Brands talk!
Have you ever thought how brands choose specific voices, tones and tools to talk about themselves, their products and services, values and purpose? I have! And somehow subconsciously I have always felt that it is a result of deliberate planning and decision-making.
To learn more, I decided to look at communication strategies used by H&M to see how they “speak” with their audience.
Hennes & Mauritz (H&M), a multinational fast-fashion company which was founded in Sweden in 1947 and operates today in 75 countries. H&M uses a variety of communication tools which would be interesting to analyze.
H&M Communication tools include:
Advertising
Advertising is a marketing tactic that involves paying for a space to promote a product or service. Advertising lets businesses reach broader audiences by delivering controlled messages, but is characterized by low credibility. Before H&M as any other retailer focused a lot on traditional ads. But a H&M advertising strategy has changed a lot since then.
In 2021, H&M closed its store on the Aleksanterinkatu street in the center of Helsinki. In total during the same year the brand planned to close 215 brick-and-mortar stores worldwide. The company’s move to online can be explained by increased digitalization and changing customer behavior. Therefore, it was hard for me to find H&M’s traditional advertisements on TV, print, radio or ambient as most of their activities are largely online today.
However, I found one ad on the tram stop in Helsinki next to the Stockmann store. It was a so-called transit shelter display. With such a central location, H&M tries to reach as many as possible passers-by and show off the brand’s latest collection. However, it is hard to measure if such ads have an influence on sales and if consumers pay attention and believe them.
Sales Promotion
Personal Selling
Public Relations
Digital Marketing
Direct Marketing
Communication is essential for any business. Communication is used not only to sell products and services, but also raise awareness, solve disputes and issues, stimulate word-of-mouth and build long-term relationships.
To communicate with consumers, organizations and media, companies use numerous tools that vary in the ability to reach a broader audience and deliver a personalized message, in credibility, costs and the scope of control.
The research about H&M let me see how big businesses utilize communication tools. And I have come to the conclusion that to succeed on the market businesses need to adapt their communication to the new marketing landscape and changing buying behavior.
Digital marketing communication is predominant today, but traditional communication tools are also important as they all work to improve engagement and interaction with the audience.
Thank you for reading. Leave a comment or contact me to talk more about the article or any topic that is interesting to you!