Brand Marketing And Its Application In Brand Internationalization Of China Garment Industry

Clothing, food, shelter and transportation are four basic elements in human life. Clothing is put in the first place, which shows its importance for us. Although China is the world's first garment exporter, clothing enterprises only earn a small profit on the manufacturing and processing, while foreign garment producers earn the largest part of profits, mainly from their global brand influence. So far there are more than 10 million brands in Chinese garment industry, but none of them has a worldwide reputation. For companies, brand building is the only way to compete successful with those international brand owners. Creating a garment brand is a hard journey. Once the brand is established and it is very important for a company to install the brand with its own personality. Branding is the effective strategy for the development of a company. Protecting the brand is an international inter-industry challenge. If the brand of a garment company has been recognized by the public, it actually means that consumers are assured of the quality of products, the corporate management and image.At the beginning of the reform and opening period of China, the supply of garment is in the severe shortage in domestic market.In order to meet the increasing demand, garment manufacturers mainly relied on mass production and marketing, and in turn generated large revenues and profits. This kind of operation mode has led to the rapid development of the whole garment industry.In China, yet only within a few years, the garment market has turned from seller market to buyer market. Meanwhile, the garment has established the leadership in Chinese textile industry. However, in fact, this change only achieved a quantum leap but did not a qualitative breakthrough.In the late 80's, competition in the market is fiercer which gives birth to the concept of expanding product lines and mix. Although Chinese garment producers simply based their operation on the imitation of the popular varieties of foreign clothing brands, they were extremely immature and vulnerable, and found it difficult to form core business strengths. Generally they realized that the only way to build up core competitiveness is to build their own brands.In the 90's, because of the liberal international trading environment, numbers of garment enterprises choose export-oriented business strategy, which is contributed to the rapid development of garment enterprises, and establishes the leading position of garment in the textile industry. However, this business behavior focusing on short-term interests actually reduces the core competence of product, the market share and the brand awareness. It also inhibits the growth of fashion designers and nips the brand awareness in the bud.Until the late 90s, the international financial crisis successfully stimulates the innovative mechanism of domestic garment industry. The concept of brand management has been widely accepted. The enterprises which applied the concept to practice in the early age accomplish this operational innovation in a very short time. For the companies which plan to carry out the brand strategy, it is just a starting point.The 21st century is marked with information industry and knowledge economy. Especially after China's accession to WTO, the domestic textile industry totally opens to the whole world. The trade barrier breaks and China is facing the international fair treatment, which means domestic garment industry pressed under the quota will enter a new period of development. That is called the post-quota era. The coming of the post-quota era brings positive effects, but on the other hand the challenges are also existed.The characteristics of the current domestic garment market are as the following: lacking of rules or even in the huge confusion, increasing purchasing power of the public, the existence of market potentials, government's direct intervention in the economy and the transformation of the economic system. In this particular marketing environment, as an important economic sector, a labor-intensive industry and also the origin of raw materials exports, Chinese garment enterprises must create their own brands. With the fully opening of Chinese garment industry to the world, the competition of the market will be fiercer in the years to come. Foreign brands have already imposed a threat to the domestic garment industry. Traditional marketing philosophy and the static operating model can not meet the new demand. The concepts of garment marketing will enter a period of innovation.So how to carry out the successful brand marketing is worthy of thinking for every domestic garment enterprise. Making the right brand positioning, developing brands, implementing the corresponding brand marketing strategy, building national brands and letting products in a dominant position in the world, all the above issues are the essence of the development of garment industry and also the urgent historical task for every Chinese garment enterprise.Based on brand marketing and the theories of corporate competition, this thesis elaborates the brand development of Chinese garment industry and makes the research on brand marketing strategy. This paper also gives the example of brand marketing of Bosideng and proposes the assessment and recommendations for the internationalization of its brands. It firstly describes the meaning of a brand, the importance of a brand in the development of garment enterprises and the definition, characteristics and the implementation of brand marketing; and then analyses the application of brand marketing in China garment industry, illustrates the necessity of implementing the brand marketing and gives some suggestions on brand marketing in Chinese garment enterprises. Finally, this thesis takes Bosideng for a demonstration analysis. In brief, this thesis has made a review of the theories on marketing and demonstrated the application of brand marketing in domestic garment industry, in hope of providing some guidance and reference for Chinese garment enterprise to better understand and implement brand marketing strategies.