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= Gucci´s Rebranding Strategy = For other uses, see Gucci (disambiguation).

Gucci is an Italian brand founded in Florence in 1921. Gucci has passed by many stages of reinvention going from a traditional craftmanship luggage producer to a high end global luxury brand.

After Tom Ford´s creation of a sexy, daring Gucci Image, directive creation was passed down to Frida Giannini in 2006-2014. To follow Ford´s legacy proved difficult for Giannini. Her lack of Innovation and incapability to adapt to the challenges of a new generation and online marketing needs caused the image and sales of Gucci to decline steeply until the end of 2014, when Giannini and the CEO of Gucci both stepped down, making place for the duo Alessandro Michele and Marco Bizarri, creative director and CEO, respectively.

In order to save the brand, the duo initiated a new GUCCI era, developing a whole new brand strategy and image that spoke to younger consumers and their aesthetics.

Gucci´s new style contrasted the previous trend among luxury fashion brands of minimalism aesthetics and has been described as maximalist and flamboyant.

Definition of Rebranding
Brand is defined by Interbrand as 'A set of tangible and intangible attributes, symbolized by a trademark (name, logo, etc.) which operated properly, creates value and influence.”

Rebranding, in turn, is a marketing strategy to change, often times radically, an established Brand. This is achieved by recreating one or several aspects such as the brand´s name, logo, design, concept and/or marketing strategy in order to develop a new identity, attract new customers, rehab a tarnished brand image or communicate a new message.

Importance of Corporate Rebranding
For companies which image is not clear to consumers or is negatively associated with past activities, rebranding is a necessary step to be able to cater to a new consumer segment, maintain or increase the market share and project long term non-monetary benefits associated with a strongly placed brand, such as shareholder´s recognition, competitive edge, and customer loyalty

Gucci´s Rebranding
In the case of GUCCI, rebranding was a matter of survival. GUCCI was no longer viewed as a prestigious brand and would be destined to bankruptcy if a restructuring didn’t take place.

Gucci´s Reasons for Rebranding
There are many reasons why a brand finds itself in need of rebranding: Lack of Uniqueness and Innovation Skills; Lack of Consistence, Quality and Continuity of Marketing Strategies; Lack of a consistent development of the brand´s personality and Lack of Investment on new product development.

In Gucci´s case it was a combination of environmental changes and intrinsic issues in Gucci´s strategy.

The environmental changes concern the whole luxury fashion brand then thanks to the internet, buyers have the opportunity of easily searching for products from small labels or competitors in the internet, instead of constantly buying from the same brand. The companies now must achieve a greater level of customer loyalty and desirability in order to maintain their market share. Furthermore, younger buyers require authenticity, new experiences and more than just a brand´s heritage to be convinced to buy their products.

The intrinsic issues can be listed as:


 * The customers difficulties of identifying the brands position because of different strategy choices;
 * In a poor attempt to increase its audience, Gucci´s former CEO decided to produce products in a lower price range. This resulted in a loss of loyal high end customers and of the brands luxury image;
 * Gucci´s inability to adapt to a new market that requires innovation and avant-guardism;
 * Gucci´s image and products were outdated and didn’t cater to younger audiences, such as millennials.

Gucci´s Rebranding Process
To start the Rebranding process, the new CEO in charge Bizarri changed the creative direction to Alessandro Michele, someone, that according to the CEO, was in the same page about making drastic changes to the brand image.

The first collection signed by Michele already set the tone of the changes that were about to be made. Bizarri, by choosing Alessando Michele, an unknown designer, as the new creative director of Gucci, directed rich attention from the fashion media to the rebranding process. Michele personally is also an eye-catcher with his androgynous clothing, long hair and flamboyant appearance. Both served as unpaid advertising for the rebranding process and as informational to the shareholders of the changing image of Gucci. This is of great importance, so that all shareholders are aware of the change and don’t find the change confusing.

According to Bizarri, Gucci was focusing too much on heritage and needed to be directed into a path with more inclusiveness, joyfulness and full of energy.

For this, they switched all past style icons and symbols of the brand such as Grace Kelly with celebrities that relate to the younger target group, like Blake Lively, Rihanna, Harry Styles. This decision was explained by Bizarri as “if you are constantly inspired by the past, how can you do something modern?” .

Bizzarri further stated that in order for this drastic changes to happen, he needed to protect Michele from exterior influences, such as customer demands. “The changes we made were so disruptive and different from what they were expecting, and consumers tend to prefer what they are used to. For this reason, when you begin to do something new, you need to protect the creatives in your company (from too much interference)“

New Strategies to support the rebranding
Besides the media attention, Gucci set new marketing strategies to support the changes in image and specially, to achieve their new target group.

Presence on Social Media
Gucci increased greatly their presence on social media and took measures to make online purchase easy and friendly. In order to increase the amount of online sales, Gucci created a capsule collection that could only be ordered online. This encouraged customers to visit their online store and make online purchases for the first time.

Another strategy on social media was Gucci´s #TFWGucci meme competition, in which online users could create funny comics with Gucci’s images and the best were reposted by Gucci´s Instagram.

Offline Presence
In the offline world, Gucci dressed multiple celebrities that fit with the brands new, fresh, young image and made use of events such as the NYC Met-Gala to display their fashion on personalities such as Jared Leto, Rihanna and Dakota Johnson.

Furthermore, they collaborated with Harlem tailor Dapper Dan, known for counterfeiting Gucci products and for making the brand popular with hip-hop artists in the 90´s. In 2016, after the collaboration with Dapper Dan, many rappers could be seen wearing the brand and even mentioning their appreciation for Gucci in their lyrics.

Gucci has also invested in a partnership with graffiti artist Trevor Andrew known as GucciGhost to co-design a fall-collection for Gucci. The Gucci before rebranding would most likely have sued the graffiti artist for tampering with their brand logo, but the new Gucci embraced it, made profits from it, and transformed it into a demonstration of Gucci´s new found image.

Results of the GUCCI Rebranding
Gucci´s Rebranding can be described as a massive success, then Gucci´s brand value more than doubled from 2016 to 2019 (statista) and has become the second most followed fashion luxury brand on Instagram as of May 2019 with 34.29 Million followers. It has been awarded the spot of best performing digital fashion brand in 2016, 2017 and 2018. It is steadily growing in profit and sales and has achieved to become a company with a solid and easily identifiable brand image.

The objective of making Gucci attractive to the younger generation has succeeded, then about 50% of Gucci´s sales are now coming from millennials (35 year-olds and younger). This can be attributed to their efforts of increasing their social media presence and integration of digital and in-store experience into an omnichannel customer experience.

This achievements also granted Gucci a spot on the Fast Company´s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies in 2018.

Gucci can be considered a positive example of drastic rebranding, that considered new challenges such as online media marketing, the demands of young buyers and omnichannel strategies.