Fashion Marketing: Contemporary Issues, Second edition - Pr School

Fashion retailer desired and perceived identity 253
exemplar for H&M and other similar companies attempting to closely align
their perceived and desired identities. Zara has delivered its desired corporate
identity to the employees within the organization. Its corporate culture,
company’s philosophy, employees’ behaviour, quality of products, customer
services and store designs have reflected Zara’s desired identity to the participants.
From the case studies, it seems that Zara has an efficient internal communication
channel, which communicates its missions to its employees across
all departments to ensure that they reflect the desired identity to the public.
For instance, the staff at the store level have the appropriate attitudes and
behaviour towards the customers. The staff are polite and friendly. They have
professional attitudes towards the customers. Foo and Lowe (1999) explain
that some organizations may use their logos to communicate their identities
to the public and it is certainly the case in Zara. However, many participants
felt that a logo can only act as a recognition purpose, and it cannot act as the
whole of corporate identity. The other minor drawback of Zara is that its product
offerings are not tailored for all customers, as they desire. Although Zara
aims to bring fashion to all people despite of their differences in culture and
background, its products sometimes are not suitable for petite sized customers
as observed by customers interviewed.
There are ways that H&M could reduce its desired–perceived identity gap.
Firstly, H&M should improve its product quality with tighter quality control
and testing to avoid problems like shrinkage identified by some customers.
According to Balmer (1995), a company’s products and services must reflect
corporate missions and philosophies. At present, the poor quality of the products
does not correspond to the retailer’s desired mission on quality offering.
Secondly, H&M should enhance its store images by designing a better layout
and providing a more comfortable environment to its customers. These can
be achieved by displaying fewer clothing in stores and recruiting more staff
to tidy stores more frequently. These would give customers pleasure in shopping
in H&M stores. Moreover, H&M should communicate more effectively
with its staff and train them in its policies and missions (Kennedy, 1977) and
acknowledge the attitudes the employees hold before the company presents
its identity to the public. The company could have a more defined core values
and clearer missions and well-planned internal communication with its
employees. It should make sure that both its full-time and part-time staff have
appropriate trainings in customer care and product knowledge. H&M should
ensure that its staff fully understand the corporate missions and make sure
that they can reflect company’s mission to the customers. This could help to
minimize any conflicts and misalignment between employees and the company,
and most importantly, it could reduce the gap between the desired identity
and the perceived identity. For instance, in Zara’s case, Zara motivates its
employees at all levels to achieve customer satisfaction. Participants could
identify the professionalism of Zara from staff’s friendly and helpful behaviour
and attitudes towards customers. Furthermore, H&M should have more
effective advertising campaigns and should aim to deliver clearly what the
company is and what the company stands for to its customers. By carrying