Consumer Behaviour Analysis Of Levi’s Jeans For Men

PESTLE Analysis

Question:

Discuss about the Marketing of Levis.

Levi’s is a world popular name in the world of fashionable clothing. It was founded in the year 1853, which grew on its popularity after 1920s. It is most commonly known for high class and durable jeans. However, with the passage of time, it witnessed some of the most trusted competition to its brand appeal from the brands such as Lee, Wrangler, Spykar and Tommy Hilfiger (Levi Strauss, 2017). The main purpose of this assignment is to address the consumer behaviour on the product line of Levi’s. In this assignment, the chosen product is jeans men’s wear manufactured by Levis. The men’s product line consists of jeans trousers, jackets, shirts, T-shirts and so on.

Table 1: PESTLE analysis

Source: (Created by Author)

Jeans production depends on several factors such as climatic condition, technological involvement, legal rules & regulation and consumer behaviour. Moreover, to receive gigantic responses from the customers, it is necessary that the advertisement of a particular product reach to all the people in irrespective of the countries. The behaviour of customers should be tried with some different mode of offering such as lightweight cotton jeans, which is in practice for quite a few times (Solomon, 2014).

Table 2: SWOT analysis

Source: (Created by Author)

The Levi’s is a powerful name in the world of clothing because of its brand value. However, the reputation is challenged by few of its biggest rivals such as Wrangler, Lee, Spykar and Tommy Hilfiger. The changing trend of clothing is very frequent in modern times mainly because of fashion shows. This is one of the biggest threats to the Jeans manufacturing. The growing challenges from the competitors and the changing customer demand are a threat to the brand (Kardes, Cronley & Cline, 2014).

The target market segment of Levis is the young and rich people in the world. Levis is an international jeans garments manufacturing company and manufactures dresses for both men and women. The target market is a blend of demographic and lifestyle oriented approach. The demographic target market profile of Levis men’s apparel consists of young generations which look for user friendly, tough, comfortable and stylish pairs of jeans trousers prefer Levis over other brands (Olavarrieta, Friedmann & Manzur, 2015). The lifestyle based target market of Levis consists of rich or upper middle class consumers who look upon price and brand value of the products as quality assurances. The consumer base of Levis jeans apparels are young and ready to pay more prices for the brand and do not prefer buying alternatives even if they are cheaper. Levis to its male consumers is an expression of their high taste and status (Harman et al., 2014).

The target market decision making process consists of the following steps:

The first step for target market decision making process is identifying the consumer needs. The needs of the consumers play a very important role in marketing mixes and strategies. For example, Levis understood the need of tough, comfortable, stylish and high quality pairs of jeans among the young generations. This recognition has helped the company to manufacture jeans apparels to suit these needs and given it a high market position (Schiffman et al., 2013).

SWOT Analysis

The companies while deciding on the target market for high involvement product lines like Levis should gain information about the purchase habits of the target market segment. The companies can gain knowledge about consumer expectation, power of expenditure and brand preferences from primary sources like surveys. They can also get the information about consumers’ preferences from newspapers, televisions and from previous purchase data (Kiel & Layton 1981).

The consumers always try to obtain the prefer product available in the market which suits their preferences, lifestyles, income and other demands. The companies manufacturing high involvement like Levis should study these factors and the alternative products in the markets. They should evaluate the alternative products in the market because these products will be their competitors in future.

The consumers at this stage make the actual purchase decisions to buy the products which suit their tastes, preferences and other requirements. The actual purchase is often stimulated by advertisements, promotions and acquaintance recommendations. The company Levis should promote its men’s products to create demands among the men. This will create demand for the products and result in their sales.

The consumers analyses the products, their benefits and their value addition after the actual consumption of them at this stage. If the consumers consider that the product has met their expectations and added value to them they will keep on consuming the products and recommend others to buy them (Hsiao, Chang & Tang, 2016). For example, Levis meets the expectations of a huge international male consumer base who stick to it and recommend it to others. This positive outcome post purchase evaluation has earned Levis its high demand among the young men all over the world.

The first social influence on the buying behaviour can be the changing nature of common people towards the wearing products. The formal jeans, which dominated the most part of century has now mostly been transformed into cotton jeans. It has not completely outplayed the popularity of the traditional jeans; however, it has affected its popularity significantly (Belk, Askegaard & Scott, 2012).

The second example of a social behaviour could be looking for comforts in wearing. This is such a vital factor that has contributed hugely in the changing perception of common people towards the buying of products. The global warming has captivated its dominance not only in this world but also on to the mentalities & behaviours of common people. The increasing level of temperature is forcing the common people to think for those dressing, which can provide a comfort experience. This is because of the fact that numerous brands are changing their product line to match with the rapid changing behaviour of costumers (Lantos, 2015).

Two psychological factors affecting buying behaviour in consumers are as follows:

Need motivates the consumers to consume products and depend on the type of products, like basic requirements like food causes consumers to spend more. The premium high involvement products like Levis jeans satisfy the esteem needs and social needs aspects of Maslow’s theory (Cherry, 2015). People look upon these premium apparel brands as status symbols and are ready to spend money to buy them. Levis should try to create more demand among the men and motivate them to buy Levis apparels (Taormina & Gao, 2013).

Target Market Segment

The consumers derive perceptions about products after consuming them and decide their futures purchases based on the perceptions. The consumers attach certain qualities to certain products and harbour perceptions about them (Xiang et al, 2015). The men usually perceive Levis to be comfortable, classy and so on. This perception about Levis helps the company to retain consumers and occupy a high international position. The company should promote its men’s products and maintain its high quality to retain its loyal consumer base. This will also prevent its competitors from distorting its market image and taking its place (Han & Hyun, 2015).

One of the most personal factors that affect the buying behaviour of the learner is its cultural beliefs that strictly keep the learner within the allowed area of expansion (Rathore, 2012). The learner can go to any extent but it has to be in the within the instructed area of expansion. The learner is from a cultural family that believes in their own culture. The learner can wear anything, which is permissible as per the cultural guidelines. This is something, which marks a boundary line for the buying behaviour. The strict following of the culture might not accept the all form of clothing as it happens in Isla where Hijab is very important. In Islam, they are comfortable with their own traditional and cultural style of dressing that could hide their body from being visible to the naked eyes (Malik et al., 2013).

Another factor is the personal zeal for the buying habits, which also affect the buying behaviour. Moreover, it is an undeniable fact that buying habits depend hugely on the buying zeal of the customers. Nevertheless, one cannot force someone to wear jeans that are traditional in thinking and want to stick with their formal mode of dressing only (Juster, 2015).

Conclusions

The study of the target market of the high involvement product line by Levis points out several aspects which the company should take into account while making strategies. The market analysis shows that though the company is an internationally strong brand, it faces stiff competitions from other international and local brands of jeans. The target market of Levis is mostly men who perceive the product lines of the company to be combination of class, quality, comfort and stylishness. This positive perception about Levis has earned the company its top market position. The followings are the recommendations which can be made considering above findings:

1. The company must expand its product line into other segments to suit to the needs of the local markets. This will help the company to compete with the premium manufacturers who make both ethnic wears and western wears from jeans.
2. The company must introduce low priced apparels which will increase its market penetration. The company must offer low priced variants with students and the lower middle class as its target market. This will help the company to strengthen its market position.
3. The company should stress on green acquisition of raw materials which will allow it to reduce emission of pollutants like smoke and waste water from its factories. This will help the company to benefit the stakeholders like the society as a whole. The company in fact create a stronger goodwill by following green and environment friendly ways of operating.
4. The Levis should increase its presence on the internet platform. This will help the company to cater to the needs of a bigger consumer base.

References:

Belk, R. W., Askegaard, S., & Scott, L. (Eds.). (2012). Research in consumer behavior. Emerald Group Publishing.

Cherry, K. (2015). Hierarchy of needs. The Five Levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. About. com Guide.↑| Link.

Han, H., & Hyun, S. S. (2015). Customer retention in the medical tourism industry: Impact of quality, satisfaction, trust, and price reasonableness. Tourism Management, 46, 20-29.

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Kardes, F., Cronley, M., & Cline, T. (2014). Consumer behavior. Cengage Learning.

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Lantos, G. P. (2015). Consumer behavior in action: Real-life applications for marketing managers. Routledge.

Levi Strauss. 2017. Levi Strauss – Levi Strauss & Co. [online] Available at: https://www.levistrauss.com/ [Accessed 16 Apr. 2017].

Malik, M. E., Ghafoor, M. M., Iqbal, H. K., Ali, Q., Hunbal, H., Noman, M., & Ahmad, B. (2013). Impact of brand image and advertisement on consumer buying behavior. World Applied Sciences Journal, 23(1), 117-122.

Olavarrieta, S., Friedmann, R., & Manzur, E. (2015). Brand Personality in Chile: a combined emic-etic approach.

Rathore, N. (2012). A Study on Consumer Behavior towards Organized and Unorganized Retailing. Abhinav (NationalMonthly Refereed Journal of Research In Commerce &Management) volume, (1), 2277-1166.

Schiffman, L., O’Cass, A., Paladino, A., & Carlson, J. (2013). Consumer behaviour. Pearson Higher Education AU.

Solomon, M. R. (2014). Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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Taormina, R. J., & Gao, J. H. (2013). Maslow and the motivation hierarchy: Measuring satisfaction of the needs. The American journal of psychology, 126(2), 155-177.

Xiang, Z., Magnini, V. P., & Fesenmaier, D. R. (2015). Information technology and consumer behavior in travel and tourism: Insights from travel planning using the internet. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 22, 244-249.

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