A Hair Raising Opportunity – Business Strategy & Branding Case Study

Our client was a well-established, reputable hairdresser who owned a number of successful salons throughout central Scotland.  They also had a hairdressing academy where they trained new staff and developed the skills of existing staff.  This ensured that the quality of their service was kept at a very high standard.

The Brief

The client was keen to create a new range of salons aimed specifically at teenagers.  The idea was to have a specific décor, music, videos and gaming stations aimed at the younger generation. The basic service remained the same and would be provided by the same staff so there was no re-training or re-skilling involved.  The aim of the project was, therefore, to increase their client-base by appealing to a different socio-demographic.

Business Strategy 

We ran a number of business strategy workshops with the owner of the business and his management team.  These workshops were designed to gain an understanding of what their goals for their business were, what opportunities that had and what issues they have to deal with in order to attain their goals.

Vision & Goals

The management team agreed that they wanted to increase turnover and profit by increasing the number of new clients, improving retention rates, increasing the number of visit per client and reducing operating costs.  They wanted to make their salons the first choice for people in the areas in which they already a presence and also to build the brand and open new salons across the country.

The new brand for teenagers was a central part of this strategy as it not only increased their turnover, it would also enable them to attract new clients, including the parents of the teenagers attracted to the salons.

Perception & Culture

The business already had a well-established and respected brand in the local communities for the existing salons.  They wanted to build upon this reputation while creating a new brand identity that would be appealing to younger people while being able to ‘live’ with their existing brand identity.

We interviewed their staff and clients and found that the business was well respected both internally and externally.  Like any organisation, thy were not perfect and we found that some of the staff required so customer service training, especially on reception/greeting people.  In addition we found that some of the staff needed some help with ‘up selling’ and ‘cross selling’ their products and services.

In general the existing culture was well enough developed and established to support the new brand although it was agreed to put one of their most enthusiastic and forward thinking  employees in charge of implementing the new brand internally.

Positioning & Differentiation

We used data on their existing client to create a socio-demographic profile of their client-base and found while their clients were represented  across the socio-demographic spectrum they tended to be women with a high level of disposable income.

The positioning for the new brand was clear from the outset and the supporting demographic analysis helped us to narrow the focus – young people between the ages of 14 and 18 from families with money to spend on ‘luxury goods’.

The work done in BRAND JOURNEY workshops revealed a number of distinctive strengths within the business, including their training academy, their reputation and their client-base.  Improving these existing strengths and combining them with the innovative idea of creating a service and products aimed specifically and younger people created the potential for strong differentiation.  The key to success was to keep the idea secret and to launch hard and fast to enable them to get a strong foothold in the market place before their competitors copied the idea.

Visual Representation

From a brand design perspective, our research and the information gathered from the BRAND JOURNEY process allowed us to create a logo, branded materials, interior design, marketing materials and product branding that appealed to their new target market.

We also used the information to rejuvenate their existing brand as it was felt that it was a little ‘tired’ and needed to be freshened up.

Brand Protection

As part of this project, we registered the new logos as trade marks in order to ensure that their competitors could not use their brand.  We also assigned the ownership of the copyright to all of the brand materials that we created to the client.

Outcome

Our client was very pleased with the results of all of the work that we did in building a strong foundation for their new brand.  This allowed them to successfully launch their new service and also to improve their current business, increase their turnover as well as their profitability while strengthening their reputation in their marketplace.