Introduction
Trend consultants have a prime role in selling merchandise and enhancing the sales value of the company. This assessment includes two parts: formative-trend digest meeting and strategic foresight brief of the selected brand Bvlgari.
1. Formative-Trend Digest Meeting
1. Introduction of selected trend and client
The selected trend for Bvlgari products is escapism as this trend includes seeking distraction by introducing fantasy. Bvlgari is an Italian Jeweler brand that has been founded over 130 years ago and this company has evolved with years as per changes in taste of fashion of the consumers. Bvlgari’s major products include gemstone jeweler, watches, leather goods and perfumes (Bulgari.com, 2021). This company is mainly a fashion brand and serves its product to consumers belonging to 18 various nations. There are around 5003 Bvlgari stores across the world and 4000 employees are working for this company that belongs to 80 different nations (Annualreports.com, 2020).
However, Covid 19 has negatively affected the growth of the firm in 2020 due to Covid 19 issue. The company has a loss of 17% in revenue, 28% fall in profit earned from recurring operations and around 34% loss in net profit of the company (Annualreports.com, 2020). This company is selling the luxury fashion brand while major products of this company are costly and cannot be afforded by law income earning customers. The Covid 19 situation has caused several individuals to lose their employment opportunities and thus purchasing luxury fashion brands cannot be affordable for them. However, Bvlgari Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Jean-Christophe Babin, is expecting to recover all the losses within two years as the situation is changing with rapid vaccination of the global population and the economy is also returning back to normal track.
The escapism trend can allow Bvlgari to improve their marketing strategies to grab the attention of the consumers. Bvlgari serves its customers mainly through general stores spread across various parts of the globe. However, Based on the views of Maital and Barzani (2020), the purchasing behavior of the consumers are changing with time and especially Covid 19 has changed the consumers purchasing habits as they are selecting to purchase products from online platforms. Thus Bvlgari is required to build a strategy to shift its traditional shops on online platforms by introducing the trend of the Jewells and fashion products that promote environmental awareness as global warming and climate change issues are becoming the emerging threat for human kind. The Covid 19 situation has made the global population realize that global issues are required to be handled at an early stage unless it can disturb the global economy. The next big threats for human kind are global warming and climate change issues and Bvlgari can use its product with a trending message of saving the environment by lowering carbon emission. Based on the views of Asare and Barfi (2021), equal efforts of industries, nations and each individual can help to save the world from climate change and global warming issues.
2. Customer of the Client for 2022
Bvlgari has global customers however major products of the company are manufactured and designed within Italy and still global transport has not started properly. However, vaccination drives are increasing and domestic economic activities are already running smoothly. The major customer of the Bvlgari belongs to developed nations. Products of this company are expensive and thus Bvlgari is mainly waiting for the initiation of international airline service of the developed nations that can allow this company to sell its product to consumers. However, the Bvlgari has to change its fashionable products by integrating the message of environmental protection and marketing its products on digital platforms.
The consumers of Bvlgari have already witnessed the global health crisis and this is adequate timing for introducing a message for spreading awareness for the next global disaster that can be global warming or climate change issues that have been the cause of the extinction of several small species (Sharma and Jham, 2020). The consumers of the Bvlgari are spread across 80 nations and there are already 5003 stores spread across various nations and thus a positive message and concern of Bvlgari can help to grab the attention of the consumers. The luxury bag and even jeweler items of the Bvlgari can include the message of reducing carbon emission and saving endangered animals from the earth.
3. Trend Framework
Trend Timeline
Figure 1: Trend Timeline for Bvlgari marketing trend in 2022
(Source: Created by Author)
The above trend framework represents the assumed trend timeline of the marketing of the Bvlgari products in 2022. The graph indicates that this trend will initiate with low percentage value while improving gradually with months and at the middle phase of 2022, from June to September, there will be faster growth in spread of trend. This trend can inspire other global firms to take such an initiative to promote the positive message for their consumers and thus the message for protecting the globe from upcoming threats will be possible.
Bvlgari is a global firm and thus its message is required to be strong and environmental protection through lowering energy consumption is an effective message. The Bvlgari can inform its consumers and indirectly to the global population regarding upcoming threats such as global warming and climate change issues that can again negatively impact on health, economy and employment opportunities of the global population. Thus it is essential to take the right step at the right time to save the global population from the emerging threat of global warming and climate change issues. The jeweler items and luxury bags of Bvlgari can either include written or printed messages regarding saving the world by taking the right initiative. Based on the views of Chauhan and Shah (2020), Marketing trends are based on the concept of knowing the audience and their expectation from the brand. However, global firms such as Bvlgari can easily spread awareness and each individual is aware about ignoring global issues and its direct impact on the global economy. Thus consumers of the Bvlgari will find it attractive as the company is going to spread awareness regarding genuine issues and sales of the company will increase due to positive change in marketing trends of the company.
4. Identified Opportunity and Risks for 2022
Opportunities
Increase in Brand awareness due to social message
The Bvlgari marketing approach is going to introduce the genuine global message with its brand to spread awareness and save the world from the next big global issues that can negatively affect the global economy and health. The bread awareness of Bvlgari can increase due to including genuine messages for saving the environment. The Bvlgari is a global form and thus the teaching of the oviduct is wider and thus this is essential to add a global message that is equally beneficial for every nation, community and population.
Attracting consumers with genuine message
The genuine message of Bvlgari can help to attract several customers and consumers can feel that Bvlgari is making an effort to protect the globe from global threats. Covid 19 issue is still affecting the global economy and income opportunities of several industrialists are blocked due to lockdown and closure of international airline services (Ali, 2020). Thus Bvlgari can use this circumstance for spreading its new market trend that is genuine and the next bi9g threat for the globe. The ambition of this new marketing trend will be to spread awareness and inspire industrialists to take the right initiatives to protect the globe from the next big disaster.
Increase in sales and revenue of the company
The CEO of the Bvlgari has already a major goal to receive all the losses in business in 2020 within the next 2 years with the right strategy of business. Thus changing marketing trends of the company and including message for global consumers can help to grab the attention of consumers and the sales and revenue of the company will rapidly increase within next 2 years.
Risks
The adaptability of the employees to adopt digital technology
Bvlgari employees are trained to handle customers in the general stores while the current marketing strategies of the company are designed to sell products to consumers through online mediums. Thus employees are required to be trained in handling Chatbot and other Artificial intelligence (AI) based digital technologies that are frequently used for handling customers 24/7 (Hasegawa et al. 2020).
Maintain one-to-one relationships with consumers
The digital medium can provide opportunities to increase one-to-one relationships with customers; however, this is practically challenging to maintain one-to-one relationships with global consumers as their queries are required to be resolved within the minimal duration.
Consumer’s interest
The global message for selling fashion and luxury products can be both beneficial and a point of criticism for this company (Gümüş, 2017). The marketing team of Bvlgari is supposed to monitor the impact of their new trend for marketing and ensure that the marketing approaches of the company are satisfying consumers’ interests.
2. Summative-Strategic Foresight Brief
Projection for 2022
Introduction to selected trend and Validation of brand and Market
- The trend for Bvlgari Company is Escapism and this brand requires new approaches to grab the attention of the consumers.
- This company is spread across 80 nations around the world. However, Covid 19 has an adverse impact on its profit margin and this company has faced 28% fall in its profit margin compared to 2019.
- This shows that this company requires a new marketing trend to attract the global customers.
The selected marketing trend Escapism will be implemented through adding written and printed messages regarding environmental protection on all its jewelers’ items and luxury fashion bags to spread awareness regarding next global threats for human kind, such as climate change and global warming.
Context of trend, consumers, and global influential forces
The context of the trend is based on the current needs of the world as the global population has suffered the impact of Covid 19 and the economy of the world has suffered due to avoiding global health crisis issues in the beginning phase. The research report already indicates that global warming and Climate change issues are becoming the prime reason for the extinction of several species. World temperature is increasing with time. However, Covid 19 situation has allowed reducing the environmental pollution as vehicles were not allowed to drive and the world population was bound to stay inside their homes.
Key and Relevant Visuals
Figure 1: Impact of global Warming
(Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fclimate.nasa.gov%2Feffects%2F&psig=AOvVaw2r25it8l5L9XWgHSS0inpq&ust=1630415274452000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=2ahUKEwivjber6NjyAhU-nEsFHZHQCbsQr4kDegUIARDFAQ)
Figure 2: Emerging Green House Effects
(Source:https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2F1.bp.blogspot.com%2F-yYo62C-wFGo%2FW0W4fneQDbI%2FAAAAAAAAKcw%2FHV1ilj4Z1V4R7dfAZBSQ2cCzlCSkudaMgCLcBGAs%2Fs1600%2Fgreen%252Bhouse%252Beffct.png&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biologyexams4u.com%2F2018%2F07%2Fgreen-house-gases-and-global-warming.html&tbnid=BDE6wosKEzOnyM&vet=12ahUKEwio99a36NjyAhWem0sFHft5AB0QMygTegUIARDQAQ..i&docid=fmXzWmedB2rsyM&w=1485&h=982&q=Emerging%20Green%20House%20Effects&ved=2ahUKEwio99a36NjyAhWem0sFHft5AB0QMygTegUIARDQAQ )
Figure 3: Risks and impact of climate change issue
(Source: https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.intechopen.com%2Fmedia%2Fchapter%2F39170%2Fmedia%2Fimage4.png&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.intechopen.com%2Fchapters%2F39170&tbnid=6Q7vElHq3GCKlM&vet=12ahUKEwjB3LLS6NjyAhUWsUsFHapiA1EQMygBegQIARB3..i&docid=EQvqgKtR0OaBPM&w=650&h=686&q=Risks%20and%20impact%20of%20climate%20change%20issue&ved=2ahUKEwjB3LLS6NjyAhUWsUsFHapiA1EQMygBegQIARB3)
Figure 4: Melting of glaciers due to rise in global temperature
(Source:https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.natgeofe.com%2Fn%2F4b97d7b9-7de4-4a0f-beb0-c942ee226c0b%2F01-global-warming-gallery.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalgeographic.com%2Fenvironment%2Farticle%2Fglobal-warming-effects&tbnid=dGnxOTN91phhtM&vet=12ahUKEwi28vjc6NjyAhXUEysKHeZWBtcQMygfegUIARDwAQ..i&docid=0jaL6orqf1CtZM&w=3072&h=2049&q=Melting%20of%20glaciers%20due%20to%20rise%20in%20global%20temperature&ved=2ahUKEwi28vjc6NjyAhXUEysKHeZWBtcQMygfegUIARDwAQ )
Trend Management
Opportunities
- The context of the trend is based on the current needs of the world as the global population has suffered the impact of Covid 19 and the economy of the world has suffered due to avoiding global health crisis issues in the beginning phase
- The Bvlgari can attract new consumers by adding genuine global message in marketing of its products
- The brand image of the company will increase by adopting this positive approach (Anuar et al. 2020).
- The sales and revenue of the company will increase due to positive market image and adding valuable message on all Bvlgari products
- Bvlgari will be able to diversify its luxury fashion products from substitute products by adding genuine massage for saving the environment.
3 Phase Timeline
Figure 5: Three phase timeline for marketing trend development of Bvlgari
(Source: Created by Author)
Annotated Ansoff Matrix Analysis
- The Ansoff matrix is a strategic tool to analyze and plan the strategic growth of an organization.
- Based on the views of Loredana (2017), Ansoff matrix explains that growth of an organization can be based on one of the four methods of market penetration, product development, market development and diversification.
- The selected marketing trends for Bvlgari brand is based on product diversification by adding the social message in marketing efforts of the company.
Conclusion
Thus it can be concluded that marketing trends of the firms are required to be adopted as per the situation and strategies are required to be developed for grabbing attention of the consumers easily. The Bvlgari can easily grab the attention of consumers by adding a genuine message to protect the environment against emerging global warming and climate change issues.
Reference List
Annualreports.com, (2020), LVMH, Passion bout Creativity, Available at: https://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReports/PDF/OTC_LVMUY_2020.pdf [Accessed on: 30/08/2021]
Bulgari.com, (2021), PEOPLE AND CAREERS, Available at: https://www.bulgari.com/en-in/the-maison/about-bvlgari/people-and-careers.html [Accessed on: 30/08/2021]
Chauhan, V. and Shah, M.H., (2020). An empirical analysis into sentiments, media consumption habits, and consumer behavior during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Purakala with ISSN, pp.0971-2143.
Gümüş, N., (2017). The effects of social media content marketing activities of firms on consumers’ brand following behavior. Academic Research International, 8(1), pp.1-8.
Loredana, E.M., (2017). The use of Ansoff matrix in the field of business. Annals-Economy Series, 2, pp.141-149.
Maital, S. and Barzani, E., (2020). The global economic impact of COVID-19: A summary of research. Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy Research, 2020, pp.1-12.
