UNIQLO Is Rapidly Putting The Flag Of War In The 17 Regions Of The World.

The 2016 autumn and winter preview of UNIQLO is being held in the Belle Salle exhibition hall of Shibuya, Tokyo, with more than 100 journalists from all over the world, and the founder of the platform is Liu Jing Zheng, and John Jay, global creative president of fast retailing group of UNIQLO parent company. The time is only 30 minutes, but two managers are still trying to explain the future direction of UNIQLO and its global development plan in the shortest time.

These new changes are particularly important for UNIQLO, almost implying that it can continue its success in the first 30 years in the coming days.

In 2011, Liu Jing, who was 62 years old, set a grand goal for herself: in 2020, the fast selling group of UNIQLO parent company wanted to become the largest in the world. clothing Manufacturing and retailers have net sales of 5 trillion yen and profit of 1 trillion billion yen. In addition to UNIQLO, there are also GU, Theory, J Brand and other clothing brands, and more than 80% of the sales are from UNIQLO. The world's top clothing retailer has changed its position in the past few years. Gap, which has been regarded as learning object by Liu Jing, has become H&M group. In fiscal year 2015, H&M group has a total revenue of about 22 billion 600 million euros. Zara's parent company Inditex followed up with a total revenue of 20 billion 900 million euros.

What can be compared is in the same financial year (each brand The financial year is different from the start date. The comparison provides only a general reference. The total sales income of fast sales is 1 billion 681 million 700 thousand yen (about 13 billion 600 million euros). To achieve the "2020 goals", we must rely solely on the Japanese mainland. market Obviously, it lacks strength. UNIQLO needs a bigger profit engine.

In 1984, UNIQLO opened its first store in Hiroshima and gradually penetrated the whole Japanese market. In 2001, the clothing retailer opened its first overseas store in London, came to China the following year, and did business in the US in 2005. But since then, UNIQLO action has clearly begun to speed up. Turning to the report of UNIQLO from 2010 to 2015, it will find that the number of overseas stores in UNIQLO has increased 5 times in the past five years, and has changed from 136 to 798. This figure continues to increase. This autumn, UNIQLO will open Canada's first store in Toronto.

"Every country has different preferences. First of all, we must respect it. But how to pass the philosophy and culture of UNIQLO is a challenge. Liu well is talking on the stage.

However, if compared to Zara and H&M, UNIQLO penetration of the global market is not enough, and not enough intensive. In 2015, Zara has more than 2100 retail outlets in 88 countries worldwide. Although the H&M market is not as good as Zara, there are only 61 markets, but there are 3610 retail outlets with high density. Meanwhile, UNIQLO has entered the market in 18 places, and there are 1639 stores in the world.

If entering Japan's metropolis Tokyo is the biggest achievement of UNIQLO in 1998, the international market is a much more complicated problem.

China was the first to be successful. With the strategy of "middle class" in CEO Pan Ning of Greater China, UNIQLO successfully captured the group of rapidly expanding large groups and turned China into the second largest market of UNIQLO. As of 2015, 374 out of 798 UNIQLO overseas stores opened in Greater China. Complementing each other, UNIQLO has also tilted a lot of resources to China. In view of the opening of Shanghai's Disney, the first Magic For All concept shop that was built by UNIQLO in collaboration with Disney was put in Shanghai.

In the United States, however, UNIQLO experienced another story.

In the 10 years since the first store opened in New Jersey in 2005, UNIQLO's American dream has been slow. In 2011, UNIQLO opened a three storey flagship store in Fifth Avenue, New York. The dazzling lights on the facade ceaselessly day and night, and huge electronic screens flickered in the shop. Even in this row of shopping streets, UNIQLO is an inevitable miss.

But UNIQLO is still vague in the US. UNIQLO's basic style does not have strong style characteristics such as ZARA and H&M, nor does it convey clear Japanese values and aesthetic orientation as MUJI does. So even if UNIQLO has opened three flagship stores in the United States, consumers are still not quite clear about who is UNIQLO. On the other hand, it also includes the size problem of Asian brands frequently appearing in the North American market. Ken Chester lives in San Francisco. He told reporters on the interface that UNIQLO's clothes were too tight for him.

Direct response to sales is that in 2015, UNIQLO admitted that it had been in "weak sales" in the United States. The continued losses made it difficult for us to open to 200 stores in 2020, because the number of stores in UNIQLO America was only 39 until the end of 2015.

The situation in Britain is also mixed. UNIQLO opened 20 stores in Britain in 2001, mostly outside London. However, these stores were all closed because of poor performance. Liu Jing, who was at the beginning of this year's interview with the British guardian, said that it was a "devastating debut".

Ryui Masa needs a more diverse team and more brains to open up territory for him. After that, we see the changes in the structure of UNIQLO executives.

In 2011, Takizawa Naoki, a former creative director of Lssey Miyake, joined UNIQLO as the design director, responsible for the designer's cooperation series.

In 2014, UNIQLO found J o rgen Andersson, who worked for many years in H&M and Esprit, as the global joint chief marketing officer.

In 2014, Japan's trend Godfather NIGO became the creative director of UNIQLO, who was responsible for passing UT of cultural trend information.

In 2015, John Jay, a partner of Wieden + Kennedy, an American advertising company, became the global creative president of fast retailing group. Nike and Coca-Cola, the two most successful marketing companies, were once their customers.

"This of course has changed the way of UNIQLO's internal cooperation, and more and more people are joining UNIQLO, bringing new ideas to UNIQLO, and we are becoming more diversified." John Jay, global creative president of fast marketing group, said to the interface news.

The origins of John Jay and UNIQLO are deep. In 1999, UNIQLO became an advertiser for Wieden + Kennedy. The John Jay, who was responsible for creativity, made a series of advertising plans for UNIQLO's ready to roll sweater. The result was a great success. In the autumn and winter, a total of 8 million 500 thousand pieces of fleece sweaters were sold.

After 17 years of acquaintance with Ryui Masa, John Jay finally joined UNIQLO. "People who buy our products don't necessarily know who we are." John Jay explains the current situation of UNIQLO overseas market in Belle Salle exhibition hall.

Yes, his job is to let those who do not know UNIQLO know better about UNIQLO.

UNIQLO London flagship store

In March 2016, a fence at Oxford street in London was finally demolished, and the flagship store of UNIQLO was renovated again. The color of the flagship store in Paris has been replaced by a more cool black and white. The original 3 story layout has been expanded to 5 floors, with an overall sales area of 2240 square meters.

In the flagship store with industrial design, UNIQLO's clothes are only part of it, as well as music records and dead flying bicycles. On the day of its opening day, UNIQLO asked for the help of singer Skepta, record jockey Benji B and visual artist Sean Frank. At the same time, UNIQLO also broadcasts a new ad aimed at young audiences in the prime time of TV stations, "This Way to Utopia".

"London is one of the most diverse cities in the world and one of the truly creative culture Utopia." John Jay explained the origin of the propaganda theme at that time.

Ryui Matsushi has high hopes in London. He has the same logic as the flagship store on Oxford street in London and the flagship store in Fifth Avenue, New York. These two streets are not only British customers, but also a large number of foreign tourists who come to visit.

In the United States, UNIQLO used a more traditional approach to try to attract the attention of American customers.

In August 6, 2015, UNIQLO published a letter in the name of Liu Jing Zheng on the New York Times's paper version and website. The letter says, "Dear America: This is a place where you can give welcome to something you have done well. When I opened my first UNIQLO store in Japan in 1984, I believed that one day I would come to the United States with my new ideas. We are in Boston, Chicago and Seattle new lake shop. Please visit our shop and find out how to suit your life to help you express your personal style.

In fact, this is a rather Japanese style of communication. If UNIQLO is more willing to approach British culture in London, UNIQLO wants to highlight Japanese identity in an American dream of immigrants. "UNIQLO is in a period of rapid expansion, the goal is to become a global brand, and now is the time to express our brand values and ideas." John Jay explains the advertising inspiration of New York Times.

However, good marketing is always just icing on the cake. More critical than changing marketing methods, UNIQLO's product design and ideas have come to a stage of innovation.

In 2013, UNIQLO changed the slogan that had been used for many years from "Made for All" to "LifeWear", which also declared that UNIQLO emphasized the importance of manufacturing to the customers themselves.

The most obvious embodiment is that the 2016 autumn and winter preview is the second time for UNIQLO to categorize the scene according to the scene, namely, Essentials (basic), Work (work), Home (Jia Ju), Sports (Sports), Baby&Kids (Ying Tong) and several designers cooperation series. In order to make the scene describe more concrete, UNIQLO arranged static exhibition in the scene.

"UNIQLO's DNA is the basic one, so it's easy to slip into another perception that UNIQLO feels that style is not important, so we now want to start emphasizing style." John Jay said.

For speed alone, ZARA, H&M and UNIQLO have excellent supply chains with high speed. But you know that if you want to find the most popular element of the T season, go to ZARA, and try to find a relaxed fashion to go to H&M. But when you are faced with a row of UNIQLO products, it is hard to think of any style -- HEATTECH's thermal underwear, AIRism sweating T-shirt, or light down feather. Their strength is the function of fabric technology, not the tailoring design.

Therefore, on the basic section, designer collaboration series and UT have become a supplement to UNIQLO's construction style.

On the Osman road in Paris in October 1, 2015, the Paris flagship store in UNIQLO was more lively than usual. On the same day, the Christophe Lemaire, a former creative director of the Hermes, and the autumn and winter series, which were co operated by UNIQLO, were formally put on the shelves, and the design of Hermes could be bought at a price of 1/10, even though the Parisian could not resist it.

The cooperation between UNIQLO and fashion leaders began in 2008. UNIQLO and Jil Sander jointly launched the "+J" that year. The advantage of the cooperation series is to buy better designs at a cheaper price and skillfully win the middle market. The "+J" series has been strongly reacted, and it has been launched for five seasons. Until now, Ryui Masashiya often appeared in front of the public in a "+J" suit.

After Takizawa Naoki joined UNIQLO, UNIQLO cooperation series became more frequent. Takizawa Naoki has a very fashionable resume. In 1999, Takizawa Naoki became the creative director of men's and women's clothing of Lssey Miyake, and then had his own brand in New York.

Thanks to Takizawa Naoki's extensive connections in the fashion industry, in 2014 spring and summer, UNIQLO and French model Ines de la Fressange launched a special series, until the latest autumn and winter 2016, the two party cooperation is continuing; in July 2015, the Japanese and British Muslim female designer Hana Tajima designed a series of sales in only a small area in Southeast Asia for UNIQLO; in 2015, autumn and winter, in addition to Christophe Lemaire, joined the UNIQLO cooperation series, and also the global creative director of fashion magazine Harper s Bazaar.

2016 autumn winter series co operated by UNIQLO and Carine Roitfeld

"Cooperation series adds new scope to UNIQLO. For example, if you want to see a bank person now, you need to wear formal clothes, or you need to have a dinner of 20 thousand yen, you will not want to wear jeans and T-shirts, then you can find suitable clothes in UNIQLO." Takizawa Naoki, director of UNIQLO design, told the interface news.

And the original uniqo, which had not much connection with the popular trend, can not only make breakthroughs in style, but also make a sense of design in the fabric.

"This two years began to emphasize the comfort of the wear, to have a sense of draping, to be relatively light, and now this kind of fabric is really better sold in the market. But the key is that this fabric will make people feel slovenly and cheap, so we should make it feel both texture and drape. Katsuda Yukihiro, head of research and Design Department of uniformed library, said to the interface news.

Despite the relatively small number of fashion leaders who collaborate with UNIQLO, they are characterized by their own charisma in a certain tier or market. There may not be many people who have heard of Ines de la Fressange in China, but she is the first exclusive model of Chanel, and her dressing style is very special. And through Hana Tajima, UNIQLO is targeting 1 billion 500 million Muslim women worldwide. With the help of these partners, UNIQLO will further establish its reputation in overseas markets.

Japan's trend Godfather NIGO, now the creative director of UNIQLO, is with KAWS, a street artist.

In the 2016 autumn and winter preview, John Jay throws a question: what is the clothing that young people need? Maybe UNIQLO now has no accurate answer, but the answer can be found in UT.

"In our product strategy, UT has always been an important part of our culture and brand expression, especially for young people." UNIQLO Greater China CMO Wu Pinhui told reporters on the interface.

Today, the UT series is Japan's trend Godfather NIGO. His arrival has enriched UT's content (content), ranging from subculture, music, movies, technology, animation and so on. "Content" is the name of UNIQLO's UT theme. Previously Disney, LINE and star wars have all been content, with a total number of hundreds.

In April, UNIQLO sold UT, a contemporary artist of New York, KAWS to UNIQLO. KAWS and NIGO were old acquaintances, and NIGO persuaded KAWS to print some highly recognizable works on UNIQLO's UT and canvas bags. In the first week of sale, the total sales volume of the KAWS series was as high as 500 thousand, and the official website of UNIQLO New York also soon sold out, much larger than that of UNIQLO.

So the KAWS series has made American and European Street Art young people remember UNIQLO?