Apparel Brand Image Management Based on Knowledge Management

Li Li, Liu Xiaogang, Li Jun Fashion Institute, Donghua University, Shanghai, P.R.China

E-mail: winnerlili@126.com, liuxg@dhu.edu.cn, legend@dhu.edu.cn

Abstract Chinese apparel industry has occupied an important position in international industry chain. However, Chinese Apparel Enterprises are not the main beneficiaries of the chain. Product and brand homogeneities are two common problems existing in Chinese domestic clothing industry. With knowledge economy developing rapidly, those who possess a wealth of knowledge and excels at converting knowledge into productivity can be survived in the competition. The paper is to introduce knowledge management to brand image construction and guild the clothing enterprise to enhance the ability of acquiring, integrating, sharing and creating knowledge.

Keywords Apparel Brand, Knowledge Management, Brand Image Strategy

I. INTRODUCTION

A. The Connotation of Knowledge Management The concept of “Knowledge Management” is raised by

Peter Drucker in the 80s of last century. He defined the Knowledge Management as the process of knowledge activities in an enterprise. For the concept of knowledge management, many scholars have come up with different definitions, as many as dozens, which based on their own point. One of the definitions raised by Quitas[1] is as follows: Knowledge management is a continuous process of managing knowledge to meet present and future needs arise, to identify and explore existing and acquired knowledge assets and develop new opportunities. In China, Qiu Jungping and Duan Yufeng[2] calmed that we can understand the concept of knowledge management from narrow and broad sense: in narrow sense, the so-called knowledge management is the management that target to manage the knowledge itself, including innovation, acquisition, processing, storage, dissemination and application management of knowledge; however, in broad sense, knowledge management is not only to manage knowledge, but also includes the management of resources and intangible assets related to the knowledge, involving knowledge organization, knowledge infrastructure, knowledge assets, knowledge activities, all-wave and whole process management of knowledge workers. In summary, this article will divide the knowledge management into four major activities: knowledge acquisition, knowledge integration, knowledge sharing and knowledge creation, which will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

Knowledge management can improve the efficiency of organizational performance, which has been proved by many researches .A. H. Gold[3] and others come up with the model as follows:

Figure 1 Knowledge Management Mode

B. Apparel Brand Image Brand is a comprehensive concept. It is the collection of

association that people eager to set up in marketing activities, which is affected by the perception of image and prospect, the way of perceive, and formed in psychological. Brand image is an asset and it should have a unique personality.

In the current highly competitive market of apparel, brand image construction has become the key element of competitive advantage. Brand image is the most important source of added value. The companies which own the sound brand image have become the major beneficiary in the industry.

In the clothing enterprises, the brand image is intangible asset, but it is an important role when it compared to the tangible assets such as products, machinery and plant. This is obviously different from manufacturing enterprises. And clothing enterprises is no different from ordinary labor-intensive manufacturing companies if they lose the added value which brought by brand image. So, clothing enterprises will widely employ the business model of brand-driven and gain excess earning from added value of brand, which is through the construction, maintenance and upgrading of brand image.

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There are a lot of knowledge acquisition, integration, sharing and creative activities in the construction, maintenance and upgrading of knowledge. It was said that a good designer determines the success of a brand in common, which reflected that the importance of the knowledge activities in the garment industry. But we can seldom find the research which discusses the operation of apparel brand from the perspective of knowledge management. And this paper attempts to break this.

Figure 2 Apparel Brand Image Management Base

II. BRAND-DRIVEN BUSINESS MODEL

A. Overview of Brand-Driven Business Mode David Aaker, the vice chairman of Prophet Brand

consultancy, put forward the Brand-Driven Business Mode into four stages: understanding the market, strategies and plans, operations and evaluating. Detailed as below:

Figure 2 Brand-Driven Business Model [4]

B. Understand the Market • Discovery of Market Opportunities

China is the world's leading garment producer and exporter with quickly changed complicated and market in which the opportunities and challenges are concomitant. Research on the consumer is the foundation and starting point of brand strategy. The choice of the consumer is the choice of brand strategy, because consumer, product and brand are identity. The main way of understanding the consumer includes the survey of targeted consumers and the acquisition of professional information.

• Analysis of Existing Market Brand

Before entering the market, the apparel company should look for the other similar brand in the market based on the elements of brand self-positioning, marketing channels and target consumers, anglicizing the strengths and weaknesses of potential competitors to determine their own strengths and weaknesses, which can provide with the important information for rational planning of brand strategy. So that to know yourself and know your competitors, the victory will be assured.

In addition to qualitative research, quantitative research also can be employed to comprehensively deeply analysis the existing brand image with understanding of the characteristics of the target brand, such as using SPSS software to analysis the factor analysis and the corresponding analysis.

C. Brand Strategy and Plan With the era of customization coming, apparel companies

should take the market demand as leader to create demand or to meet the demand, base on their own actual situation, developing appropriate brand strategy.

In the premise of fully understanding of their own brands and the competitions, enterprises must establish unique and accurate positioning for their own brand which is different from competitors. And they also should increase brand equity by a series of operations, and learn to make great and lasting power. This is not a short-term tactical action, but once initiated, the subsequent dissemination activities must be consistent. Brand positioning includes: orientation of consumer group, orientation of lifestyle of brand, orientation of market and brand style.

Brand identification is the external manifestation of brand positioning, and it is also a powerful tool for strengthening the brand positioning, which play more and more important role in practice. The core of brand recognition is taking the consumer and competition as guider, with brand planning, design and image recognition system. It use varied ways to attach consumer’s attention, including the brand culture, the brand identification, personal identification of designer and visual identity design. And its ultimate goal is translate the difference between itself and competition into competitive. The communication of a successful clothing brand identity should be able to articulate that the brand suit which stage of age, gender, function, occasion, value, color, popularity and quality.

Market strategy is an important part of brand strategy and reasonable market strategy will improve recognition and identity of consumer, and it will occupy market share, enhance brand value. According to their contents common marketing strategies can be divided into following aspect: market penetration, market development, market development and mixed strategies; and according to their nature, it can be divided into offensive strategy, defensive strategy and exit strategy; and according to product life cycle, it can be divided into import of strategic, growth strategy, maturity strategy, and decline s strategy. And according to brand extension, it can be divided into multi-brand strategy, brand portfolio strategy and single brand strategy.

D. Brand Operation • Establish the Social Responsibility of Brand

In the manufacturing process, a product cannot be supervised at all processes by society, and not all processes link the problems will be found by the society. Whether government regulation or media scrutiny, it’s actually control is ultimately limited. A brand can well manage the internal brand and really make consumer confidence only when it understand and take the responsibility of society. Brand is the directly share of personnel’s character, so the brand of social responsibility required by each officer.

• Establish Awareness of the Brand in Personnel

The central element of the brand is person. So creating a successful brand requires the participation of all the staff. However, the negligence of individual employees may lead to the collapse of a successful brand. So, it is necessary to implement full brand management, requiring all employees establish brand awareness and maintain brand image conscious.

• Brand Internal Communication

It will get lower cost than external brand if company do well the work of internal communication. But it will cause uneven quality of product which will seriously affect the improvement of brand image, if companies tend to emphasize external brand communications, while ignoring the internal brand communication.

E. Brand Evaluation Companies need from time to time to evaluate the impact

on brand, timely adjustment of brand strategy, consolidate and improve the brand image and core evaluation index is brand loyalty.

The difficulty of the Brand Value Management is to maintain and enhance the brand image. It’s easy to become into a famous brand but difficult to last for hundred years. The lacking of brand caring strategy and full supports from all the links of the chain of brand value are two of the reasons that a brand can't last sustainably.

III. BRAND-DRIVEN BUSINESS MODE IN THE VIEW OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

A. Knowledge Acquisition According to the classification of knowledge by the OECD,

knowledge acquisition of a clothing company includes: (1) Know-what, such as market demands and competition information; (2) Know-why, such as why the market reacts not well to the product and where is the weakness of cost controlling; (3) Know-who, such as whether or not human resource is enough to implement the brand strategy; (4) Know-how, such as how to improve the technique and how to develop a good marketing plan. All these knowledge material can be collected from the employees, customers, suppliers, franchisers and the third parties. The clothing company must not only pay attention to tapping internal potential by making the best of existing knowledge data and encouraging the employees to contribute their experience, but also go in for building and maintain outer information channels.

B. Knowledge Integration Knowledge collected from various channels is usually

scattered and biased and cannot be applied directly. Data mining and processing is necessary. The clothing enterprises should:

• Establish a department to compile and sift information;

• Create a knowledge base to classify and manage the various contents and formats of knowledge;

• Construct a knowledge map to illustrate the knowledge distribution in the enterprise and support the decision;

• Enforce edition management to ensure every edition is saved and provable.

C. Knowledge Sharing The clothing company should establish knowledge system

with proper authorization, distribute the study materials among the employees and hold symposiums, training programs regularly or from time to time. The employees should be able to acquire knowledge from the knowledge base as needed. Assuming brand social responsibility, establishing whole staff brand awareness and advancing knowledge diffusion in the company mentioned in the above are all methods of knowledge sharing.

D. Knowledge creation As creative industry, the clothing enterprise always engages

in knowledge creation: according to the market demand, identifying the design theme, and applying various materials and techniques. The clothing enterprise should establish a design material database to make the inquiry easier and improve the efficiency. The clothing enterprise should also broaden its horizon, absorb the new trends in other fields and perfect its brand strategy. Online B2C such as VANCL and fast fashion such as ZARA are two examples.

IV. CONCLUSION Today the management of traditional clothing enterprises

has been converting to knowledge management. Reformulating the brand strategy and applying information techniques in the knowledge management will promote the efficient of management.

It’s vital to ensure that all employees can use knowledge freely and properly to serve the brand strategy. The most important objective of knowledge management is to improve the brand competitiveness.

Knowledge management can improve the adaptability and innovation ability of enterprise. The paper indicates that the clothing enterprises should formulate brand strategy based on knowledge flow, construct knowledge-sharing cultural atmosphere, encourage teamwork spirit, and establish technique-supporting system and information research and analysis system.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT Supported by Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline Project,

Project Number: B601

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