River Island vs Roberto Cavalli

Whether high street or high-end, there are only so many brand stories a fashion brand can offer to its consumers; for example Jack Wills offering traditional heritage whilst All Saints uses urban rebel. Learning about these during a seminar this week, we looked at the similarities certain brands have to each other, not necissarily just with their products, but with their brand values and stories.

Looking at the high-end brand, Roberto Cavalli, and the high street store River Island, there are many similar techniques used across their marketing strategies and promotional images. 

Looking at these two promotional images, it would be very difficult to differentiate between the two brands, and it could be possible that you may think that both are representing the same clothing line; even though the top is River Island, and bottom is Roberto Cavilli, both with different price ranges and target audiences. When asked to describe the relationship and brand narrative similarities between the two brands, I began to become more comfortable with what these brands are trying to represent.

Both of these brands use quite colourful and youtful campaigns, showing how they are targetted towards a fun and playful audience. Listing words such as metallic, noisy, sharp, bold, electric, sensual, italian and unpolished helped us develop a better understanding of the companies brand values, and I was able to put together a series of phrases to describe their brand story and identity.

"Unrefined clashing bright prints, wild and dynamic
embelishments with an urban pop glamour"

I feel that this string of adjectives really describes both the fashion identity and values of these brands whilst also demonstrates the similarities between brands which are targetted at completely different markets. But why do different market levels both have the same story? I think that these high street brands are trying to keep up with the high-end retailers and want to make their brand appeal to fashion consious consumers. This target audience will recognise the similarities between brands, but may not yet have the lifestyle to purchase these expensive designer brands. Therefore, stores such as River Island use these similar techniques to reach aspirational consumers. I really enjoyed this task and can't wait to look further into the brand identitys of other brands, as they really do all show overlaps.
#fcpreflection