Urban Outfitters Customer
Urban Outfitters targets young adults aged 18 to 30, men and women. Metropolitan hipsters; creative and tech-savvy with a funky and unique sense of style. Described by the New York Times as “the apparel company that caters to the young and multiple-pierced.” Millennials that like to attend music festivals, prefer to camp, and in general likes to be active both indoors and outside.”
Anthropologie Customer
Anthropologie’s customers’ demographic profile is a 30 to 45 years old woman, college or post-graduate education, married with kids or in a committed relationship, professional or ex-professional, annual household income of $150,000 to $200,000. She’s well-read and well-traveled. She is very aware — she gets their references, whether it’s to a town in Europe or to a book or a movie. She’s urban minded. She’s into cooking, gardening, and wine. She has a natural curiosity about the world. She’s relatively fit.”
The Anthropologie customer is affluent but not materialistic. She’s focused on building a nest but hankers for exotic travel. (She can picture herself roughing it with a backpack and Eurail pass — as long as there is a massage and room service at end of the trek.) She’d like to be a domestic goddess but has no problem cutting corners (she prefers the luscious excess of British cooking sensation Nigella Lawson to the measured perfection of Martha Stewart). She’s in tune with trends, but she’s a confident individualist when it comes to style. She lives in the suburbs but would never consider herself a suburbanite.
The Anthropologie woman is not so much conflicted as she is resistant to categorization. Her identity is a tangle of connections to activities, places, interests, values, and aspirations. She’s not married with two kids: She’s a yoga-practicing filmmaker with an organic garden, a collection of antique musical instruments, and an abiding interest in Chinese culture (plus a husband and two kids). It’s no coincidence that Julia Roberts is the celebrity avatar of Anthropologie. Not only is she a frequent shopper (along with many of Hollywood’s strongest-minded women, including Susan Sarandon, Sharon Stone, and Madonna), but her bohemian-chic wardrobe in The Mexican was Anthropologie sourced.
The attraction of Anthropologie is that it revels in the nuance and complexity of these women and the world they live in. And the power of its approach lies in its ability to create a vibrant, comfortable zone where they can put the puzzle of their multiplex, hybrid lives together.
Free People Customer
A 26-year-old girl, smart, creative, confident and comfortable in all aspects of her being, free and adventurous, sweet to tough to tomboy to romantic. A girl who likes to keep busy and push life to its limits, with traveling and hanging out and everything in between. Who loves Donovan as much as she loves The Dears, and can’t resist petting any dog that passes her by on the street.
As stated by Free People, “Today we draw, design, sew and buy for her. We offer her countless options within our own Free People collection, so that even if she takes her best pal shopping, they won’t come out looking at all alike. And if she wants her colors and patterns all mixed up, that’s even better, picking through our sweaters, knits and skirts. And our design team is expecting to offer even greater variety in our intimates and accessories business”.
Past IMC Appeals
The Urban Outfitters namesake brand has had recent struggles with staying connect to its core customers. CEO and founder Richard Hayne said on an earnings call with analysts, “I believe the theories which correlate demographic shifts, poor employment numbers, online tipping points, or other similar factors to the difficult sales in the young adult market are off-point.” “Sales correlate directly with fashion hits and misses, and I believe the Urban brand has had fewer hits than normal. It’s that simple.” This was a case of bad fashion-forecasting, he explained. “When the fashion did change, a number of people, including us, didn’t call the fashion as well as we could have.”
Urban Outfitters has long described itself as “fashion forward.” But earlier this year Goldman Sachs’ retail analysts cautioned that the company might have pushed too far with some of the latest designs on its shelves, including this infamous denim-and-tutu creation
Haynes has also said, “Quite frankly, the Urban brand organization became too silo-ed, with too little communication across functional areas,” he said. “The great creativity that has been the hallmark of our success became stifled.” The company will restructure its procedures, elevate creative functions to a more central role in the business, and refocus on the 18- to 28-year-old age bracket that has driven its past success, he said.
Urban Outfitters 