This is an analysis of the global clothing company, Zara. Zara is a Spanish apparel retailer that has become one of the biggest clothing store chains in the world. They specialize in fast fashion, selling a large variety of clothes, accessories, shoes, jewelry, perfume, etc. Since its founding in the 1970’s, this major fashion retailer has expanded into 96 countries, with approximately 2250 stores.
Zara has social media accounts on all of the major platforms, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. They utilize their Instagram the most, posting content fairly regularly. Zara seems to specifically use Instagram stories frequently to highlight new products and promotions. They have also gained a large following on their accounts due to the way they use influencer marketing. However, overall, Zara takes a very simple approach to digital advertising, prioritizing their storefronts and locations over more modern strategies.
When you google Zara, their website is the first link that pops up followed by links to all of their social media accounts and their Wikipedia. I think it is important to note that Zara thrives off of ever changing trends and their ability to design affordable and basic versions of trends that are able to be versatile in one's wardrobe. Their production turnaround time is much faster than many other popular retailers, which also benefits them in this strength.
Below is the ideal buyer persona of a frequent Zara shopper. In this, we look at the buyers demographics, career, psychographics, and interests.
Buyer Persona- Sarah Brooks
Demographics:
- Female
- Age 24
- Located in Chicago, IL
- Bachelor’s Degree in Advertising
Job & Seniority:
- Title & Responsibility: Account Manager: oversees multiple clients of the agency, pitches advertising opportunities to her clients, delegates tasks to the inhouse teams to complete campaigns, reports to the Senior Vice President
- Ideal company: She has been at her agency, Hunt + Gather, for nearly 2 years, as it was her first job out of college. She likes the small size of the company as it creates more personal connections, but she still gets to work with big brands like GE and Bloomberg.
- Role in purchasing process: Sarah makes a lot of the surface level decisions in regards to her clients and projects that are in progress, however, she regularly seeks advice from her mentor, the SVP.
- Reputation among peers, subordinates & superiors: Sarah’s peers see her as a very hard worker who is consistently dependable. Many find her mature for her age, and think her work ethic combined with her experience will take her far in the industry.
Psychographics:
- Attitudes & Opinions: Sarah loves going out with her friends for dinner and drinks. She spends her weekends going to concerts, food festivals, and Cubs games. Sarah shows off her social life via her Instagram story, frequently adding things to her highlights on her account. She is a registered Democrat who supports social movements like BLM and #MeToo. She loves the style of Zara’s basics, and has bought many to build her capsule wardrobe, her only wish would be for them to clean up their corporate reputation, how they treat their employees, rumors of child labor, etc.
- Values: Sarah is very career driven. Her biggest goal is to be successful as a way to give back to her parents who always supported her through school. She loves her job and the advertising industry, and she’s excited to continue working throughout her life. Other than her career, friends and family are the most important to her. She does her best to stay in touch with the people in her life, prioritizing them over finding a potential partner. She isn’t necessarily seeking a relationship at the moment.
- Fears: Sarah’s biggest fear is getting laid off. Since covid, she has been worried that the firing chain will eventually make its way up to her. She loves her job and loves the hybrid environment that has been created, and she’d be devastated to lose any of her clients. She feels that if she continues her hard work and good client reviews, she should be seen as too valuable of an asset to lose.
- Pet peeves: Sarah hates a mansplainer, especially when it is an equally paid colleague who believes he may know more than her.
Information sources:
- Where do they get their information from?: Sarah loves keeping up with reality tv, specifically the basics like The Bachelor, Dancing with the Stars, Keeping up with the Kardashians. She also loves everything on HBO and Hulu. She is currently watching Big Little Lies and Euphoria. She has a subscription to The New York Times and the Washington Post to keep her up to date on news. For pop culture, she loves to read Cosmopolitan and The Daily Mail. However, her favorite publication subscription is Vogue.
- Whom do they trust?: Sarah trusts her colleagues the most when it comes to information sources, as they do consistently discuss what is trending in the news and what they consider relevant, trustworthy, etc.
STEPPS Analysis
Using Jonah Berger’s 6 STEPPS analysis, we are able to see the ways in which Zara uses these techniques while also seeing what they choose to not prioritize.
Social Currency
Zara has branded themselves as affordable high fashion, so they maintain their popularity by consistently creating and keeping up with trends. They have the perfect balance between work life and social life when it comes to their apparel, and they offer a large enough variety that it reaches many audiences while still keeping with the image that is Zara.
While Zara is seen as affordable, I would say that the aesthetic of the brand makes it seem more sought after and wanted by others because it is usually very sophisticated, clean-cut, and once again, high fashion. This image is one that many people in their target demographics strive for, and the affordability makes it possible for customers to achieve.
Triggers
I think Zara’s stays on the ‘top of mind and tip of tongue’ by integrating current events and holidays into their branding and collections. If you look at their social media channels, they often post and advertise based around upcoming occasions like Valentine’s Day, New Years Eve, summer vacation, etc. And going off their social currency of being ‘high fashion’ and current with trends, this type of branding encourages consumers to think of Zara no matter the occasion they are shopping for.
I also think Zara has become popular amongst many influential figures organically, and those natural advertisements have later turned into somewhat of an influencer program that Zara has created. They find those leaders on social media and they ensure that they are talking about and wearing Zara by paying them and sending them the latest collections. These digital efforts combined keep Zara very top of mind to all consumers.
Emotion
I don’t view Zara as a brand that promotes their apparel with an emotional drive. Other than them somewhat staying up to date with current events and holidays, I don’t think Zara utilizes that emotional aspect of a story or image to evoke consumer awareness.
I think one way that they could utilize this technique is by further utilizing their influencers and celebrities, and having them share more personal stories and aspects in their life while wearing their Zara apparel. I think that sharing personal stories of these shoppers with a large following could not only create emotional ties between shoppers and the brand, but also further push brand awareness and relatability.
Public
Zara utilizes their storefronts more than anything when it comes to drawing in the public eye. Zara is known to strategically place stores in popular shopping areas, on famous street corners, and in places where they’re impossible to miss. While this isn’t part of their digital or social presence, it works for them more often than not.
I would say their only strong social presence when it comes to reaching the broader public would again be their wide range of consumers that share their favorite apparel on social media. For example, if you search Zara on Tik Tok, there are thousands of videos where people show off their newest or most favorite pieces from Zara. Personally, I have been influenced by videos like these to search specific items on the website, shop the latest collection, and even place an order.
Practical Value
While I don’t think Zara does this themselves, I do think that again, the popularity of the brand on platforms like Tik Tok and Instagram really promotes it’s practivallity. Styling videos and try on hauls are very popular on social media, so that spread of brand awareness alongside the practical advice, like how to style this jacket from Zara, can become a great promotional opportunity for the apparel.
I also think another huge aspect of the practical value of Zara is how large of a selection of clothing and accessories they have. They not only ship worldwide, but they are affordable and once again, always with the trends.
Stories
My viewpoint of Zara’s utilization of stories is similar to that of emotion. It isn’t something they necessarily use to promote the brand, but I believe it could be a strong tool to implement. Again, I think one way that they could implement stories is by further utilizing their influencers and celebrities, and having them share more personal stories of their life that are also connected to Zara apparel. I think that the more personal stories could contain a lot of brand centered content that act as that ‘trojan horse’.
Competitor Analysis
Another important aspect in creating a brand's digital marketing strategy is by paying attention to their top competitors. In this analysis, we look at three of the most similar and reputable competitors that consistently serve as competition to Zara as a brand overall. In this analysis, we analyzed their social media platforms, the way they utilize email marketing, their SEO, their use of influencer marketing, and their overall revenue as a company. By looking at these various subjects, we are able to draw connections between what seems to work for different brands.
Zara’s top 3 competitors are: H&M, Forever 21, and UNIQLO. These 3 brands all have a similar target market as Zara. They all are known as trendy, fast-fashion retailers that offer subjectively low prices for their products. All four of these companies have similar digital marketing strategies when it comes to influencers, email marketing, and SEO. The only main differentiating factor that I found in the analysis was the estimated revenue, I think this has a lot to do with sizes and locations of each brand. Forever 21 is a substantially less profitable brand than the other 3 companies, and I think that is due to them being a predominantly American brand, as well as the economic recent downfall of the company. An article from The New York Times about this downfall even came up as the third link when completing a simple Google search (SEO).
After reading this Investopedia article, I also learned that a large differentiating factor of Zara from its competitors is its ability to turn over products quicker than many brands. “Zara's approach to fashion differs from Uniqlo's in that it attempts to predict customer needs rather than follow current fashion trends. The turnover of products within the store is very high, with an average article of clothing remaining on the shelf for only a month” (Parietti). This not only helps them consistently get new products out to their customers, but also allows Zara to appeal to a broader audience of potential shoppers.
Zara also has a unique approach to branding, as they prioritize their public perception and store accessibility over advertising. While they do utilize digital marketing, they are not nearly as active as their competitors. I see it as their way of gaining social currency. Their simple approach to social media use and marketing allows them to stay more mysterious to customers. “Zara hopes to be perceived as a high-end retailer with affordable prices. Its flagship stores are strategically opened in key traffic points worldwide that have high real estate costs, such as its Fifth Avenue location in New York City” (Parietti). With their unique branding strategy, I think they maintain a strong brand identity that drastically sets them apart from some of the competitors that were mentioned in this analysis.
Social Media
Zara’s most used social media platform is Instagram. In this analysis, I looked at 3 of their posts to look more into how they choose to promote their products and brand over all.
This post on Zara’s Instagram stood out to me because it seemed much more personable than their other content. The video highlighted a photographer and her journey becoming more notable in the fashion industry. It was a clear example of the ‘story’ technique that we learned about in STEPPS. The story itself carries subtle information about Zara, it’s models, clothes, and history working with up and coming photographers. It displays a somewhat emotional side of the brand as we see them giving opportunity to a somewhat ‘ordinary’ person.
This is an example of a very traditional post seen on Zara’s Instagram, which is their primary platform. While this doesn’t utilize the emotion or story aspect like the first post, I do think this photo primarily utilizes the social currency technique because of the background and setting of the photo. It is a very sophisticated and somewhat expensive looking trip for those of us in America, so the ambiance of the photo is very aspirational for many of their average customers. The aesthetic of the photo is beautiful, and really eye-catching with the contrasting colors of the outfit with the background. I really think this post does a great job at showcasing Zara’s clothing and displaying it as something sought after.
This photo is again something very traditional for Zara. While the photo itself is somewhat similar to the one above, I pulled this one to analyze because of the caption. This caption is much more detailed than Zara’s other captions, as they usually keep them very short and straightforward. This post is much more humanizing because of the way the caption almost describes the photo and what we are looking at. If anything, the caption is describing a target persona Zara has, maybe specifically for this dress or collection. It is very enchanting, and allows those who may follow Zara on Instagram picture themselves in this persona that the brand has created for this specific post and collection.
Following this analysis, I developed 3 posts of my own that I felt could add depth to Zara’s page while also continuing to follow their pre-existing technique.
I created this post with a photo found on Twitter. I made it similar to a traditional post made by Zara when it comes to the very short and simple caption. However, because of the nature of the photo being in Italy, I made the caption in Italian. With Instagram’s ‘translation’ feature, users will be able to see that the caption says ‘come in’. I think it is a somewhat CTA, and entices viewers to come into a store that seems somewhat majestical when looking at this specific photo. It is simple yet very drawing.
I chose this photo off of Google to further display the working woman that Zara really targets with their clothes and accessories. Displaying a traditional yet trendy business casual outfit, I thought this photo and caption was yet again very in line with Zara’s traditional strategy on social media. I personally think it works well for them. They keep things simple and clean so that the clothes have the opportunity to speak for themselves. While this post can be seen as straightforward, it also gives followers the opportunity to connect with the phot0 and interpret the story behind it themselves. What is this woman’s job? Where is she going? Does she wear those shoes all day? Simplicity leaves room for imagination.
This last photo is similar to the business casual one, however, it can target different personas. This weekend getaway aesthetic can not only appeal to the travelers of the world, but also to the working women who take their time off to relax and spoil themselves. That could be with a vacation, a trip to the beach, or simply by buying a new outfit. This is another example of a simple photo and caption giving followers the opportunity to create a story in their head themselves. This allows many personas to feel connected to the post.
Email Marketing Strategy
One more important aspect implemented in this analysis is looking at the email marketing strategy that Zara uses. Overall, It does not seem as though Zara uses emails as one of their primary marketing tools, at least recently. Since June of 2021, the apparel company has been sending out approximately two emails per month. These emails were most often to promote a new collection or collaborated launch, or to remind customers of ongoing storewide sales. Most emails seem to prioritize graphics and visuals that may also be seen on their social media or website.
A lot of the information was explained in short or incomplete sentences within the graphic, which I do think matches the style of Zara’s other marketing tactics. As shown in my previous assignments, Zara doesn’t usually include long captions or many words in their posts, so it makes sense they also wouldn’t in their emails. With many of the graphics and photos in the emails, they also act as hyperlinks. By clicking on the specific item or advertisement, it automatically takes me to the store’s website, sometimes even to the specific collection that was being featured in the email.
The emails all also include links to Zara’s various social media accounts. They display them in a very sleek and clear format, where one click will take you straight to that platform’s account. Also, the emails all include a link to download the Zara mobile app, which I think is an interesting and effective engagement tactic. I think overall the emails make shopping at Zara more user friendly, and provides readers with all necessary information to take action on a purchase or engagement with one of their social media channels.
For the email that I created for Zara, I mimicked their technique of incorporating the information onto the photos included in the email. To do this, I chose photos from their website and put matching text over them using Canva. I also made the subject line very straightforward and to the point, utilizing capital letters to catch the reader's eye. I also copied the layout in which Zara uses to promote their social channels and app. It again is very clean and concise at the bottom of every email as you can see below.
Subject: 40% OFF SALE in store and online
Landing Page and SEO
The first link that comes up when I google ‘Zara’ is the US version of their website. This landing page is essentially their shopping hub for the US region, which is where I am residing as I make this search. When viewing the link from the initial Google search page, the heading appears as “ZARA United States | New Collection Online”, followed by various subheadings including “Women’s Clothes”, “Men’s Clothes”, and “Kid”. And in between the heading and beginning of the subheadings is a small description that reads, “Discover the new ZARA collection online. The latest trends for Woman, Man, Kids and next season's ad campaigns.”
The capitalization and formatting of the heading and subheadings really catches the eye of users. I think this is unique to some of the other links that are farther down the page, so it really makes it stand out. Also, the wording of the heading paired with the subheadings and description makes this link very easy for users to understand when it comes to its purpose and message, which I think is very important when looking at SEO.
As for the page itself, it is very clear that this is a page where you can shop and navigate the products quickly to browse, purchase, or gain more information on returns, exchanges, etc. The US website even includes links to career information. It is all black and white, making it very easy for the reader to see and comprehend.
I believe that Zara is utilizing search engine optimization well, as a simple Google search produces results including a direct access point to their website, fellow links to shop trending products, as well as a map to the closest stores near you. And even farther down the page are many other very relevant links to the Zara brand, specifically their many social media accounts. Overall, I would say Zara has great results when it comes to their use of SEO.
Brand Recommendations
While I view Zara as a top tier brand with an image of it’s own, throughout this analysis, I feel as though they are specific areas and platforms in which they could utilize more in their digital marketing strategy. Below are three more specific recommendations of campaigns and content they could begin to implement to further expand their audience and target more loyal consumers.
It is very known amongst frequent shoppers that Zara models are often posing very oddly, sometimes making it hard to fully see how the clothes would look on someone. And while this inconvenience is present, I think it has become a comical anecdote that Zara is very much known for. So to become more engaged with their shoppers, I think they should start a trend encouraging people to replicate the poses that are seen on the website while wearing their newest Zara pieces. Tik Tok star Remi Bader has done this a few times during some of her viral clothing hauls. Creating a social media challenge like this paired with some type of hashtag can get shoppers more active and engaged in a comical way.
Still on the topic of Zara’s modeling, I think they should shoot more ‘behind the scenes’ content during their clothing photoshoots. Again, Zara is infamous for their odd posing of their models, so I think giving shoppers a sneak peak into that process could be interesting. This ‘exclusive’ look inside Zara can make shoppers feel a more personal tie to the brand, causing their brand loyalty to continuously grow.
The most substantial recommendation I have for Zara is to utilize Tik Tok more. I think Tik Tok has become one of the most influential apps when it comes to shoppers actively buying products they are exposed to, and Zara should capitalize on that. I often see Zara hauls on my ‘for you page’, usually from random users who are just showing off their latest purchases. But if Zara can get involved with these successful influencers, they can continue getting these hauls on peoples for you pages while also providing shoppers more opportunity to purchase. This can be by providing discount codes, product ID numbers so they are easily accessible on the website, and simply spreading more awareness of their newest collections.
* This was a semester long/final project in my Digital Marketing and Sales class at Ohio University. I was tasked with selecting a brand to act as the main topic of my evaluation in regards to digital marketing strategies and techniques.
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