Marketing techniques.

As Patrick De Pelsmacker says 'Marketing communication is the art of seducing a customer on his way to your competitor' and that is exactly right.

Without marketing your brand the way you want consumers to think of you, you will never convey the message you are trying to get across.

The reason brands put so much effort into communicating their message is so they can differentiate, remind or reassure, inform and persuade the customer. For example, applying this technique on to a young guy wanting to buy his girlfriend a gift for her birthday but isn't sure whether to go to Zara or Topshop, how does he decide without asking his girlfriend?

The differentiation between Zara and Topshop to me is pretty clear, however to many that do not tend to shop in these shops or that don't take much notice of the way the brands convey themselves, they will happily buy from either.

Zara is very minimalist, focusing on neutrals and modelling their clothes on very natural, almost simple looking girls. Whereas Topshop aim to push their brand into fantasy at times by having very adventurous trends within their store that can put the middle aged woman off going into the store as they feel to 'old' for that persona.

Here are a few examples of how brands that offer the same thing, women's clothing, present their visual merchandise in store.

Can you guess which store is which? 1. Tophop 2. Zara 3. Monsoon 4. Free People