Cross Platform Strategy
Company Overview
Radicals has slowly but surely integrated itself into the tight-knit streetwear community. Our collaborations with luxury retailers like Supreme and All Saints elevated the presence of street style in luxury fashion. This Atlanta based clothing brand has been seen on the backs of basketball players, CEOs and streetwear enthusiasts alike. We have slowly become one of the most influential streetwear brands of all time. We have reimagined the idea of supply and demand by only releasing a limited supply of our products at a time. We pride ourselves on having sustainably sourced material and production.
Our target audience is people between the ages of 18 and 30. We generally gear our content towards those heavily involved in the streetwear community.
Our designs have always been trailblazing ,but with this launch we decided to take it up a notch. Our next round of designs for this season will be centered around the idea of manifestation and positive affirmations. Each shirt will feature a positive affirmation on the front and the founding statement of Radicals brand on the back. The affirmations will vary ,but they will range from all topics and meet our customers exactly where they are.
Benchmarks
The streetwear industry is a fine knit, niche market. There are few competitors in our industry. Our main two competitors would be Stussy and Off-White. Stussy is said to be the original street wear brand. Stussy began during the Southern California surf scene in the early 80’s. The brand’s designs have always been heavily influenced by pop culture. Some of their most popular selling tshirt designs have walked the line between east coast and west coast culture. They are known for their collages of stacked images and handwritten text.
When it comes to marketing, Stussy takes a more organic approach. The posts that they make to promote their new lines do not come across as the “typical” marketing approach. Stussy thrives on organic marketing. Organic marketing is when companies will create natural, authentic, and value based content cultivated over longer periods of time (OnDemandCMO). This brings in customers naturally over time instead of using flashy model shoots, “paid links, and boosted posts.”
Since the brand’s inception, owners of the brand would send out specifically curated pieces from each drop to “individual creatives and tastemakers in various cities across the country. (Goodhood)” Stussy has always used influencer marketing before influencers even truly existed. They wanted their clothes to be seen on real people living real life.
This is a marketing technique that would be beneficial to my company. Radicals was created with the mission of showing our customers the function and dysfunction that is real life. We push individuality in all of our concepts and we want our marketing approach to reflect that. When Stussy uses the average person in their campaigns, it gives potential customers a sense of the common thread. The common thread is what helps customers see themselves in the clothes ,because they saw someone like them in the clothes.
Off-White is another one of our competitors. Off-White is a luxury street style brand that was created by Virgil Abloh. This brand’s main marketing technique is centered behind hype. Abloh has been known for releasing only a limited quantity of product to attract buzz. His clothing company rose to the top simply based on exclusivity.
In a complete juxtaposition of Stussy’s organic marketing approach, Off-White takes out all the stops when it comes to marketing. The content that they use for promotion is heavily editorial based and does not stray away from a high quality studio shot with an almost airbrushed looking model. Through this, they make their brand ooze wealth and exclusivity. This is a very uncommon approach for a streetwear brand to take.
Off-White also relies heavily on influencer marketing. They will send specifically curated pieces to celebrities and influencers with large multi platform followings. This further pushes the ideal that the brand is exclusive and mainly for wealthy individuals. Though this approach is uncommon for the street style community as a whole, it has worked well for this brand. This approach, however, would not do a good job for marketing Radicals products. It does not align with our brand voice or vision. Our loyal customers have grown accustomed to the type of content that we are known for presenting and this tactic is the direct opposite of that.
Proposed strategy
Our strategy is an organic one. We already established our brand as one that meets people exactly where they are at the time. We like to show real people doing real things in our clothing. We will create mixed media content to be shown on all platforms. We would mainly utilize Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter. We chose these platforms specifically because we would have a better chance of engaging with our target audience there. These platforms have also been known to have algorithms that favor organic content.
On Instagram, we will focus mainly on our user generated content. Taking a note from Stussy, we will send out PR boxes featuring specially curated clothing to people that we feel fit our brand the best. We will also tell them to take pictures of themselves wearing the t-shirt while living day to day life. In each box there will be specific instructions regarding the types of pictures that we will and will not be accepting and more explanation about who Radicals is as a brand as a whole.
On Youtube we will be producing a mini-series. In the series, we will gather a wide variety of micro-influencers from across Atlanta. The videos will be shot in a loft apartment style studio setting, with minimal stage lights. The overall theme of the content is to show how people wear their Radicals clothing ,and to talk about the importance of positive affirmations.
Twitter will be a mix of content from Instagram and Youtube. This platform’s content will mainly act as a directional tool to the content on our other platforms. We will shorten the Youtube videos to under 30 seconds so they act as teasers for the full length videos.
On all platforms we will be encouraging users to engage with us by tagging us in their posts and using the hashtags #showusyourradicals and #radicalmeradicalyouradicalus. When users use these hashtags, we will repost their content onto our page.
Data
Organic Marketing has a track record of being an up and coming marketing style that is here to stay. It “shows customers your true values and culture, while also learning about the values of your customers.” It also has been known to have a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than paid marketing (Whitehurst, 2018).The use of evergreen content also has been known to keep users engaged long after the campaign has been completed. Stussy does a good job of this in their campaigns and it has been successful. Their engagement is high and this is consistent across their platforms.
With platforms like Instagram and Twitter, we can adjust the target audiences on our posts to boost our overall level of organic engagement. We can adjust our criteria based on gender, education level, age, location, interests, and language. These things increase the chances of the right people seeing our content at the right time.
Metrics
We will show the success of our campaign through a combination of ongoing analytics and campaign specific analytics. Our goals with these campaigns were to increase awareness of our new products to potential customers , share the voice of the brand, and drive traffic to our website for sales.
We will track these metrics a few ways. The first would be the overall response to the content produced through this campaign. If the likes and comments received on these posts exceeds our average amount then we would deem that post’s reach successful. We would also be looking for an increase in shares both within the platform and outside of the platform.
Ultimately, the success of our campaign will be measured by the amount of products that are purchased.
Mock Posts
These mock-ups are of the style of content that we would post to our Instagram and Twitter. The pictures are good quality ,but still give off the feel of “regular” life. The bottom picture features a customer wearing his Radical t-shirt while riding a bike. Again, the content is meant to feel effortless and simple.
Sources
“Brand Focus – The Stussy History.” Goodhood,
goodhoodstore.com/mens/features/brand-focus-stussy-history.
“What Is Organic Marketing, and How Is It Different from Paid Marketing?” OnDemand CMO, 16 Feb. 2017, www.ondemandcmo.com/blog/what-organic-marketing/.
Whitehurst, Mark. “Why Organic Marketing Is Here to Stay and How to Add It to Your Strategy.” Marketo Marketing Blog – Best Practices and Thought Leadership, Marketo, 26 Oct. 2018,
blog.marketo.com/2018/10/why-organic-marketing-is-here-to-stay-and-how-to-a dd-it-to-your-strategy.html.
