BRAND REPORT

Our vision is to create a place our people want to be, where they can

innovate together whilst playing an integral part of the ASOS success

story.

On ASOS’s PLC website it states:

ASOS is a global online fashion and beauty retailer and offers over 50,000 branded and own label product lines across womenswear, menswear, footwear, accessories, jewellery and beauty with approximately 1,500 new prod-uct lines being introduced each week.Aimed at fashion forward twenty some things globally,

ASOS attracts 18.5 million unique visitors a month and as at 31 December 2011 had 7.0 million registered users and 4.0 million active customers from 191 countries (defined as having shopped in the last 12 months).

In the past ten years, ASOS have developed a globally acknowledged brand, win-ning multiple awards and creating an innovative fashion brand of which features an afford own brand range of clothing as well as multiple high quality and upper tier brands, such as Dolce & Gabanna, Juicy Couture and Kurt Geiger, giving it a unique selling point in comparison with other online fashion sites, such as Boohoo.com and owntherunway.com, both of which sell their own brand of clothes for a generally more affordable price, ranging up to around £50-£60, as opposed to ASOS, of which go in to the £1000 mark.

It is clear ASOS is aiming for a more upmarket audience of which are fashion concious, as a lot of its site is focused on the idea of people’s urge to dress like celebrities and to get the ‘runway’ look. All of the images of the garments are taken on a white background, on a fully made-up model, regularly in high heeled shoes, in order to get a more

‘celebrity’ style look and regularly features an image of a celebrity wearing a similar/the same outfit.

ASOS’s Background....

Social Networking

ASOS relies heavily on social networking

to develop a real connection with it’s customers. Their Twitter and Facebook are regularly updated - often directly towards the customers, paticularly Twitter accounts where the ‘tweeter’ regularly ‘@’s’writers of online fashion blogs, and even audience members with queries regarding their orders/garments/returns etc.

Twitter...

Facebook..

The Brand....

Founder of the company ASOS (As Seen on Screen), Nick Robertson, first big move for the company was in 2001 where ASOS PLC Holdings joins AIM on the London Stock Exchange, making the beginning in recognition for the company - and

today he aim to achieve sales of £1bn by 2015. Marketing, technology and functionality are shaped by Robertson who continually pours resources in. Marketing costs have increased 54% year on year, technology costs by 72% and staff costs by 38%. These technology investments have included the introduction of country-specific sites, such as those for the States, France and Germany, as well as mobile and Facebook facilities. Alongside these additions, also comes improvements

such as the search and recommendation tools and new

offerings such as ASOS marketplace, Lookbook, blogs and

the ASOS Fashion Finder, which offers outfit-building ideas and sometimes leads the user to transactional websites outside of the host brands.... another unique selling point for ASOS.

Nick Robertson results from a one-on-one focus group shows up the brand’s values as follows;

ASOS Group is considering reclassifying its delivery costs to operating expenses,

as delivery investment is increasingly deployed as a marketing expenditure.

This makes reference to the free deliveries and returns ASOS bought in last year and have now become it’s USP in the increasingly crowded online fashion sector. Last year’s annual report included a statement from Robertson that the cost incurred by offering free deliv eries and returns, which stood to threaten margins, was justified.

ASOS’s brand is heavily focussed on high-fashion and celebrity. Regular articles, including the online blog, make constant

references to living a celebrity lifestyle.

2011 Launches ASOS Fashion Finder and ASOS Facebook Shop. Plans to launch Spain, Italy and Australia-specific sites

2001 2011

ASOS PLC Holdings joins AIM on the London Stock Exchange

2004: Introduces ASOS own-label for women. The company returns a profit for the first time.

2005: Introduces ASOS Beauty

2006: ASOS is the first UK online store to launch catwalk

2007: ASOS introduces own-label for men and launches Asos Magazine

2008: ASOS launches the ‘ASOS Outlet’

2009: Launch of ASOS life and ASOS designer store

2010: ASOS launch the ASOS marketplace, & Amemrican/German/French sites, as well as ASOS mobile

Visual Analysis...

The ASOS website is very simple to navigate - each product is featured in a box - all with the same colour back drop, allowing continuity, with similarly styled, high-fashion, catwalkesque models. The text is simple and continuous, with the price in black allowing complete clarity for browsers. Along with this, there are options along the top in which ASOS have divided the items in to sub sections, (in this case, dresses have been sub-categtorized in to headers such as ‘evening dresses’, ‘casual dresses’ and ‘maxi dresses’.

Layout

The colour scheme is simple - black and white - allowing the focus to be simply on the clothes. In comparison with other sites such as Boohoo.com which is often a lot of different coloursm which can make the site look busy and unappealing, ASOS makes sure it’s focus is purely on fashion.

Colour Scheme

ASOS gives it customers a great deal of choice when it comes to online shopping. Not only is there a vast choice ranging in every brand imaginable, but there is also, to aid the customer’s search, multiple choices in a left hand tool bar which allow narrowing down from price to sleeve length. A simple text box as seen to the right, cuts down the searching time, also with options to search one colour, brand, season style, item style and a slider to determine the customer’s ideal price range

Options

The site is very minimalistic when searching for clothes - well spaced and clear for ease of read, and this simple effective technique increases sales. Throughout the website, the spatial continuity goes on and this makes browsing more simple.

Space

Visual Analysis...

The A-Z of brands featured

on the ASOS website.

The fact that it features this many is a portal for a bigger target audience - the more that is available,

the more appealing it is. As well as the massive price range, the varying styles on the site also appeal to a

mass audience.

ASOS offers a tool in which users can enter keywords related to the item in which they wish to purchase and the website finds all products similar to said searched word. On such a vast website, and in a search for a precise product, this increases ease of use and decreases time taken to find said product.

Colour scheme....

ASOS’s site relies heavily on it’s black and white theme, a sign of simplicity and crisp clarity as well as high fashion. All the text featured is similar and well spaced for easy reading and everything is clear to the viewer. Important notices such as ‘Free Delivery Worldwide’ and ‘10% Student Discount’ are clearly displayed, too.

Images....

The images featured on the website are crisp, clear high-fashion images, evidently something that is possibly the most important part of the website.

Social Networking....

ASOS has lately become heavily involved in the social networking scene - with its own Facebook and Twitter pages and an app for the iPad/iPhone etc. This opens up a lot more windows and makes ASOS a lot more accessible on the move.

The option to search....

Company Relationships

Boohoo.com

Boohoo’s site is a lot less sophisticated, focusing on bright colours and childish simplicity to lure in it’s consumers.

The Twitter background consists of pastel candy stripes and a clashing model with logo placed above her head. The profile picture is bright pink and doesn’t seem to fit with the

background making it look clumsy. However, Boohoo also have a lot of contact with their consumers via social networking and even has options on clothing items to ‘like them’ on

Facebook or share with Google+ users.

Boohoo is a lot more ‘high-street’ fashion in comparison with ASOS, but it is still a close rival. It’s similar choice in clothings makes it a tight contender, especially with items at a

snip of the price of ASOS.

Boohoo’s site contains a similar colour scheme to that of ASOS, how-ever, the addition of the bright pink instantly lowers the target audience.

On the other hand, the colour is eye-catching and draws quick attention to such things as the ‘previous buyers reviews’, how many of the item are left

in stock and the ‘add to basket’ button.