Vans: Mission, Target Market, and Competitive Advantage

Product

• What products does Vans sell?

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Vans sells skateboard shoes, appeal, and outer wear for guys and girls.

Mission Statement

Describe the Vans mission in less than three sentences. The mission statement of Vans expresses that they want to provide an attractive look to teenage kids.

The employees of Vans want their customers to be happy and enjoy their new clothes.

Target

• Who do they target in terms of gender, geography, lifestyle, income, interests and activities?

Vans targets mainly males, but lately females are making a greater appearance. Originally, they focused on the west coast but they quickly expanded eastward. They target younger kids with interests that include: action sports, music, art, and street fashion.

Competitive Advantage

How does Vans describe its competitive advantage?

How are they different and better than other brands? They see themselves as the original; therefore, being original is their competitive advantage. They were the first to make the canvas, checkerboard skate and active wear shoes.

Distribution

• Where is Van’s sold? What is their pyramid distribution strategy? How does it work?

Vans are sold at most shoes that sell shoes; however, they decided to only give the mainstream retailers specific shoes. This is to protect their popular shoes in hopes to keep them popular.

If only certain stores hold their most popular shoes, the shoes will not sell immensely all at once but will sell well over time. The most exclusive shoes goes to the top of the pyramid sellers and then the middle level shoes go to the more mainstream sellers.

• What is their strategy in terms of their use of traditional media (TV, radio, magazine, outdoor)? List the different media and examples of specific media vehicles.

They mainly rely on magazine promotion. They put their ads in all of the true skate, surf, snow, and motocross magazines that are available.

Then after magazines are events, for example: skateboard competitions, surfing competitions, etc. Next in the line of media is television and radio.

• What is their strategy in terms of the role of the internet in Van’s communication strategy? Provide examples.
• What is their promotional strategy in terms of their use of sales promotion with consumers? (samples, tours, contests, vacations, giveaways)? Provide examples.

Some promotional strategies used by Vans are documentaries like Dogtown and Z-Boys, which is a 90 minute documentary.

Vans has many commercials that advertise their shoes while people are skateboarding.

• What is their promotional strategy in terms of their use of sales promotion with retailers? (samples, tours, contests, vacations, giveaways)? Provide examples.

Vans gives away clothes and shoes to retailers so that they can promote them to customers and get their brand out and make it more well-known. 10. What is their promotional strategy in terms of public relations/publicity where events are staged to engage potential customers and the media? Provide examples including events.

Later in their years Vans became a marketing company now their promotional strategies consist of many events such as, The Vans walk tour, Vans Triple Crown surfing, Vans downtown showdown, and many more skateboard, snow board and surfing events.

• How do they make use of interactive marketing?

Vans is known for hosting an array of events that are seemingly enjoyable and fun.  It is very interactive more so because the Vice President of the company makes sure of he is at all events in a very approachable form.

• How do they use spokespersons?

Their events where they team up with different television stations and so on stands as there spokesperson. They more so work on letting the brand as a whole speak for itself.

• How do they use cause marketing? Give examples of sponsorships.

Vans uses cause marketing in the ads they have consisting of magazines, events, television and radio. One of cause marketing sponsorships they have is “Surf Rider” which is an organization founded upon keeping the ocean water clean. Vans teamed up with this organization by making exclusive shoes that has the name of the branch where Surf Rider branches are.

Vans causes marketing by magazines and ad’s in only the true skateboard, snowboard and surfing magazines. They host actual events pertaining to all of these events to not only drive sales but form an interpersonal relationship with all Vans customers. Lastly they turn to television and radio to keep the name of the company in the mainstream media.

• What types of information and research does Vans use to determine the effectiveness of their promotional strategy?

Vans information and research comes from “bottom line”. As well as the constant surveys they receive from countless market research groups.

Their website remains the number one action sport website. They also notice at events the numerous amount of clients that are wearing vans everywhere.

• Do you think Vans’ promotional mix focuses more on a pull strategy or a push strategy? Why?

I feel Vans’ promotional mix focuses more on a pull strategy than a push strategy. Vans’ does not chase different competitors out of their range of products. They focus more on pleasing the current clients who are looking for what Vans as a company has to offer. They pride themselves on being original and work on continuing to keep it that way.

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