Interview With ALT Planning Director And Meng Jing, Manager Of North China: Crack Down On Brand Low Formula

ALT planning director and North District Manager Meng Jing

Explore the power of long-term development

Reporter: please give a brief introduction to the development of ALT.

Meng Jing: ALT was founded in June 2006, and now has 5 years of development process. The first brand was called "blue". In the past five years, it has gone through a trough of development, and even once entered the bottleneck.

Today, it is known by the vast number of consumers, and is gradually on the right track.

Reporter: what kind of state is your so-called trough period?

Meng Jing: fashion casual men's wear brand has been sought after by consumers since its inception, and many brands have begun to change their minds. Especially the fast fashion of fashionable casual men's clothing such as Maas Phil, JACKJONES and CABBEEN is more moving.

At the beginning of the year, arlant took a fancy to the cake of the market and wanted to make a fuss about the fashion casual men's wear brand. The enterprise executives took a considerable effort to invest in arlant, but in the first year, only by blindly pursuing the fashion casual men's wear market, the brand positioning was not clear enough, especially in the design of the product, there were traces of plagiarism, such a business idea may get a short time's gains, but in the long run, it is not the constant power of brand development.

At that time, more than 100 stores were opened, and in a short span of a year, there was a high rate of customs clearance, which is very fatal to a clothing brand.

Reporter: how do top executives view this situation?

Meng Jing: if we continue our original thinking, the more we invest, the more we will lose and the sooner we lose. The senior and the clients have thought about giving up, but in the face of the huge potential of the casual men's clothing brand, we still decide to fight against the water.

Cocoon market research opens new chapter

Reporter: reshaping a brand from the bottom may be more difficult than recreating a brand. From what aspects does ALT think about pformation?

Meng Jing: first of all, it is to investigate and investigate the market, then comb the brand positioning, and boldly adjust the product positioning and brand visual image positioning. This is also the uniqueness of ALT.

Reporter: what has been gained from research?

Meng Jing: after going deep into the market, we discovered the drawbacks of the original idea, and of course, the harvest is also very great.

The original idea of learning and imitating the famous domestic leisure brands has been completely negated, and in the exchange with foreign counterparts, we find that there are many subdivision of casual men's clothing, which has brought confidence to our pformation.

Reporter: after re examining the market, how can ALT be positioned?

Meng Jing: ALT is positioning the product as "NEWDANDY new New York style". It will make the "exquisite fashion men's clothing" as the unique feature of the brand, so that young people will be clean and neat when they wear them. The overall appearance will be exquisite and accord with the proportion of Asian people.

At that time, the main consumer group was located in the 18-28 year old urban youth consumer group (now adjusted to a 18-35 year old urban male). This age is much younger than Mark Ed Faye, because 80 and 90's consumers have more potential and fashion acumen.

Reporter: has the ALT been reconfirmed by the market?

Meng Jing: when we just went public, we were also very worried about whether such positioning and design could be accepted by consumers.

Because our products emphasize Japanese and Korean wind, the profile is very cultured, including some nine cent trousers and seven sleeves Western-style clothes. These are few brands that other brands have dabbled in.

However, from customer feedback, we find that worry is unnecessary, and we underestimate the Chinese fashion outlook. In fact, the demand for exquisite fashion men's clothing has always been there, but there has been no suitable product to cater for some needs. The emergence of ALT just fills the gap.

With the promotion of some fashion directors like Hunan satellite TV and other media, ALT has found the space to play. Although this stage has not significantly improved sales performance, the whole brand has been in a state of cocoon waiting to fly.

Reporter: what is the uniqueness of ALT terminal store?

Meng Jing: VMD visual merchandising has always been a very important part of ALT's attention, and the core factor that ALT can stand out in just a few years is also this. The core competitiveness of clothing brands in the market is the product and brand image, and our products have gradually been recognized by the market.

For example, our latest third generation terminal image shop has designed the terminal store according to three series of products. The "black gold honorable" series has the atmosphere of high-end clubs, the "city platinum" series has the atmosphere of aristocratic colleges, and the "city holiday" series has the atmosphere of cafes. In the flagship store of 400 square meters of the two phase pedestrian street in Optics Valley, Wuhan, there are couples who want to take wedding photos in the shop.

In June 1st, ALT also opened a 380 square meter flagship store in the most prosperous commercial street in Linfen Prefecture, Shanxi. The huge doorway and the third generation of image decoration caused a great deal of response in Shanxi's colleagues. Because there are few such competitive brands in the prefecture level cities, the sales performance has been very good for several days, and this is also an important step for ALT's market strategy this year: to open up more than 300 square meters in the prefecture level city to further enhance the brand's influence.

Take off and grow steadily

Reporter: after repositioning, how can we open up the market?

Meng Jing: CHIC has provided us with a very useful platform for the development of the nationwide market.

We have participated in this exhibition for the first time in 2009. We have participated in the 3 consecutive years. We have constantly strengthened the brand style and connotation of ALT. Every year we have different degrees of harvest. We didn't pay much attention to the first time in 2009. In 2010, we participated in CHIC for the second time, and the four months' pre charge preparation made us play a big role in the museum. There was a long queue of information on the booth for three consecutive days.

One month after the end of CHIC, we received the drawings of 88 franchisees, and in the past 20 or so drawings per month.

At the same time, we opened a 900 square meter flagship store in Taiyuan, Shanxi, and opened 400 square meters in Dalian and 300 square meters in Guangzhou.

We got more attention on this year's CHIC, such as Hangzhou Yintai, Shandong Ginza, and Beijing's Joy City, all of which sent us olive branches.

This year, we have launched the third generation terminal image store, in order to better expand the shopping mall.

Reporter: now ALT is getting better. With your 12 years of brand planning and management experience, how to evaluate the development of domestic casual menswear brand.

Meng Jing: any product has a life cycle. In China, casual wear can be said to be experiencing a watershed. The first ten years are the world of casual men's wear led by JACKJONES. From now on, it should be a diversified and differentiated fashion casual men's clothing era.

When the brand has experienced the period of introduction and growth, it should consider seeking alternatives to extend the growth period as long as possible.

In this period, the most important thing is innovation. ALT has launched three terminal images in the development of 5 years, and the products of each season are more sophisticated, which is to keep pace with market demand, maintain a steady growth rate and extend the brand's life cycle.