
3. Word of mouth can be spread easily as users can post, discuss,
vote about the products so each individual can act as a marketer
of the brand
4. UnMe page can guide users about the latest trends on fashion
industry thus attracting various customers
5. Also acts as a place where users can discuss and tell about the
improvements and new product developments
6. Widgets and feeds promote more engagement and show the
popularity of the brand.

7. Its a kind of permission based advertising so click-through rate

is expected to be high as customers are more prone to know
about the brand
8. High visibility because of shared friend icons on the website.
9. Videos can be promoted on the website as well

Risks
o YouTube
1. More emphasis on non-ad kind of videos as people demand
videos which are innovative and creative but they should not be
ad kind of which entails higher cost
2. Lack of control over the content
3. Does not interacts as well as other social media do in getting the
feedback and response of the customers
4. Customization needs to be done according to the language and
location. Also different countries have different culture so a joke
in one country might not be taken in the same way in another
country
5. Videos can be watched even without logging in to the account so
they might not get the required demographic information about
the user
6. Lack of measurement tools
o Zwinktopia
1. Since this is a virtual world many people might see this brand as
what they want to but in real world they might not use the
product owing to factors like health, body size, affordability, etc.
2. A huge competition between the products
3. The communication is not linear
4. Much time is needed to learn in this kind of environment. Thus a
high learning curve
o Facebook
1. Many people might get habitual and ignore the ads and focus on
other things
2. Since the exposure is to a large number of brands (500 pages)
so they might forget about the brand easily
3. Lack of control over the medium
4. Lack of measurement tools to measure success
5. High cluttering on the network may make the users indifferent to
the ads.
6. May lead to over advertising and hijack the very purpose
7. Cannot be used as an alternative to television ads

UnMe needs to have a dedicated team who will work with the advertising
agencies who will try to minimize the risks involved by various ways which will
help them in getting the benefits.
3. Which if any, of the three social media plans should Foley pursue?
Why?
In my opinion Facebook seems to be the better option if they have to choose one
out of the three. Seeing from todays popularity of FB which is giving a tough

target to Google whose whole business model is based on the advertisement.

Facebook can be a better option if they have to choose among the three.
Facebook has detailed information about the users. Today users provide most of
the information to Facebook which it can use to advertise. The basic information
like education, work, living colleges attended, likes and dislikes, votes and polls,
interests and fan following pages, the groups activity etc., the type of links they
share, the type of people they are befriended with etc. Facebook has huge
information about the user which UnMe can gather with a lot of difficulty. Thus
Facebook is one of the options where they will get the direct target segment
based on the user profile and they can advertise to them. Once the user likes
their page or joins their group they can advertise, interact, and get response and
feedback, customer support and opinion due to which not only can they
advertise effectively but also they can use the users opinion in developing the
right product. Such kind of advantage is not available in the other two.

4. What changes can you make to the social media plans to make them
more effective to the target audience of UnMe jeans?
Since this case is a little old and there is a bit difference in todays world like
MySpace is not so popular today Googles orkut has gone away and Google+ too
is not doing so well. Facebook on the other hand has grown considerably. So the
plan needs to have a Facebook page and this should be promoted on other sites
so as to get the like from elsewhere also. Then they could also incorporate with
games which are present on Facebook and offer virtual world kind of feel in those
games by selling the products. Granting Points and energy on purchasing virtual
products on these games is bound to gain attention and increase brand
awareness. Then they can have their own dedicated channel on YouTube where
they can promote videos gathered by the customers and publish. Facebook page
can talk about fashion tips and style trends prevailing in the market to gain
attention.