Assessment of digital tools used by Charles & Keith

Charles & Keith, a fast-fashion boutique that has evolved to offer a full-fledged line of
footwear, bags, eyewear, accessories and costume jewelry, was established in Singapore in
1996.

Key Digital Drive

Digital Marketing is an important source of growth and a powerful way to increase brand
value by creating brand advocacy and a compelling story. Furthermore, digital gives
businesses the ability to completely redesign both front-end and back-end business processes
of a company. Charles & Keith also chose the path of the industrial revolution early, with
careful investment in websites and social networking sites. Thereby, building customer
loyalty, capturing emerging customer preferences, and streamlining the process of turning
ideas into new products.
More specifically, Charles & Keith’s app (on both iOS and Android) and the website make
shopping easier with an intuitive browser and category filters. The "Online Exclusives"
category includes one-of-a-kind designs that customers won't find in retail stores. The "The
Edit" category is a treasure trove of fashion editorials with content related to trending styles.
In addition, announcements about discounted products are always highlighted and placed at
the top of the page to increase customer experience. All items are accompanied by detailed
descriptions, so customers can know exactly what they are buying. Their Youtube with 9.27N
channel subscriptions and more than 400 videos, specializes in producing content about new
products and suggesting usage of their products for users.

The 6I’s Of Digital Marketing (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2012)

- Interactivity: Charles & Keith's website connects directly to other social networking
sites, so that users can reach the brand on many different platforms. C&K posts
photos and information about their products on social media, including Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Youtube; and sends many promotional information,
introducing the new Collection to customers via their personal Email. This increases
brand-to-customer engagement because social media allows users to react to and
comment on other people's posts. Recent example: C&K went viral with a climax of
marketing by inviting "a 17-year-old girl - Zoe Gabriel mocked for calling Charles &
Keith a luxury brand" to visit its headquarters, give her gifts and appoint her to be
C&K’s brand community ambassador. Obviously, by using social networks as a
bridge for this case, C&K succeeded in a marketing campaign that didn't take much
effort and money. Also, these social media pages can provide customers a stage of
communication. Furthermore, on Charles & Keith's website, the search bar is located
at the top of the page (both on mobile and desktop) and the categories are clearly
distinguished for the user.
- Intelligence: Convenience is evident when the website locates visitors and helps
customers find the store closest to them to enhance the experience, and collects
personal information through the use of cookies to assist customers, every page in this
site uses Google Tag Manager, this will allow for a complete analysis of consumer
 behavior, help them find what they want and stay on top of fashion trends with
weekly updates on the latest C&K products.
- Individualization: Customers who have enrolled into their accounts on the Charles &
Keith website or app have the option to select their preferred methods of
communication. For instance, they may decide whether to get new product
advertisements by email, SMS, or perhaps none at all.
- Integration: Internet marketing has the ability to integrate traditional and online
marketing methods. In the FAQ section on the website/app: Customers can find a lot
of frequently asked questions answered. In addition, they can ask personal questions
via email, “chat now”, phone number or social network of the brand.
- Industry restructuring: 700 stores and 4000 employees worldwide, C&K focuses on
optimizing the customer experience and focusing on selling on websites and apps.
- Independence of location: Charles & Keith has the ability to sell and deliver products
and services to a variety of countries. Also C&K can provide the services of free
delivery (total bill above a certain level) and free returns on 30 days.

Website
Website is one of the tools that play a very important role for a brand. According to Kasey
Kaplan (2020), a beautiful website and clearly convey information to consumers can greatly
increase the reputation of that organization. The website also answers the question: Who are
you, what do you represent and what do you stand for, so that brands can reach many
potential customers. And in the burgeoning digital age, brands leverage historical traffic that
has visited their website so they can target the most qualified customers and get the best ROI
on their ad spend. C&K's website has been rated 9.4 (Nibbler, 2023), the following analysis
will show what Charles & Keith did well on their website based on Charles Hofacker's
academic theory "5 stages of Information Processing".

5 stage of Information Processing (Charles Hofacker, 2000)

Exposure: Charles & Keith has a website with a very clean and clear interface, laid out like a
curious magazine along with eye-catching colors to ensure web visitors are exposed to the
site long enough to absorb the content.
Attention: Physical factors such as contrasting color intensity, bold text, lowercase,
uppercase, lowercase (depending on the content to be emphasized), stories integrated into the
product attract and retain customers' attention when they visit the website. With the number
of customers accessing on mobile accounts for about 67% (Semrush, 2023), C&K also
focuses on improving the quality of mobile web browsers to increase customer experience.
Comprehension and Perception: On the website, all products are clearly categorized to help
consumers navigate the site easily, such as new in, kids, etc. Or also categorizing categories
such as shoes, bags, sunglasses, etc. There is also a call-to-action when it comes to the sale
season, the word "sale" will always be highlighted in red, and emphasized at the top of the
page.
Yielding and Acceptance: All pages of this website have appropriate page titles used (in
search results and at the top of the browser window when accessing the website) to help
optimize search engines for users. There is a clear navigation bar, helping users not be
confused when accessing the website. Furthermore, this website is served with GZIP
encryption, which reduces the load time significantly, giving consumers smooth and fast
access. As a result, they have a pretty impressive average of 08:04s in February (Semrush,
2023).
Retention: In addition to the ability to notify customers via email about sale information, new
collections, ... to customers, Charles & Keith's website has an outstanding feature that is
"Wishlist", which always reminds customers of their favorite products and indirectly
motivates customers to buy that product.

Social Media
Social media is a digital platform that enables individuals to produce and share contents of
their choosing to others. It has control over a huge variety of websites and apps - those allow
communication between users, allowing people to keep in touch. With just one click, users
may share images, movies, documents, and ideas. Social media has developed into a very
effective platform for companies and improved commerce through online shopping because it
is so simple to transport messages and data across international borders. Charles & Keith's
Instagram with 1.9M followers along with nearly 9000 posts is a bright spot that will be
analyzed using Kietzmann et al's HoneyComb academic model. Therefore, to clarify how
Charles & Keith's media campaign works and assess the effectiveness of their plan.
Charles & Keith targets women of a young age, identity can be based on the products
produced by the brand, the storytelling through collections and especially the appearance of
KOLs and KOLs. Media Ambassador on social networking sites. Global brand ambassador is
Krystal Jung (@vousmevoyez) - a Korean-American singer and actress with 10.5M
followers, ITZY - a South Korean girl group formed by JYP Entertainment, owns 18.9M
followers and these idols are especially influential in the Asian market. The success of the
ambassador image can be mentioned most clearly through the increase in the number of post
interactions by more than 100% compared to normal, this means that the brand has attracted
the attention of the public and the level of recognition of the brand has increased. The
influence of Charles & Keith's media campaigns is also reflected in the way the brand listens
to customer conversations. Many users share that they think after the media boom in January
(the incident with Zoe Gabriel), this brand would go up very strongly so they rush to pay for
bags, high heels are already in their wishlist for a long time, to avoid product price increases.
Charles & Keith's posts are pre with a high frequency, full of media during international
holidays, but the "message" section takes a long time to receive a response. Charles & Keith's
media relationship with customers is considered to be quite close, which is evident when the
brand always pays attention and listens to customers' opinions, and sometimes interacts by
commenting on articles. Posted by customers with brand tags. Social networking platforms
have a lot of mechanisms to quantify the identity of users and businesses such as: likes,
verified badge, number of followers, etc. The higher the reputation index, the more
trustworthy it will be in the eyes of social network users. However, humans are capable of
distinguishing between legitimate metrics of reputation and interactions performed by BOTs
and manual human manipulation. There have been many studies showing that accounts using
interactive BOTs always score high in reputation indicators, but lose points in the eyes of
users because they do not create authenticity. Indeed, Charles & Keith has scored a lot of plus
points in the eyes of users because the intimate interaction between the brand and the
customer is quite high, the brand also pays a lot of attention to the user's concerns to create a
variety of good experiences, or even catch the creative trend close to Gen Z.

Recommendations and Improvement

Analyzing the website through the semrush tool, the report shows that the brand has focused
on 2 main keywords in the US region, "Charles" and "Heels". Ignore "Charles" temporarily
because this word is in the brand name, I proceed to use Google Trends to search for the
keyword "Heels" in the last 30 days, the last 90 days, the last 12 months, but still can't see the
appearance of Charles & Keith in “Related Topics”. Therefore, I believe that brands should
focus on optimizing their SEO writing so that the website appears on the first page of Google
in the relevant search category.
In addition, TikTok is a potential platform for Charles & Keith - recognized as a user-friendly
brand when constantly commenting and reacting to videos that publicly mention the brand
itself. TikTok is increasingly an important role for social network users when it converges
many features: edit videos, post photos/videos, make friends, send messages, shop, sell, find
information,... And its impact is very high, as mentioned above, in January of this year a
video of a 17-year-old girl - Zoe Gabriel pushed the issue of controversy “whether Charles &
Keith is a luxury brand or not” reached the climax. Charles & Keith not only interacted with
the video directly, but also handled the media crisis wisely: inviting Zoe to headquarters and
appointing her as a brand ambassador. Many TikTok users say that they are very satisfied
with the handling of the brand, they support by telling about their feelings when they first
bought a C&K bag (like @rahajengsisters) and many people have bought a viral bag (bag that
Zoe bought), it also shows in numbers: website visits reached 2.8M in January 2023
(Similarweb, 2023). I think that this is the right time for C&K to seriously create
user-friendly content, cooperate with TikToker in the same industry to take advantage of the
heat of the moment.

Measurement Tools
Bằng cách sử dụng Kingsnorth (2019) 5 step digital marketing evaluation, ta có thể đánh giá
website. Họ suggest rằng bạn cần phải xác xác định mục tiêu của doanh nghiệp, kết quả
mong muốn, KPIs, mục tiêu và phân khúc để xác định xem liệu tổ chức có thành công. Ví dụ:
Charles & Keith đã từng phân tích và đánh giá mức độ nổi tiếng và phủ sóng của ITZY để
chọn họ làm gương mặt đại diện nhãn hàng toàn cầu. Thật vậy, tháng 10 năm 2022, sau khi
thông báo bổ nhiệm đó, lượng traffic kéo về website đã lên cao hơn rất nhiều, trở thành tiền
đề của khách hàng tiềm năng đối với các bộ sưu tập như “Charles & Keith x ITZY”
Chúng ta còn có thể đánh giá tính hiệu của Charles & Keith’s social marketing strategy
through benchmarking (Smart Insights, 2022). Dựa trên 5 stage đánh giá, tôi tin rằng Charles
& Keith hiện tại đang ở “Stage 3: Defined”. Sở dĩ bởi vì số lượng người theo dõi trên các nền
tảng của Charles & Keith khá thấp, so sánh với đối thủ của họ: Zara, Instagram của nhãn
hàng này với lượng follow cao gấp 50 lần. Và hơn thế nữa, theo báo cáo của Social Blade,
lượng engagement rate của Charles & Keith tương đối thấp (0.06%), điều này dĩ nhiên là do
họ không lạm dụng BOTs để đạt chỉ số danh tiếng. Để cải thiện điều này, họ có thể giảm số
lượng bài đăng và tập trung vào chất lượng để có thể thu hút sự chú ý của khách hàng, nó có
thể là content hoặc hình ảnh độc đáo.