jean-paul GAULTIER

Even at the highest echelons of fashion, where clothes are still made by hand, there is a yearning for the unique. Next January, Jean Paul Gaultier plans to introduce a "semicouture" line made in his Paris atelier but sold like rtw in Gaultier shops. "Women want things that are more personal," Gaultier says. "They want something that is less expensive than couture but more than standard ready-to-wear."

It was time, to listen that one designer trys to response of the women demand, in fact, he has true, we search to have wear which are differents of the others or of the commons women, but not too expensive. Today, it's impossible to buy fashion clothes, perhaps with this new line it will be possible!

So, I have just one thing to say: thanks Jean Paul !!!

The French "buzz marketing" agency Nouveau Jour has been collaborating with the creative team of fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier on a new online section for the designer, conceived as a virtual world to experience and share chance encounters.

In addition to the permanent part of the site, there are also online "events" that are marketed by surprise emails just 15 minutes beforehand, I presume so that most people will miss it and the lucky few will create a "buzz". Likewise, when I contacted the agency for more information, they sent me a prompt reply with a link to the press section, which I am supposed to keep "secret between you and me". It seems all a little silly to me (and frankly, so was the violin concert event – see below), but perhaps I don't belong to their target customer base.

Starting from the assumption that each encounter is the starting point of a creation, the site features three different encounters, each resulting in three creations.

"Tango Painting” allows people to encounter other people differently, by designing and tracing graphic concepts like in a game using one or two mice, to enhance them with artist drawings and to share them with other people over the Internet.

"The Fragrance Alchemist” is a film about a little prince who lives in the streets of a vertical megalopolis and has decided to create the perfume of his dreams. Everyone may add their personal creative touch to this manga by creating its virtual fragrance and passing on this mutant story to their partner or soul mate.

"When Zhang meets Veng” is one of their "events", a chance encounter between the Russian violin-player Maxim Vengerov and the Chinese cult film-director Zhang Yimou.

Update: apparently the buzz marketing agency has been spamming (correction: "sending several promotional emails to" – see comment) some "cool" sites (including Wired and Cool Hunting) for weeks with the statement that these sites were elected to promote the "event" before the others. None of them wrote anything.

An interresting blog:

http://www.experientia.com/blog/category/advertising/

Introduction

This report will look at:

-The favorable points according to the survey

-The negative points shown by the study

-The synthesis of the principal points

-Recommendations to resolve the negative points 

Findings

The favorable points:

-100% of the respondents know Jean Paul Gaultier

        = 40% discover the designer on TV or press articles

        = 25% thanks to the ad campaign

        = 15% with the Jean Paul Gaultier perfumes

        = 15% with someone else (friends or family)

- The shops in town center are the most attractive store, that meens that people who buy “Jean Paul Gaultier” clothes like the quality of the collection sold in those type of store. This way of buying shows that the consumers like to take time and give more importance to the purchase. They like the contact with the salesperson, they prefer to be helped. It gives a good image of the brand.

- Most people see the designer as a fashion man, an original, a strange man who is a little bit provocative and eccentric (as he wants to be seen)

- His advertising campaigns are seen as provocative by 55% of people, attractive by 35% and 45% think they are innovative. In other words the brand’s ads have a good image, and a good result. The fact that they are provocative, attractive and innovative help people to see them and to retain them, it’s a very good advantage for the brand. 

The negative points: 

-  65% had never bought Jean Paul Gaultier’s products

             = 70% think that the JPG’s products are too expensive

             = 45% find the products too strange

             = 15% don’t like them

- 87% of those who buy his products buy perfumes and 25% clothes for all days, in others words, the perfumes are for Jean Paul Gaultier the bigger market, even if, his trade is to design clothes.

- The purchase frequency is less than once per year for the majority of the consumers (about 60%), the most frequent purchases are once per quarter, but just for less than 10% of the consumers.

- 95% of the respondents think that the prices are expensive, the other 5% think they are accessible. This conclusion can be an advantage for the luxury image, but for the perfumes, which are the most sold the prices are perhaps too expensive  

Conclusions

The firm and especially Jean Paul Gaultier have a good image, a respectable image, he is really well known. The brand has a distribution network and advertising campaigns which favour its image.           

 Assessment: 

Place:  a complete distribution network                       

Promotion: effective, the objectives are complete

Price: seen as too expensive, but guarantee of a luxury and quality image for clothes                       

Product: the consumer prefers buying perfume, more accessible. 

Recommendations

The firm needs finding a way to change the vision that the JPG’s products are expensive. Perhaps it’s time to think about a decrease in the perfume prices, in order to relaunch sales.Finally, the study shows that the town center shops are more attractive than the department stores, the firm needs perhaps develop this network, which attracts the consumer with the services that it includes.

“In the spring of 1997, the designer Jean Paul Gaultier presented his black-chic collection, which combined various aesthetic expressions of the black diaspora from traditional African style to Harlem street wear. The most distinctive element of that critically acclaimed collection was the way in which he relied on head wraps and hats to give his models a noble bearing. Black women have had a long and well-documented affinity for millinery of all sorts.”

With this show, the designer promoted the integrity of the difference, he showed that the differences are in head and no in the fashion world. Every body can have the class, the beauty in the condition that people accepte to look at them. It was a good advert for JPG who was accepted as a simple man who is not afraid about ways of thinking of other people, he has his ideas and he defends that. In fact, today, no designer has present a collection dedicated of the black people.

The French creator decided in 2003 to launch a men brand. It was difficult to find how launching this new market, in fact, it was at this time, a niche where nobody tried to invent a new market. As the JPG’s strategy is to be different and provocative, he decided to try his chance in this market. So, he launched a range at this time, the challenge was to present beauty products, of which make-up, for men. Firstly, he decided to present this new range in a web site completely dedicated to this range. In this site men could watch videos showing the gestures to use the products. Men can find the listing of the points of sale. With this listing, JPG targeted his consumers; in fact, men who came in his point of sale are future customers. But in case of men would not be seen when they are buying some make-up, they can buy in the shop in hot line proposed by the creator.   

Firstly, JPG to have a name dressed Madonna, an international star, with this method, JPG was a worldwide star of the fashion world.
He continued to provoke people with his eccentric clothing: But who is this unknown man who equips Madonna and who wears like an ET?  
In fact, the strategy of JPG was the provocation with is eccentricity.
This meaning continues… Today, the JPG perfumes ad suggest homosexual orientation, a subject which is in our society always sensible so provocative.

The more provocativ marketing action of JPG was perhaps when he launched his parfumes:  naked bodies as bottles. I think that Mr Gaultier revolutionized the world of the esthetism.

After having a name and a reputation, Jean Paul Gaultier decides to leave his own collections. In fact, now, the french creator represente brands as Hermes.
It was Gaultier’s most inspired interpretation of the spirit of Hermes goods label – which began life as a saddler and is renowned for its leather goods and silk scarves – since he took on the job of Hermes’s women’s designer two years ago.