BUILDING A BRAND – SOCIAL MEDIA PLAN

Margarita Arbelaez
Cristiano de Matos
Joshua Hwang
Vic Nodalo
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Table of contents

Page

Current Situation

o What is Uniqlo? 2
o Brand Ambassadors 4
o Who is Uniqlo’s Audience? 4
o Social Media Presence 6
o Competition 7
o Uniqlo’s Mobile App 9
Business Objectives and Communication Strategies 10

Platforms of Choice 11

o Why Instagram 11
o Why Facebook 13
Tactics and Content Samples 14

Evaluation 17

Sources 19

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 Uniqlo – Building a brand on social media
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Current Situation Company History

•••

The parent company that created

What is Uniqlo? the Uniqlo brand was called Ogori
Shōji, existing since 1949 in Ube,
Brand Introduction Yagamushi, Japan.
Key Message: “Lifewear. Simple made better & made for all”
What is Wave? Brief
In 1991, history/facts
the name was changed
Uniqlo is a Japanese company in the retail clothing industry that opened • •to• "Fast
from "Ogori Shōji"
its first store in May 1984 under the name “Unique Clothing Warehouse”. Retailing". By 1994, there were over
100 Uniqlo stores operating
It employs more than 43,000 people globally and it’s one of six brands
throughout Japan.
that constitute the Fast Retailing Co., Ltd., a public retail holding
company. The new name was intended to be
“Uniclo”, from the contraction of
They are known as a casual clothing brand that creates unique products “unique clothing”, but a clerical
error changed the “C” into a “Q”,
with basic designs and good-quality natural materials at a low price. Its
originating the brand name as it is
clothing is fashionable but does not try to make fashion statements. today.
They offer clothes and accessories for women, men, kids and babies.
Their products include outerwear, tops, dresses, bottoms, skirts, In 1997, Fast Retailing began
producing their own clothing and
intimates, innerwear, socks, belts, scarves and bags. selling it exclusively.

The brand has more than 1,300 stores in Australia, Belgium, Canada, In 2002 Uniqlo began their overseas
China, France, Germany, Hong Kong & Macau, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, expansion by opening stores in
Shanghai and London.
Malaysia, Netherlands, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden,
Taiwan, Thailand, UK and USA. In 2016, the brand opened its first
two Canadian stores at the Toronto
Eaton Centre and at Yorkdale
Shopping Centre.

The company is aiming to become

the world’s biggest retailer of
private label with a continuous
growth rate of 20% per year.

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Uniqlo opened its first store in Canada on September 30, 2016, at the Toronto Eaton Centre and
today has nine in total - four in British Columbia and five in Ontario.

Their business strategy revolves around innovation and their customers.

According to Uniqlo’s website, their online sales in Mainland China and the United States account
for over 15% and slightly more than 20% of their total revenue, respectively. In Japan, they were
63.0 billion yen or 7.3% of the total, in FY2018.

Their Customer Insight Team uses big data (including product comments, purchase trends and
requests submitted to their Customer Center) and analyzes this information to predict demand
and make product improvements.”

Uniqlo is committed to sustainability (Corporate Social Responsibility), and its strategy focuses on
products, supply chain, employees, stores and communities.

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The following is the industry ranking of fast fashion retailers regarding sales as of May 2018:

1. Inditex (Zara)
2. H&M
3. Uniqlo
4. GAP
5. Limited Brands (Victoria’s Secret, Pink, La Senza, Henri Bendel)

For a long period, Uniqlo’s brand communication strategy focused on marketing flyers and TV
commercials. However, once the digital era arrived, they started to communicate and position the
brand using its unique in-store environment, brand campaigns, collaborations with designers,
digital marketing and Global Brand Ambassadors.

Regarding brand reputation, it can be said that it has gained momentum in the last ten years. A
decade ago, not many people knew about the existence of the brand outside Japan. However,
they have been quickly growing in popularity, thanks to their high-end designer collaborations.
Although they have been labelled as a “fast-fashion” retailer, they have tried to distance
themselves from its competitors by not offering disposable clothes and selling quality products
made out of premium materials. The brand also focuses on sustainability and corporate
responsibility as a differentiating factor from traditional “fast-fashion’ brands.

Another of Uniqlo’s key brand aspects comes from its textile technology innovations. They have
developed signature innovations like “HeatTech,” a fabric developed in conjunction with a material
science firm that turns moisture into heat and has air pockets in the fabric that retain that heat.

Brand Ambassadors
Uniqlo currently has six global brand ambassadors:

• Roger Federer - Tennis player, Switzerland.

• Kei Nishiroki - Tennis player, Japan.
• Shingo Kunieda - Wheelchair tennis player, Japan.
• Gordon Reid - Wheelchair tennis player, Scotland.
• Adam Scott - Professional golfer, Australia.
• Ayumu Hirano - Pro snowboarder, Japan.

The Global Brand Ambassadors represent Uniqlo in tournaments/competitions throughout the

year. This endorsement means wearing the brand and enjoying high functionality materials. They
select only the most successful athletes in their respective fields and both the brand and the
Ambassadors share a goal of making a positive change in the world. Uniqlo has entered these

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partnerships inspired by the accomplishments of these athletes. This is also an innovation from
Uniqlo, as it isn’t a sportswear manufacturer, but uses sports athletes, which helps reinforce their
“Lifewear” message, as in: “Even athletes like the quality and comfort of our materials.”

Who is Uniqlo’s Audience?

Uniqlo’s target audience:

• Young Adults – 18 to 35-years old

• Both genders
• Urban-based
• Customers who value material quality and
practicality as much as fashion
• Tech savvy (used to e-commerce, apps)
• Have disposable income
• Value Corporate Social Responsibility

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Social Media Presence

In terms of social media analysis, we focused on the platforms the brand has available in Canada.
It has local Canadian accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. On
Pinterest, they have a global account. Their social media presence is active on Facebook, Twitter
and Instagram, but not so much on YouTube and LinkedIn.

• 99.4 thousand Likes

• 103 thousand Followers
• Page created on June 2010
• Replies to messages within a day

• 10.3 thousand followers

• 129 accounts followed
• 1623 tweets
• Joined Twitter on April 2016

• 700 followers
• Ten messages/posts
• Irregular post frequency, with their first
post over a year ago, last one three
months ago.
• Posts only job openings

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• 41.1 thousand followers

• 126 accounts followed
• 862 posts

• 311 subscribers
• 53 videos uploaded
• 59.4 thousand total video views
• Joined the platform on October 2016

All their social media platforms are used for brand awareness, sales and marketing, except
LinkedIn. On all accounts, except YouTube, they post good quality pictures and videos that are
part of their campaigns.

They post the same messages and photos/videos on every platform. If we take into account the
number of people that like/follow their pages, they don’t generate much engagement with their
posts. However, out of the five platforms, Instagram and YouTube are the ones that promote the
most engagement: Instagram regarding likes, comments and video views; YouTube regarding
views. Although overall not very responsive, one can still find a few responses from the brand.

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Competition
Uniqlo’s direct competitors are Zara, H&M, Gap and Forever 21.

Zara
Has a very active social media presence with accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest
and YouTube. All of these are global pages, not exclusive to the Canadian market. They post the
same messages and photos/videos on every platform.

Platform
Numbers Facts
(Global)
• On average, posts get thousands
Instagram 30 million followers of likes, hundreds of comments
and thousands of views
• Low engagement from followers
(likes, shares, comments)
Facebook 27 million likes
• Low brand response numbers to
followers
• Low engagement (likes,
Twitter 1.3 million followers comments, shares)
• Unresponsive to comments

Pinterest 604 thousand followers

YouTube 64 thousand subscribers • Very active on this platform

H&M
Has a very active social media presence with global accounts on Instagram, YouTube, Google+,
Pinterest and LinkedIn; and Canadian accounts on Facebook and Twitter. They mainly post the
same messages and photos/videos on both platforms.

Platform
Numbers Facts
(Canadian)
• Low engagement from followers
(likes, shares, comments)
Facebook 35.8 million likes
• High response rate from the
brand to messages/posts

Twitter 86 thousand followers • Low engagement by followers

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Gap
Has a very active social media presence with global accounts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
and Pinterest, and only a Canadian account on Twitter.

Platform
Numbers Facts
(Canadian)
• High retweet rate from their
other accounts
Twitter 15 thousand followers
• Low engagement by followers
• No tweets in November 2018

Forever 21
Has a very active social media presence with Canadian accounts on Instagram and Facebook, and
global accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and Google+.

Platform
Numbers Facts
(Canadian)

Instagram 9.6 thousand followers • High engagement by followers

• Low engagement by followers

Facebook 15.6 million likes
• Low response numbers by brand

Uniqlo’s Mobile App

The brand has a current approach of “mobile first” regarding e-commerce, providing online
shipping only via their mobile app, which can be a deterrent for some potential clients who’d
rather have a traditional experience to do their transactions - a user experience similar to what
Amazon and eBay customers have become used to. It is worth noticing that the mobile app so far
seems to be unstable and generally perceived as very poor in performance and features by its
users, as seen in the Google App Store reviews:

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If we had access to the backend numbers, it would be interesting to analyze the long-term effects
of having an app that gives users such apparent bad UX, to the brand’s reputation (and even
“offline” sales). As the brand made a bet to go mobile-first (and only, so far), it is fair to say they
should have invested more time and effort into ensuring the app provides its customers with a
smooth and problem-free experience.

Business Objectives and Communication Strategies

The following are the business objectives and respective communications strategies underlying
our social media plan:

Business Objective Communications Strategy

Increase brand awareness of the
Increase Uniqlo Canada’s brand awareness
qualities/values Uniqlo represents through
on social media
shareable pictures/videos on social media
Attract new customers to the app via social
Increase mobile app sales
media campaigns
Increase the customer's satisfaction by
Increase the brand focus on Corporate
making the process of manufacturing,
Social Responsibility and its
distribution, sales and disposal more
perception/association by the public
transparent.

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As discussed earlier, Uniqlo and Uniqlo Canada wish to drive online sales to their mobile
application. Through mobile shopping, the customer’s experience can be crafted into the modern
Japanese aesthetic of Uniqlo, while generating important user data. Currently, online sales make
up approximately 10% of their total sales, where Uniqlo is targeting 30%. The current difficulty is in
the user design of the application itself and its integration with social media.

Uniqlo wishes to drive mobile application sales, but links from social media posts lead to the Uniqlo
Canada website, from which no products can be purchased online. Customers can easily be
directed towards the mobile application or a desktop website depending on their browser and
platform. If social media links lead to the mobile platform directly, this would significantly
streamline the user experience.

Facebook allows for more long-form posts and has the analytics tools that provide both an
enormous potential for demographic detailing and the cost-efficiency that are ideal for the brand
to use (without needing to resort to third-party software/human resources and subsequent
increase of costs). This tactic would be trackable to identify the success of the campaign and will
be discussed in the following sections.

Platforms of Choice
We chose the following social media platforms to focus our efforts on:

Business Objective Social Media Platform

Increase Uniqlo Canada’s brand awareness

Instagram
on social media

Increase mobile app sales Facebook

Increase the brand focus on Corporate

Social Responsibility and its Instagram
perception/association by the public

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Why Instagram?
Brand Awareness Objective

Instagram is in its essence an image-focused social media platform. It is also being used by about
70% of young adults (ages 18-24), who fit in the younger bracket of the brand’s target
demographic. This is the audience share to whom we need to spread the most awareness, as an
early lock-in to the brand will ensure customer loyalty.

As such, it is the ideal choice for our brand awareness strategies, as the platform matches with
our target audience’s demographics - Uniqlo is a brand targeted at young adults.
A concern regarding Instagram is that, as an immediate visual medium/platform, it is crucial to
grab the audience attention as they will otherwise “swipe up” and ignore the post. As such, having
quality, appealing videos and posts should be a concern for the brand and something they are
doing moderately well.

Social Responsibility/Sustainability Objective

Uniqlo can promote their social responsibility and sustainability efforts via Instagram. Not only
because it is the platform of choice to reach the younger adults that are becoming increasingly
interested in such values, but also because it can easily create relatively inexpensive campaigns
promoting social and sustainability stories with photos and video.

Uniqlo currently has a Corporate Social Responsibility campaign in place on its website called
“Unlocking the Power of Clothing”, where through a series of animations the company describes
its initiatives regarding the community, supply chain, and other efforts.

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Some short videos that Uniqlo Global already has on their social responsibility page

These efforts can be better developed on Instagram, especially for a crowd whose attention span
and time are more limited every day and who is unlikely to bother to go to Uniqlo’s website and
search for their social responsibility/sustainability sections.

Why Facebook?
Sales Objective

Facebook is still currently the most used Social Media Platform worldwide (and in Canada, which is
our focus), with the ability to both promote the brand and provide immediate Customer Support
via Facebook messenger or post comments.

Having a potential to create video, image and text posts, Facebook allows Uniqlo to market its
products with both promotional/sponsored and regular posts on its page.

Facebook gives Uniqlo the potential to create multimedia posts, promote products, and is also a
great social media platform to provide Customer Support, and therefore publicly solve inquiries to
multiple customers at the same time. In the long run not only benefits the sales objectives but also
saves time and money to their CS teams, as having issues solved publicly avoids 1:1 resolutions via
traditional mediums like their phone lines or email.

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Tactics and Content Samples

Tactic for Instagram Social Responsibility/Sustainability

Uniqlo Canada will create bitesize videos/stories depicting real life stories that follow the
manufacturing process of a piece of Uniqlo’s clothing. Customers will follow the path of a shirt,
from sourcing the textile materials, to the final presentation at the store. Additionally, we can
generate stories about reducing waste and helping others.

In one such example, a customer’s gently used item is returned to the store. It is then inspected
and donated to someone in need. Video is ideal for these stories, but simpler, more adaptable
images can also be created. This tactic can be repurposed based on local trends and weather
season, e.g. donating warm winter clothing. These tactics may also be integrated with seasonal
advertising campaigns.

Content example:

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Tactic for Instagram Brand Awareness

Uniqlo Canada will increase brand awareness by promoting user-generated Instagram content
where happy clients tell their own story about why they chose Uniqlo and what makes it unique for
them. Genuine testimonials will increase relatability.

To differentiate Uniqlo from their competitors, these posts will not focus on fashion, but
specifically Uniqlo’s strengths: practicality, technology and quality. Chosen posts will showcase
these qualities, while still looking comfortable with a modern aesthetic. As these posts are user-
generated, there is more room for the user’s personality and levity.

To this end, posts from Uniqlo’s diverse brand ambassadors can also be generated/repurposed.
The flavour and messaging from British Paralympian tennis player Gordon Reid and Japanese
snowboarder Ayumu Hirano vary while remaining consistent with the tone and style of Uniqlo.

Content example:

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Tactic for App sales via Facebook

The brand will create promoted posts using Facebook’s audience targeting tools, where they will
give the intended followers discount barcodes that clients can scan with their Uniqlo mobile apps
to get discounts. As the barcodes are scanned via the app, they will directly translate into opening
the respective product page and give the user an immediate shopping opportunity.

Thanks to Facebook’s “laser-focused” ability to segment demographics for their targeted posts
and ads, the promoted posts can be segmented into different demographics like age groups,
gender, location. This will give Uniqlo the ability to identify which type of promoted posts + code
attracts more people to the stores.

This tactic not only benefits clients with the traditional effect of giving coupons/discounts but
also provides clear and easily measurable metrics to the success of the tactic and the possibility to
do some A/B testing on their marketing photos, post copy etc. Also, by default, all product-related
posts should have a barcode that the customer can scan (even if not a coupon), so they are
immediately redirected to the product page on the mobile app.

We want to make the whole process of seeing the posts and consequent purchase as seamless as
possible.

Content example:

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Evaluation

Brand awareness

Different methods can be used to measure the success of a social media campaign in increasing
Uniqlo’s brand awareness. App downloads can be counted, and aside from Uniqlo’s website, it is
another way to interact with the store. Arguably it is the main one as it is only through the app
that one can purchase merchandise outside of the physical store. At the same time, website hits
can be tracked. Web analytics can be used to find out the number of new visitors to Uniqlo’s site
within a given timeframe.

Moreover, traditional social media metrics such as likes, comments, mentions and shares can be
tracked. Overall an increase in social media engagement indicates a corresponding increase in
brand awareness. Finally, surveys can be conducted through the app, email, YouTube or even in-
store by cashiers as they cash out merchandise. Relevant questions include:

• Is this your first-time shopping at Uniqlo?

• “How did you hear about us?”
• “What brought you to the store today?”

Answers to these surveys may indicate whether new customers were made aware of the brand
through the campaign in question. Incentives such as discounts can be used to encourage
completion of the survey. One caveat, of course, is that survey results carry bias. The answers to
these surveys will reflect the opinions of people who have the time, or simply the inclination to
complete them. That is to say, the results of any survey may not be indicative of the opinions of
entire populations.

All the examples mentioned above describe evaluating success at a general, macro level; however,
a finer level of evaluation is possible with specific tools: analytics and boosted posts. If Uniqlo was
investigating ways of increasing awareness only to subgroups of their audience, they could
measure the success of their campaigns as they relate only to specific demographics.

Increase of in-app sales

Evaluating the success of a social media campaign in raising in-app sales can be done through
app analytics. Analytics can describe how users access an app; for example, by clicking on a
device’s home screen. However, the one we are primarily concerned with is app referrals: by
clicking an external URL (perhaps on a social media post) that leads the user to the app. If an app
session resulting in a sale coincides with a referral via a social media URL, then sales can be
directly associated with the social media campaign.

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In combination with app analytics, sponsored (boosted) posts will allow Uniqlo to tailor their
campaigns to the tastes of their target audiences. Sponsored ads allow brands to control who
sees their posts (through fine control of demographics, timing, and location) with a high-level of
accuracy.

Consequently, Uniqlo can facilitate their market research by experimenting with different
parameters such as viewer demographics, post timing, geographical area and types of content,
e.g. images, text, and incentives. As different campaigns are tested, patterns will emerge as to
what combinations are best for boosting in-app sales.

Corporate Social Responsibility

This last tactic is like the first (increasing brand awareness) in that it aims to have users engage
with web content; however, dealing only with content about Uniqlo’s goal of improving its image
with regards to corporate social responsibility (CSR). With that said, methods to evaluate the
success of this tactic will be similar to those used in assessing the success of improving brand
awareness. These methods include web analytics, traditional social media metrics and surveys,
but again, pertaining only to the brand’s CSR content.

A drawback with the first two methods, web analytics and social media engagement, is that while
they measure engagement, they don’t necessarily measure conversion. That is to say, a user
might see CSR-promoting content, but has that affected their opinion about Uniqlo being a
sustainably-run organization that is also socially responsible?

One tool that may help with the issue of being unable to detect conversion is sentiment analysis.
Sentiment analysis is a technology that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify the sentiments in
snippets of text. Numerical scores indicating the emotional states of a user are assigned to the
statements they make, and therefore, also to keywords they used.

In the case of this tactic, sentiment analysis can be used to detect whether statements
mentioning keywords such as “Uniqlo,” “sustainability,” “social justice” or “manufacturing
standards” are positive or negative. This data can be tracked over time to see if users’ statements
regarding Uniqlo’s public CSR perception has improved or declined following a CSR boost
campaign.

With most, if not all, of the tools mentioned above for all three tactics, it’s important to measure
against a known baseline. Changes can only be evident if data describing the same measures from
an earlier time exist. It is in the brand’s best interest to collect as much information as possible
such that if the success of any upcoming campaigns must be measured, any new data collected
can be compared to an existing baseline.

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Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniqlo

https://www.fastretailing.com/eng/ir/direction/position.html

https://www.ama.org/publications/MarketingNews/Pages/why-uniqlo-is-winning.aspx

https://www.linkedin.com/company/uniqlo-canada/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCziBJADuZP0pW627QJWaRhQ

http://www.uniqlo.com/en/sustainability/mission/

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