Market and Consumer Analysis

Domenico Scalise Jr.

Full Sail University

 Abstract

Kellyz Creations is a local, Florida brand that specializes in custom clothing and

accessories. The brand features products that relate to pop culture and the local theme parks.

The target audiences are twenty-five-to-thirty-five-year old’s and are located in Central Florida

or vacation there. The audience is diverse and makes $35,000 to $50,000 to accommodate

vacations to the Central Florida area. Kellyz Creations uses the customization of products to

capture individualism that is often withheld in bigger brands and companies. As mentioned in

the journal by Peter V. Paul titled The Mythical Average in an Age of Individual Complexit, in

prior times, all within society individualism was not seen but rather things catered to the average

of people instead, such as with testing (Paul, 2017, paragraph 2).

 Kellyz Creations
Introduction

Kellyz Creations is a new brand that was created over the pandemic to create custom

clothing and accessories. They specialize in t-shirts, accessories and stickers that can be

customized with the persons interests. The brand has only seen business through close friends

and family and has maintained a word-of-mouth style of business. Due to these limitations, the

brand has no online presence and limited brand awareness.

Thesis Statement

To reach the SMART goals for the brand which includes consumer engagement, brand

awareness and increase in sales by creating a social media plan.

Situation Analysis

Company Overview and Current State

Kellyz Creations is run by Kelly Zaremski, an Orlando resident who loves the theme parks and

the state of Florida. She became interested in creating custom work when she was gifted a Cricut

machine from a friend. Cricut is a brand of machine that prints and cuts vinyl and other materials that

can be added as stickers, to shirts or on household items. She started off just making shirts and items

for friends that liked products she had on or for family who would be visiting in the parks.

The overarching goals of the social media campaign are to increase Kellyz Creations

brand awareness. This will be implemented through the management of social media pages and

a website that consumers can purchase the products directly from. The overall goal is to gain

attention through an engaging social media presence and through the webpage for sales.

The campaign will rely on three SMART goals to excel the campaign and reach the

goals. These three SMART goals are to have 10 visits on Kellyz Creations website in the first 14

days, consumer engagement increased by 5% in the first 14 days and sales increased by 3% in
the first 14 days. These goals are obtainable and can be measured when delivering the social

media plans results.

Kellyz Creations trouble comes from her lack of digital footprint. The business prior was just

conducted for friends and was not set in a structure or a means to generate revenue or brand

awareness. While it will be important to incorporate friend’s comments and referrals in the social

media plan to build credibility as mentioned in the journal Divergent Effects of Friend

Recommendations on Disclosed Social Media Advertising in the United States and Korea. Journal of

Advertising by A. Errmann (Errmann, 2019).

Currently, Kellyz Creations does not have any brand communication nor digital or

tangible marketing footprint. That being said, the brand has utilized referrals and will continue

to use them to build credibility. Much like when newspapers made the switch as referenced by

J.C Schmeltzer in the journal about Developing a Social Media Plan for the Community Press,

branching advertisement to social media will be prevalent in reaching the brands goals

(Schmeltzer, 2011). Companies at the time of the article had no social media footprints, much

like Kellyz Creations, so this discussion of the newspapers move is very relevant.

The campaign plan relies heavily on producing new and attractive content to build the

brand. The basis of the content will be timed to reach the maximum amount of reach. Using the

study in V.K Kanuri’s journal, Scheduling Content on Social Media: Theory, Evidence and

Application, the plan will cover scheduling posts to gather analytics and data that show the most

effective times to post. This ensures that once the data is received and utilized, the more

attractive posts will have more engagement and reach by only posting during active times. The

campaign will also use influencers to reach new consumers through shared media. Even large

companies that have massive brand awareness such as “Ford” utilize influencers as mentioned in
the journal article Ford is Counting on an Army of 100 Bloggers to Launch a New Fiesta by E.

Tegler (Tegler, 2009). There is a gap of time between the article but the rise of influencers in our

media has been increasing since then. All of these are steps Kellyz Creations is willing to

partake to reach the SMART goals.

SWOT Analysis
 Kellyz Creations has the ability to offer personalized items so with that comes a caution

as well of over personalization. As mentioned by S.L. Baglione, targeting an audience through

ads can sometimes offer a negative response due to a feeling of being watched or to personal

(S.L. Baglione, 2019). Kellyz Creations strength is personalization so there will be a middle

ground that is sought that is a perfect medium of being personal but not an invasion of privacy.

The products are also unique and can be created off of any idea that an audience may like

making the brand very versatile.

As explained in the journal by Matt Tidwell, In order to develop a good social media plan

to build brand awareness, you need to communicate with the members and, “define audience

personas”(Tidwell, 2014). This will be vital in turning this weakness into a strength. By not

having a message or means of communicating with a general audience, the advertisement and

reach to audience is limited. As explained by E. Cloete, the messaging can be similar to other

forms of marketing however, “..for such a strategic approach to social media to be viable, an

understanding of the different types or categories of messaging (aligned with marketing

communication objectives) that can be disseminated via social media is required”(E. Cloete,

2016). Both of these weakness leads to the conclusion that the brand has no active audience

which has a large impact on making sales.

While the brand awareness and having no active communication is a negative for this

brand, it can also be seen as on opportunity. Since the brands digital footprint will be starting

from the ground up, it gives a wonderful opportunity to grasp the target audience in an effective,

active campaign in the first go around. If this brand already had an existing plan that was not
working, it may have already lost audience due to negative credibility or imagery. Additionally,

the brand is local in Central Florida so they can stay current with trends in the theme parks.

Just like any industry, competitors are always out there. Custom T-shirts and accessories

are no different with machines becoming more accessible in the private market. Despite the high

cost of machines made by Cricut, off brands have delivered an affordable product that can handle

similar work at a fraction of the cost making the market very saturated. Since the items will be

custom and involve pop culture, another serious threat is ensuring the work that is used is not

copyrighted in any way. Dealing with legal issues can derail Kellyz Creations so research must

be conducted on certain imagery. Covid-19 is also a threat as outbreaks can lead to a disrupt in

mail or purchasing.

Competitive Analysis

Etsy is a website that members can sell their custom or handmade items on. The leading

industry members on this site were Family World Shirts, Stardust Designs and Purple Rush

Clothing. All three were the top Etsy shirt creator for 2021. Family World Shirts sold 48,963

shirts. Stardust Designs sold 44,578 and Purple Rush sold 28,623 shirts according to Bryan

Robinson from Tshirtgrowth.com (Robinson, 2022).

The main competitors’ products are similar in likeness to Kellyz Creations, being custom

and focused on trendy and pop culture ideas. The theme parks are a similar theme and they

utilize sales to drive revenue. At the time of research, Family World Shirts was offering 50% off

shirts as a way to gain exposure and increase sales. Stardust Designs focused on names, holidays

and titles as designs to sell to an audience for individualism. Purple Rush Clothing used similar

designs for their shirts but also had more trendy sayings and wordings than theme park designs.
 The brands were harder to find on social media which will differentiate with Kellyz

Creations. Searching the leader, Family World Shirts, I found similar brands that were not

connected or with the brand. The engagement is not there with brands on Etsy, so Kellyz

Creations will be active on social media and engage with audience to build brand awareness and

retention.

Problem Statement

Kellyz Creations lack of digital footprint created no brand awareness or engagement and

the brand lacked knowledge on their consumer identity. As mentioned in the journal, Consumer

Culture and Political Ideology Plots in Social Media Campaigns. Journal of Promotion

Management, by A. Ovedale, establishing consumer identy can be beneficial when targeting

specific groups, including millennials (Ovedele, 2019). This has caused a delay in awareness

and effects the marketing strategies that will be implemented. This will be a problem during the

rollout of the brand pages because there will be no activity until the plan starts.

The desired state is that the rollout will create an avenue for consumers to use to become

attracted to and share the brand. Once the creation of the pages and a slight increase in

awareness, the engagement should also increase. This will be helpful in future posts because it

will set up consumers to view and directly engage with the brand. We will use the social media

plan to create the lack of brand awareness and engagement to be able to reach consumers in the

future. This will be helpful in reaching sales because without the engagement or brand

awareness, the products are unseen. The plan will rely heavily on “brand storytelling” as defined

in the journal, Sponsored Content is King: Industrially Situating the Rise of Brand Storytelling

through Digital Documentary, as a means to create brand awareness (Sponsored Content Is

King, 2018).
 Target Market and Buyer Persona

Target Market

Kellyz Creations has a target audience of 25–35-year old’s. The target audience is in Central

Florida or has a distinct interest in the vacation destination. The audience is very diverse in education

levels and makes an annual salary between $35,000 to $50,000 to be able to take vacations to the

Central Florida area. Kellyz Creations is used by this audience to escape real world problems,

customize their look and to also stay current with local events taking place.

The brand offers an energetic, excited and happy audience to take part in the products.

Using the target audience, the brand will reach them in a positive, engaging way to encourage

purchases, as outlined in the article, Analyzing the Impact of Social Media on Consumer

Attitudes Toward the Brand and their Intention to Purchase, by A. Farhangi , to maximize the

advertisement efforts (Farhangi, 2014). By having a brand that the audience trusts and wants to

connect with will assist in making those sales and reaching SMART Goals. The personality of

the audience wants a brand they can connect to.

The target audience is very active amongst social media in theme park and Florida

affairs. Similair to the journal by M. Learmonth titled , Social media snags power from king of

Super Bowl ad polls, we will heavily rely on the advertisement to be digital based to maximize

reach, and use this journal as an example of how a powerhouse such as the Super Bowl relies on

social media ads (Learmonth 2012). They are also very active in supporting creativity and theme

park merchandise to further their individuality. They use emotions from childhood or movies

they connect with when making their decisions. This can be related to the article involving

personality based engagement and consumer response due to emotions to reach audience by N.

Dodoo titled, Personality-Based Engagement: An Examination of Personality and Message

Factors on Consumer Responses to Social Media Advertisements. Journal of Promotion

Management, which incorporated studies and data that goes into appeal of products based on

personality trait (Dodoo, 2020).

The brand does not have an active relationship with the target audience. This will be

built by making engaging content across social media and incorporating grouping by using

hashtags, similar to the journal article, Consumer Branded #Hashtag Engagement: Can

Creativity in TV Advertising Influence Hashtag Engagement, by S. Stathopoulou, to maximize

efforts and build a relationship with the target audience (Stathopoulou, 2017). By incorporating

and creating hashtags that will be often used, we will create that connection and build a brand

they want to engage in.

Buyer Persona

Jasmine Jones is a 27 year old, college student that is located in Sussex County, New

Jersey. Due to the weather, Jasmine works hard and saves up money from her $35,000 a year

earnings from her bartending job at Applebee’s. She lives in a two bedroom apartment with a

roommate to divert costs. As a means of enjoyment, Jasmine uses Kellyz Creations posts and

images to stay current with Central Florida and plans her next vacation based of her interests.

She uses Instagram to see the products, Facebook and Twitter for blogs on current local events.

Jasmine takes school seriously and uses this energy as motivation to go onvacations to Central

Florida. Jasmine will go through Kellyz Creations posts to decide what will be her new event to

attend on vacation and also what she will eat when she visists. She is a frequent purchaser of

Kellyz Creations custom theme park accessories and shirts to maintain individualism.
 Disney Fan, by Insuremytrip (n.d) (Google)

Secondary Research

Sites such as Etsy do some of the work in advertisement for the brand by researching ways

and means to connect with audience efficiently. Adrianne Pasquarelli notes that “It took Etsy the

three-month-long period to find out that channels like TV, which drive high brand awareness, are

worth the money” (Pasquarelli, 2019). The work and research that went into this was after the

brand felt they were investing in too many channels to reach audience and wanted to ensure no

wasted energy. This is beneficial for a new brand like Kellyz Creations because the target work

is already started by the selling brand marketing to audience. This can create a higher number of

sales once the audience looks into Kellyz Creations specifically.

Making customized work can create a wider audience but also requires much more

preparation. As mentioned by Bryan Johnson of Tshirtgrowth.com, “If you have great reviews

but only a few designs, you are short-changing yourself. Remember, with Etsy, the more

products you have in your store, the better” (Robinson, 2022). This means that despite the fact

the some may like your broad range of items, you surely are missing an audience in the wide
space. By creating many design ideas, this will have more reach amongst audience and can even

cause some suggestions from initial views.

A successful way to target a certain audience on social media is through the use of paid

ads. Paid ads on Facebook in particular can be tailored to reach a certain age or region which

can be helpful to brand that is targeting a geolocation such as Central Florida. The article by

Advertising Age notes how brands can use Facebook to target specific audience to be more

efficient in their marketing. Due to an increase in usage of the brand being a channel of

advertisements and shares have led to a saturation that requires additional resources as explained

by a spokesman of the brand, “We're getting to a place where because more people are sharing

more things, the best way to get your stuff seen if you're a business is to pay for it," a Facebook

spokesman said””(Advertising Age, 2014).

Understanding social media habits of a brand’s audience is important in tailoring any

plan to advertise. Reaching members effectively relies on communication and attention.

According to a report in Time Inc., “Facebook said a test with Tropicana found that six-second

video ads were more effective than 15- or 30-second ads. The shortest units saw "higher brand

metrics across the board," Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said””.(Time Inc,

2017). The importance of the results show that with a younger audience, Kellyz Creations target

audience, shorter, attractive posts will cause more attention and growth.

Working on designs that are associated with other brands and pop culture, a topic to

research is copyrights. Researching and having an understanding of what is Public Domain and

not is important to avoid legal issues when creating sales online. This can lead to a thin line of

what is acceptable and not. According to Tara Jacobsen when referring to what can be ok and

not in association with copyright, she uses an example of a shirt that uses a specific image of a
character, “The shop on the right is using the EXACT images from the Disney movies. Now I

KNOW they will say that they are using that fabric, but the license is with the company that

manufactures the fabric, not with someone who makes a product from the fabric. Buying a

product with proprietary images doesn't give you the right to use them for something for

commercial intent” (Jacobsen, 2021). She uses a similar example of a designed birthday kit that

features the colors and themes of a character without mentioning the specific name or featuring

likeness as an example of using a brand without facing legal issues. Each item will need to be

investigated however as the only way to avoid a case is to research the copyright and even then

there is still room for error with Andrew Thomas explaining, “The issue may arise when (1)

analyzing whether an evolving character has a sufficiently developed immutable core of traits to

be copyrightable; (2) determining whether, and to what extent, a character that was created in a

work in the public domain but that evolved in works that are still protected enjoys copyright

protection; and (3) evaluating, in termination rights situations, how much of a character a grantor

can reclaim when the grantee added traits to the character after the assignment of rights”

(Thomas,2013).
 Primary Research Design

Kellyz Creations will use Instagram as a means of primary research to effectively survey

and target her audience. Dr. Istavan Benedek explains in his journal, Instagram as a Tool for

Destination Branding –Case Study on the Major Cities of Romania, “According to recent studies
the photo-sharing app plays a vital role in choosing our next destination; thus, it provides a

valuable tool for destinations to reach their audience and communicate through visually

appealing content”(Benedek, 2018). The research using her Instagram post featuring surveys and

data from most clicks and engaged posts as a means to study the target audience and be able to

reach them most effectively.

These questions will highlight certain interests that audience likes to participate in,

certain clothing and accessories they may purchase. This will assist in the data of the spending

limits that her target audience would be willing to pay for the customized products. The data will

also allow the brand to see what activities and brands she should create when designing her

products. From the limited questions the data should point the brand in the direction of what to

invest in with new products that can specifically target the purchasing audience.

Primary Research Findings

Introduction

Kellyz Creations offers unique products but has no message or communication system to

reach her target audience. This causes a slowdown in the steps necessary to establish brand

awareness because certain channels will need to be established in order to connect. Through the

use of the social media tools such as hashtags and precise, attention grabbing posts, Kellyz

Creations will be able to survey her audience that connected and made sure her posts have an

impact on them.

Method

Participants were chosen if they fit into the certain qualification of the target audience by if

they were geo located, had similar interests or engage with like-minded brands. In order to

establish this relationship, Kellyz Creations needs to create brand awarenesss. Iona Grancia
wrote in The Ethos of the Brand in Digital Times. Implications for Copywriters' Work and

explained, “A well-known writing technique in advertising is for the brand to 'speak' in the

voice of an implicit character that embodies the values and lifestyle of the target audience”

(Grancia, 2019). This can be used with the products the brand will be selling bu highlighting

the individuality. By creating this awareness, it is also vital for the message to be profitable.

E. Minton explained in the journal, Sustainable Marketing and Social Media, in order for a

campaign to be effective, there needs to be sustainability amongst the plan. If it costs $20 for

an ad but it only results in 1 sale at $5, the ad is not sustainable.

For this procedure, research was conducted on keywords that were searched and trending

on social media. Due to the limit of brand awareness and messaging of the brand, this plan

seemed more effective in establishing a base. Initially the plan was to take Facebook

advertisement to maximize the exposure and provide data to reveal an audience. However

after research, it was decided to avoid this until a target audience is established. A. Fou wrote

in, Social Media Ads Are DOA, “He states that advertisements placed on websites such as

Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube have click-through rates lower than .1 to one percent”

(Fou, 2008). There will be a middle ground when applying these tools such as paid

advertisement.

Without establishing a strong target audience, the message can be lost. Kelly Creations

needs to maximize the tools that the social media channels offer, without relying on them to

provide all the data. As explained by C. Delo in his journal article titled, Facebook Testing to

Match Offline Purchases to Online Profiles, advances in technology and in social media will

grow more ways that brands can reach audience, from connecting offline purchases to online

is just a start of how connected an audience can be to a brand. (Delo,2013)

Results

Shorter, attractive, and concise content will result in more data driven details and engagement

as noted by the article in Time, Inc. Additionally, through the use of smart and well used

hashtags, Kellyz Creations will be able to connect with her audience faster because they will link

in image and text in social media channels. As mentioned by S. Zhang in the article, Hashtag

Recommendation for Photo Sharing Service, “On the endogenous side, posts in photo sharing

services often contain both images and text, which are likely to be correlated with each other.

Therefore, it is crucial to coherently model both image and text as well as the interaction

between them” (Zhang, 2019). The reason for well used hashtags is also explained by the author

as important because other users need to have the exact image/text to connect so specific brand

keywords will not build a base. Reaching the target audience also relies heavily on knowing

how to communicate effectively with different generations. The Y generation is along the target

audience of Kellyz Creations and is often categorized as, “This generation is impatient as they

were raised in a world of technology and instant gratification” according to Kaylene Willaims in

her journal, Marketing to the Generations.(Williams, 2011).

Conclusion

Using tools and result findings, the social media plan for Kellyz Creations will come

together to maximize reach, engagement and sales volume. By using hashtags, influencers and a

well thought out and research target audience, the brand will maximize efficiency in their ad
placement and in developing their brand awareness amongst audience. Using short and concise

attractive ads that reach the audience personality. These SMART goals will be beneficial in the

success of the brand and to stay on top of competitors in a saturated market. This will also be

used to develop future studies to determine projects to create in the future or certain accessories

to capitalize on.
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