Chapter 7/ Business Marketing

Vans is a company that markets itself as a "reckless" and "exciting" brand immersed in skateboarding culture. It's clothing is sold in approximately 70 countries globally and in events like The Vans Warped Tour and The Vans Downtown Showdown.

The Vans Warped Tour is a concert series that markets to teenagers in the summertime before they go back to school. The company attracts teenagers by featuring their favorite bands on tour dates and giving away free shoes and clothing during tour stops. When the target audience goes back to school after a summer at the Warped Tour, they will most likely pick Vans as their pair of "back to school" sneakers. http://vanswarpedtour.com/

The Vans Downtown Showdown is a skateboarding competition that targets teenagers after the "back to school" season to generate sales of sneakers, apparel, and accessories. The company features skateboarders and especially Vans sponsored skateboarders like Tony Trujillo to teens while they are in school. Athletes like Tony Trujillo compete and are featured at the event to generate sales of their Vans sponsored sneakers. http://www.vans.com/events/38128/downtown-showdown/

Chapter 8/ Segmenting and Targeting Markets

Vans markets to audiences that like the skateboarding culture and youth from kids to young adults. Vans uses it's visual effects of it's website, brand and product presentation to attract these audiences. The brand markets its products as edgy, carefree and reckless. Vans also reminds it's target audiences that it is a vintage brand that's been active since 1966. Vans has many ways it markets to it's consumers:

In this promotion, Vans wants to target consumers and develop trust in the brand so consumers will buy classic Vans shoes. Fans are encouraged to post pictures about their favorite Vans classic sneakers and the story behind that picture. Vans is actually showcasing their target audience in these pictures by showing what kind of customers they want to attract when selling their products.

http://www.vans.com/classictales

Vans also uses skateboarding promotional videos like this to show that the brand is still current, cool and up-to-date with their target market. This commercial also wants to market that Vans is always current and in the midst of skateboarding culture.

Chapter 11/ Developing and Managing Products

Vans builds their business around making various products for their target consumers. The company knows that they can target youth audiences buy making products that their professional athletes wear in skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, and other sports. Also, Vans markets their products to the music and art culture industries which are featured with the links on their home page.

Vans Music Page: http://vansmusic.tumblr.com/

Vans Art Page: http://vansart.tumblr.com/

Vans has a long list of products they market to audiences:

Vans Classic Slip-ons

http://shop.vans.com/catalog/Vans/en_US/style/eyeori.html?categoryId=65120&colorCode=EYEBWW

Vans Classic Era

http://shop.vans.com/catalog/Vans/en_US/style/eraori.html?categoryId=65120&colorCode=EWZW00#variation-3

Vans Classic Old Skool

http://shop.vans.com/catalog/Vans/en_US/style/d3hori.html?categoryId=65120&colorCode=D3HNVY

Product Anyalysis:

Geoff Rowley SPV

http://shop.vans.com/catalog/Vans/en_US/style/nli.html?categoryId=23606

One of Vans new products is the Rowley SPV. This product is an addition to Geoff Rowley's product line in Vans. These sneakers are designed to be different from all his previous shoes with a hollow interior, low cut gum sole and lightweight construction. The SPV in Geoff Rowley's words is "the lightest, lowest, grippiest shoe that you could possibly make." It is an idea generated by the employees at Vans and the athlete himself to make a shoe that is on the cutting edge of skate shoe design and comfortable to the athlete himself: Geoff Rowley.

Product Website: http://www.vans.com/microsites/rowleyspv/

New Vans x Yo Gabba Gabba! Collection for the Holiday Season!

Vans x Yo Gabba Gabba! Back for Holiday Season

Posted 2011-09-26 12:52:05 by Kelly

Back by popular demand, Vans once again joins forces with The Magic Store and W!LDBRAIN Entertainment for a new Vans x Yo Gabba Gabba! collection just in time for the holiday season. Whether its story time, dancey dance time or making funny faces, the Vans x Yo Gabba Gabba!collection features four new styles and will fit the whole family. Brobee, Foofa and Muno are featured in a full character color Slip-On along with one style that includes all the beloved faces of the Yo Gabba Gabba! crew.

This collection represents the fun of both the Vans brand and the Yo Gabba Gabba!series. The packaging is designed with Vans skate culture and Yo Gabba Gabba!flare. Customers can interact with their favorite characters by coloring the box to make it their own. Even character details are showcased in the shoe designs. Brobee, the only character who changes facial expressions, is mimicked in the shoe style with one shoe featuring a happy face and one with a sad face.

The new styles will be available in toddler (4 – 10), kids (10.5 – 4) and adult sizing (3.5 – 13) retailing for $32, $37 and $50 respectively. Vans is excited to team up with the popular series for another very colorful collaboration that is sure to be a hit for all ages. The collection ships October 1st, 2011 and will be available at Vans retail stores, Vans.com and other dealers found at vans.com/yogabbagabba. Look forward to another collaboration short from Vans and the Yo Gabba Gabba!cast this season.

Source: http://www.vans.com/news/item/1796501/vans-x-yo-gabba-gabba-back-holiday-season

Chapter 16/ Integrated Marketing Communications

Vans uses promotion so the target market can know about products such as sneakers, apparel and ultimately to buy products. The company makes sure that their potential customers and target market has them in mind when shopping for products. Vans has many ways in which they use promotion to encourage customers to buy their products:

Vans uses advertising as a form of paid promotion to make sure the audiences knows about their products. Advertising like the one in this magazine is expensive but the cost per contact is worth the expense if, the target market consumers buy the product. This is an example of persuasive promotion because the ad wants to appeal to the senses so the target audience will buy the product. In the AIDA concept, this may be used in the desire stage to attract consumers over competing products.

Vans uses its Facebook & Twitter pages to create good publicity with its consumers. It uses these websites to interact with the consumers and to find out how many might be willing to buy their next product. Social media websites are good public relations tools.

Vans uses sales promotions like the “Vans Classic Tales” promotion to encourage consumers to buy their classic sneakers like Vans Slip-ons, Authentics or Eras. On http://www.vans.com/classictales/ the company asks consumers who have had great memories of wearing Vans shoes to tell a story about one of those memories. This sales promotion is also to encourage potential consumers to buy and trust classic Vans shoes.

The social media and “Vans Classic Tales” examples are reminders for consumers to keep Vans products and brand in mind. Vans is vigilant in reminding audiences that Vans is a classic brand that cares about it consumers. In the AIDA concept, these examples would be in the interest stage. Vans uses its social media pages to spark interest once the target audience is on the page. The Vans Tales promotion is made to create interest by showing many stories about how experienced customers are satisfied with Vans.

Chapter 10/ Product Concepts

When it comes to products, Vans offers its consumers a very large selection. The company has classic shoes for men, women and kids, helmets for skateboarding and action sports, clothing and apparel for everyday wear, accessories like watches, backpacks, hats and keychains. Vans even specializes in extended size sneakers for people with shoe sizes of 14-16. The company has a host of tangible products.

Vans also has an intangible appeal of being cool and hip to consumers. When a consumer buys Vans shoes, he or she can be sure that the product is widely popularity. In the last decade, the Vans brand has increased in popularity not just in action sports culture, but beyond. The brand can be seen throughout pop culture and has enormously increased its fan base from recent years.

An example of a product item is the “Greetings from Hawaii” Tee. It is a specific t-shirt that is unique from all other Vans products.

http://shop.vans.com/catalog/Vans/en_US/style/mhc.html?vcategoryId=CatZone&cm_vc=CatZone

An example of a Vans Product line is "The Vans X Yo Gabba Gabba" line. This collection has a variety of items based on the popular children’s show.

http://www.vans.com/microsites/yogabbagabba/

All Vans shoes are consistently packaged in a recognizable Vans shoebox. This shoe box helps protect the shoes from possible damage or harm when not in use and adds to the overall look and appeal of the shoes when opened. The box features a banner that states "Since 1966" which encircles it, and brings attention to its classic image.

Chapter 18/ Sales Promotion and Personal Selling

Vans does much of it's sales promotions through concerts, contests and events. The company knows the target market likes getting free merchandise and spreading enthusiasm for the Vans brand through word of mouth.

The Vans Warped Tour is a concert tour that showcases popular punk rock and pop artists throughout the summertime. Vans uses the popularity of the artists to attract youth and especially the target market of kids going back to school in the fall. Vans gives away free shoes, socks and merchandise to kids at the tour so they can recognize the brand when shopping for back to school clothing. The company realizes that they can make a huge amount of money in the back to school season. The brand wants to establish strong brand recognition in it's customers.

The VANS X ROCKSTAR TRIPLE CROWN OF SURFING SWEEPSKATES is used to create interest in youth consumers who may not know much about or be interested in Vans. The sweepstakes is also joined with Rockstar Energy Drink. Rockstar Energy Drink can build its brand recognition from joining with Vans on it's sweepstakes. The winner of the sweepstakes gets a $500 Vans gift card and a year supply of Rockstar Energy Drinks. Even though one will win, many will enter the contest and may develop growing interest for Vans and Rockstar Energy Drink.

The Vans Triple Crown of Surfing is one of the top competitions for professional surfers. Set in the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, the competition is for fans who are interested in seeing surfing and want to see the top athletes go for the grand prize of $820,000. It runs from November 12 through December 20. The event is designed to draw people to the Vans and Rockstar energy brands. The competition will showcase surfers with Vans flip flops, shirts, sneakers and many other products so the target market will be interested in buying Vans.

Vans has trade shows where the company does not stress personal selling but still does personally sell. In these trade shows, instead of concentrating on making orders, the company wants to communicate their direction as a whole through retailers, manufacturers and in their industry.

Chapter 17/ Advertising and Public Relations

When it comes to action sports culture and selling its products to youth, Vans is one of the best. Vans takes advantage of more than 40 years in business to analyze what its audience wants. Vans advertisements reflect the rebellious, free spirit of its youth audience and culture. The company's advertisements routinely feature professional athletes like Nick Remon and Anthony Van Engelen.

Vans uses frequent product advertising to consumers to sell their shoes, apparel and accessories. The company is built on selling action sports products and not much institutional advertising is used if at all. In the following product advertisements, Vans primarily uses pioneering and competitive images. Over the years, Vans has introduced many new products and competes against major action sports brands like DC for consumer attention.

This is a pioneering advertisement for Steve Caballero's "Half Cab II" sneakers which features a new design from his old model of sneakers, the "Half Cab". The ad provides information about the design of the sneakers and all of it's newer benefits to spark interest in its consumers.

This above featured competitive advertisement strikes the audience as "cool" and shows Vans shoes to be something that is in style. The ad's catch line is "Go Native" so the person who sees the brand can remember Vans as a brand that is native to California. Vans products identify with the Californian surfer/skateboarder lifestyle and the images in the ad are very similar to it. This is a great way to attract potential consumers.

Vans advertisements appear in magazines, on websites, at music festivals like the Vans Warped Tour, skateboarding competitions, billboards, mall posters, on action sports retailer websites and other places with youth traffic and activity.

Vans' public relations efforts can be experienced through their special events such as skateboarding and surfing competitions promoting the brand to targeted audiences, contests that draw customers to the brand by allowing them to win prizing and apparel, and phone applications like "Vans Hub" for the iPhone which helps hype products and direct consumers to local retailers. The Vans "Arts" page online features artists who work with Vans and creates a community of artists who are loyal to the Vans brand.

Chapter 15/ Retailing

Vans has great online and in-store retailing services. The Brand is high recognizable in the skateboarding pop culture market with competitors such as Pac-Sun, Zumiez and CCS. Vans uses it's retailers all across the country (and most recently in the New York City Area) to sell to its large youth audience. Van's retailers are specialty stores that have a great selection of action sports culture clothing, accessories and skateboards.

The Vans e-tailing site, Shop.van.com, has a large variety of products with customer review sections and well-organized product selections. It targets youth audiences with its collaborations with brands such as "Hello Kitty" and "Yo Gabba Gabba!" It uses its popular athletes like Geoff Rowley, Joel Tudor and Bucky Lasek to sell the athletes' signature sneakers online. The website also features product collaborations with rock bands like “Pearl Jam” and “Queen”. The online retailer also has helmets and protective gear for action sport athletes in its Pro-Tec product page. It has products for customers in sizes 14 through 16 on its website as well.

Vans also has a website for M-Commerce shoppers to shop on the go.

Vans six P:

• Product Offering: Has a deep depth of products ranging from shoes to skateboards.
• Promotion strategy: Advertise on Billboards, skateboarding competition and concerts
• The Proper Location: Located in areas where youth shop and times when they are present
• Retail Prices: At convenient, affordable prices people are willing to pay for
• Presentation of the Retail store: Geared to make youth and pop culture audiences comfortable
• Personnel and Consumer Service: Polite and knowledgeable employees of the Vans company information and skateboarding and pop culture

Chapter 6/ Consumer Decision Making

Vans customers build up a belief about Vans by first trying out the product. For example, a person can walk into a store and try on a pair of Vans shoes. If the person likes the pair, he/she will buy the shoes and wear them. If the person likes or doesn't like the shoes after the purchase, he/she builds up a belief about the brand. Brand image is an image built after a person tries out a certain Vans product. Based off of the one product the person tries, a judgement is made on the whole brand. People post their beliefs on the Vans online shopping page, which is also known as customer reviews. Based on these comments, other online shoppers decide to either buy or not to buy the Vans products. The prospective customers build up their own beliefs on a product by reading customer reviews.

Customer Reviews example: http://shop.vans.com/catalog/Vans/en_US/style/edf13f.html?categoryId=57105

Chapter 5/ Developing a Global Vision

Vans markets it's products to youth all around the world through events and activities that draw to fans. The company describes itself as a "Leading Core Sports and Lifestyle Brand Worldwide." Events like these draw youth crowds to the brand and help build global youth appeal to Vans. The following is what Vans described as it's strategy toward it's global market:

	•		We own, produce and sponsor Core Sports events and contests such as the VANS Triple Crown Series.
	•		We sponsor approximately 600 world class male and female Core Sports athletes to reinforce our brand as an authentic element of Core Sports.
	•		We create and operate entertainment venues such as our skateparks and our VANS High Cascade Snowboard Camp.
	•		We create unique brand building content such as the VANS Warped Tour and the movie Dogtown and Z-Boys to reinforce the authenticity of our brand and to further define it.
	•		We develop key relationships to further enhance our brand and our business such as our joint venture with Pacific Sunwear, sponsorship agreements for the VANS Triple Crown Series with other leading brands, including Mountain Dew, G-Shock, Microsoft/Xbox, Ford Ranger, Gillette, and TransWorld Media and media alliances with NBC Sports and Fox Sports Net for the broadcast of the VANS Triple Crown Series and other Core Sports events.
	•		We advertise and promote the VANS brand and Core Sports image through targeted advertising campaigns on television networks such as NBC, MTV, and Fox Sports Net , as well as in magazines such as TransWorld SKATEboarding, Thrasher, TransWorld SNOWboarding, Rolling Stone, Source, Maxim, Seventeen and Teen People.
	•		We market our products and brand image online at www.vans.com, which includes multimedia content along with our online store.
	•		We operate 97 full-price stores where our full footwear line is displayed.

Chapter 4/ The Marketing Environment

Vans if nothing else, caters to the youth culture. It especially caters to teenagers.



Events like the Vans Warped Tour features bands teenagers adore like "Panic at the Disco" and "Blink-182". The tour is featured on Fuse, a major music channel. Vans puts ads of their tour in magazines like The Skateboarding Magazine. Bands featured on the tour invite their teenage fans to come out and see them at the tour on their official website.



Vans makes apps for iTunes such as House of Vans and Vans Hub to market to teens who are addicted to their iPhones. House of Vans is an app that allows the user to check out their favorite Vans shoes and directs them to stores where they could buy those shoes.



Vans has made many skateparks over the years to motivate teens to the brand and to skateboard at their parks.



Vans lets shoppers customize their shoes online with Vans customs. It attracts teens who want to be creative and stand out by making their own custom shoes online.



Teens can access Vans pages on Facebook and Twitter.

Chapter 3/ Ethics & Social Responsibility

Vans is known not only for it's classic sklateboarding shoes but it's wildy popular surfing shoes. Vans does it's best to make it's surfing line of shoes Eco-friendly.

Surfing shoes such as these are designed to care about the enviornment:


Van PET Canvas Raglan

PET Canvas SRPLS

Hemp E-Street

PET Canvas Bali

Chapter 2/ Strategic Planning for Competitive Advantage

Vans relies on it's rich history in the skateboarding and surfing culture to stand out against it's competitors. With the company boasting of the origin of the company, "since 1966", it uses it's years of experience and reliablity to sell clothing.

Vans stresses that it knows skateboarding and skateboarders knew of Vans for over 40 years.

For exmaple: The Vans Shop Page - Authentics

Vans celebrates it's products like the Half-Cabs that have become classics over it's history. The Half-Cabs have been a favorite since the early 90's.

Vans also lets it's professional skaters design their own pair of signature shoes so the consumer can know that the shoe was made for "real skateboading." The Half Cabs is Steve Caballero's signature skateboarding shoes.

Vans is a company that takes advantage of it's favortism in punk rock and the music culture. The Vans Warped Tour is a music festival that features bands such as Paramore and Gym Class Heroes. The Company uses the concert to draw fans to the Vans brand.

Chapter 1/ Overview of Marketing (Brief History and Mission Statement)

The History Behind Vans

Vans opened its first shop in March 16th, 1966 on 704I Broadway, Anaheim, California. The company was founded by Paul Van Doren and three other partners originally called The Van Doren Rubber Company.

The company first started out making Vans #144 deck shoes, which are now called Authentics. Skateboarders started to trend the shoes into their culture in California. By the end of the decade, Vans had created a number of iconic shoes, and opened up stores nationally and internationally.

In 1982, the company received international attention for the Vans slip-ons worn by Sean Penn in the movie, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." Vans had opened it's resources to supporting a number of sports because it wanted to compete against big companies. Unfortunately, the company used too many of its resources and had to file for bankruptcy in 1983.

By 1986, Vans had recovered from it's bankruptcy and sold itself to an investment banking firm in 1988. Vans went on to expand overseas and create new shoe styles. Through the next two decades, Vans creates the iconic Triple Crown event of skateboarding, the Pro-tec Pool Party, Vans Downtown Showdown skateboarding event, it's own skate park at "the Block" in Orange County, CA and The Vans Warped Tour, America's longest running concert series.

Vans today is the world's largest action sports company.

Video by Mojo.com

Vans Mission Statement

Vans makes classic skateboarding and action sports shoes, clothing and apparel for fans all over the world. Since 1966, Vans has been at the center of skateboarding and youth culture. Fanatics and fans alike favor classic shoes such as Half-cab's, Authentic's, Slip-on's and Sk8-Hi's. Vans is home to action sports pro athletes such as Geoff Rowley and Tony Trujullo. Today, Vans is considered the largest action sports clothing company in the world. Find out more at Vans.com

What? A blog about orange?

....No, this is not about a color. The Blog @ Orange is a blog about the process of marketing and how it relates to The Vans Shoes Company. My name is Calvin O'Neal (blog editor) and I hope you enjoy. Thank you.