Hire or buy clothing?

Two US entrepreneurs set the trend in motion when they opened Rent the Runway, a designer clothing-for-hire business in 2009. The idea was to offer women (and, later, men) the opportunity to hire a fancy outfit for several days, at a fraction of the purchase price.

The one-time hire price includes shipping plus cleaning as a complete package. Just choose an outfit, click to hire and return postage-free after the special occasion. Rent the Runway and other US rivals also offer subscription pricing, so customers can choose a certain number of everyday outfits per month at one low for-hire fee. In other words, for-hire isn't just for special occasions.

Now clothing for hire is going global. UK businesses that offer designer frocks include Girl Meets Dress. 'Customers had never hired before, so the main thing was getting them to do this', says Girl Meets Dress founder Anna Bance, whose data systems had to account for the time clothing spends in transit and in cleaning between hire periods.

In Australia, GlamCorner offers women's designer clothing for hire. The company, founded in 2012, markets via email and digital campaigns. It's experienced significant growth as more customers try for-hire clothing and appreciate the benefits.

In China, YCloset is growing as it educates the market about the benefits of clothing-hire and erases doubts about wearing clothing previously hired by others. A social-media influencer recently created a viral video in which she visited YCloset's cleaning facility, to reassure customers that any clothing they hire will be quite clean and presentable. Will consumers choose to hire more clothing or will they remain committed to buying?

Unilever and Nestle Pursue Niche Growth

Sweet Earth is being acquired by Nestle

Switzerland-based Nestle is buying a small California firm known for vegan and vegetarian foods; Dutch-British Unilever is buying a company that makes herbal organic teas.

Unilever is acquiring Pukka Herbs

Both of these multinationals are building part of their growth strategies around acquiring businesses and products in niches that are attractive because of increasing consumer appeal and the ability to be noticed through distinctive brands/products.

Unilever, for example, pursued Pukka Herbs because it is unusually fast-growing in its niche. Unilever's top tea executive explains: 'In the morning a lot of people still drink black tea as it picks you up, but in the afternoon or evening herbal tea is wonderful with different benefits'. In other words, Pukka Herbs complements Unilever's existing tea brands and products.

Nestle bought Sweet Earth, a vegan/vegetarian food marketer, to get firmly established in the plant-based protein market. Nestle USA's CEO comments: 'One of Nestlé’s strategic priorities is to build out our portfolio of vegetarian and flexitarian choices in line with modern health trends'.

Mainstream brands/products continue to sell--but certain niches are growing more rapidly and delivering customer acquisition (and profits) through specialization. That's why more multinationals will be exploiting growth opportunities by buying firms that have a following and a strong brand image in a well-defined niche.

Four views of the top five UK brands in 2014

Superbrands UK says the top UK consumer brands in 2014 are:

1. British Airways
2. Rolex
3. Coca-Cola
4. BBC
5. Heinz

Brand-Finance says the top global brands of UK origin in 2014 are:

1. Vodafone
2. Shell
3. HSBC
4. Orange
5. Tesco

LinkedIn says the top five most influential UK brands among its members in 2014 are:

1. Financial Times
2. Ernst & Young
3. BP
4. Unilever
5. Hays

The Grocer says the top five grocery brands in 2014 are:

1. Coca-Cola
2. Warburtons
3. Walkers
4. Birds Eye
5. Cadbury Dairy Milk

Did you notice? The top five brands on these lists don't overlap at all, with the exception of Coca-Cola, which appears on both the Superbrands list and The Grocer list.

Top trends of 2009

The Marketing headline "Top five consumer trends in 2009" was dated 15 December, 2009. Often "top trends" articles are predictions rather than recaps. In this case, Marketing was looking back on the year as it was about to end. These are the top five trends identified by the publication:

1. Decline of trust (I agree, and makes sense in this era of economic instability and frequent corporate/management changes)
2. Credit-crunch chic (frugal was in, conspicuous consumption was out--agreed)
3. Canny consumers (hardly a new trend, but agreed--consumers are still shopping around before buying and they know exactly what the competition is doing)
4. Social networking neurosis (what should brands do about blogs, Twitter, and so on? IMHO, this is not really neurosis but the normal shaking-out of new communications technology)
5. Crowdsourcing (not new but gained more momentum in 2009--agreed)

What would you add to these top trends from last year? I'd add "established brands dominated." Last year, consumers (and retailers) were more interested in the stability and security of established brands than they were in experimenting with unproven products.

As a result, the barrier to entry for new products was higher than ever in 2009. Financially, this made sense. From a marketing perspective, it narrowed the possibilities and opportunities.

I expect the second half of 2010 to be quite crowded with the introduction of many more new products than in the entire 2009 period. The global economy is strengthening, consumers are tired of postponing purchases and retailers need new products to perk up their aisles.