H&m is a high street brand focused on fast, affordable fashion, stocking pieces for men, women, teenagers, children and even homeware and covers everything from basics to high-performance sportswear and party outfits so every customer can dress to their own style in H&M. With 3,784 stores worldwide as well as 33 online markets, the Swedish brand are able to reach a wide audience in a number of different ways.
Chanel is designer brand, famous for its timeless classics such as the little black dress that creates a wide variety of products from haute couture and ready-to-wear fashion, shoes and accessories to fragrance, makeup and skincare so that customers can truly live the Chanel lifestyle with all of their products.
H&M is notoriously known in the industry for their high-end style of advertising, whether its in glossy magazines, on TV or on social media with clear and simple ads that aim to inform their wide and diverse target audience of what is new in at H&M.
H&M claim to use the best photographers, models and style icons in the industry to promote their brand in a positive way and in a large range of styles and attitudes in their TV and magazine ads. These ads are laid out to promote the latest designs of the season and clearly indicate the price of each garment, unlike many high end brands as price is something H&M use in their favour when it comes to advertising. This makes the brand more accessible to a wider audience but also stands out to customers especially when it seen in a glossy magazine amongst designer brands where a similar garment could cost ten times the price. H&M also like to use models with different looks, styles and cultural backgrounds that will portray the brand in a positive and healthy manner which also makes the brand more appealing to wider and more diverse groups.
Another way H&M advertise is through studio shows for most seasons to preview the collection to customers so they can choose what pieces they want to purchase before the collection comes online and into stores, giving them more time to consider their purchase and also giving the brand more time to build up the collection over social media by posting pictures from the show and getting customers excited for the release. This is very similar to the way high end brands market themselves.
H&M use a lot of social media to target younger audiences by posting pictures of their latest collections, collaborations and of celebrities wearing their pieces. This works by influencing customers through their everyday feed, by seeing the looks on Instagram they might be reminded to consider H&M when shopping or be inspired by a certain look that they brand post online and go out and buy it from H&M.
Chanel does marketing very differently to H&M, focusing more on their couture fashion shows every season and catering to a more luxury clientele.
Since Chanel has been around for over a century and built up a reputation as a very high quality, luxury brand; it sells itself to anybody who wants something they know will be amazing quality or somebody who wants to wear the brand as its something so many people will recognise.
Chanel also focus on their couture fashion shows in Paris where they showcase at fashion week to give everyone in the industry as well as customers a preview of what is to come in the following season, this means bloggers have chance to blog about the show and pictures can be posted online in order to get the pieces out there before they go on sale, like H&M in order to get customers excited about the upcoming season.
As well as the shows, Chanel like to use celebrities such as Keira Knightly and Lily-Rose Depp to gain public attention and also run social media accounts, for example their Instagram where they’re focusing on celebrities and them wearing Chanel rather than the pieces itself.
Like H&M, Chanel do a lot of coverage in glossy magazines such as Vogue and Elle with double page adverts with editorial fashion photography usually covering both pages as this is an area where Chanel’s target audience are most likely to see the new season range rather than by posting the pieces on social media.
Overall, I think H&M do a lot more to market and advertise their brand than Chanel, however Chanel have a more exclusive clientele and therefore does not need to do the same amount of advertising as H&M does as, as I said previously, the brand sells itself.
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