Kanye West and his Yeezy Brand

Introduction

Kanye West, widely known as one of Hip Hop's most iconic rappers originally ventured into the fashion world in 2004, however, had back then, said that his clothing line hindered his music, therefore, halted production on his line.  Fast forward to the 2008 Grammys, West debuts his Nike Air Yeezy's.   Initially they were of a black and white colour-way, however, the popularity and demand for these shoes in particular caused West to sign a deal with Nike to become "the first time Nike had given a signature shoe to a non- athlete"  which allowed Kanye to elusively become an icon in the "sneaker" world.  This helped Kanye to become a "famous musician who wanted to reimagine the concept of celebrity designer" (GQ - The Unabridged History of Kanye West as a Fashion Designer) 

It's 2016 and Kanye West's fashion train has not stopped.  He has now signed a deal with Adidas, which allowed him to freely design the shoes he "felt he deserved" along with this, Adidas offered West more than the $4 Million Dollar deal that Nike offered him to keep making shoes for their line.  (GQ - The Unabridged History of Kanye West as a Fashion Designer)  This only further the facts that Kanye West, with years to come, will become one of the most prominent shoe designers in the world. 

image taken from Google "the agony of being a Kanye West Fan"

                                                   The Marketing Mix

The Marketing Mix is essentially what a company should use in order to make sure that the company is able to "match the identified needs of target consumers in order to satisfy these customers requirements." (Dibb, 2012, Marketing Concepts and Strategies)  The Marketing Mix includes but is not limited to the 4 P's known as; Price, Promotion, Product and Place, however, as stated, it is not limited to the 4 P's, with an additional 3 P's included to make up the 7P's of which are; Physical Evidence, Process and People.   By using the initial 4 P's the company is helping themselves to "establish an overall brand image and unique selling image"  to make sure that their company stands out from any competition in which they may have. (BBC Bitesize - The Marketing Mix) 

(image taken from BBC Bitesize - The Marketing Mix)

Image taken from sales and marketing for you

http://www.sales-and-marketing-for-you.com/marketing-mix-structure.html

People

This part of the marketing mix is basically just the employees, shareholders or general public who help to "execute the service" in which the company will be providing to the consumers. (Samar Mahajan)

Process

The process in marketing is when the "processes and systems within the organisation affect the execution of it's service" (Samar Mahajan)

Physical Evidence

The physical evidence element of the marketing mix is the physical aspect of the product in which the company is presenting to the consumer, this includes any tangible aspects of the product or the packaging of the product.

Product

Product is essentially what the company is putting forward to their consumers, it has to fulfil the needs of their consumers and should realistically be able to stand out from any competitors.  So in terms of the Yeezy shoes, how does Kanye West make them stand out? and how does he make sure his consumers are happy with his products?

image taken from the Adidas Yeezy website
(http://www.adidas.com/yeezy)

As you can see from the image above, the shoe has a very stand out design, from the red stripe with the name of the supply of the shoe to the sole of the shoe, it's easy to see why Kanye West is at the forefront of selling shoes.  

http://www.adidas.com/yeezy

The description above allows the design to stand out, by going into descriptive detail on what makes this shoe so different from others, this helps to draw consumers in, which goes hand in hand with fighting off any competition, in regards to Kanye with his transition from Nike to Adidas.  This specific design is taken from the latest Yeezy release, however, his newest "Yeezy Season 1-3" have the same simplistic yet stand out design, with a simple change in colour, which ranges from "Oxford Tan" to "Pirate Black" 

Here is a short clip on the design of the product:

Image on the left is the "Oxford Tan"

Image on the right is the "Pirate Black"

Kanye West's designs are not limited to the above images, however, these are the most in demand versions of the shoes.  Kanye knows what his consumers otherwise known as fans want, they want different, they want stand out, they want "weird."  These are words that are often associated with Kanye West himself from both his music and fashion offerings.  Make no mistake, Kanye West is well aware of how to sell his products, he is using designs that no other shoe designer makes.  Although Adidas stick to the 3 stripes design on their products, these shoes don't have this trademark.  Kanye West is single handedly bringing attention to Adidas with a change in shoe design.  By taking away the 3 stripe he is showing that Adidas can do something different, if consumers want different, Adidas and Kanye West can do that.  Through his deal with Nike, Kanye felt constricted in what he could do, after the 2008 Grammys, his shoes made headlines, however, when he started to release his shoes on Adidas, his shoe line really started to gain attention.  

We are now on "Season 4" of his Yeezy line and his shoe design is still the same, the only thing different as stated above is the colour-way.  Kanye West appeals to the masses of "young people" who want to stand out from the crowd, and in particular people who want to be associated with Kanye. 

Aside from the shoe design being different, the packaging of the shoe is actually very simple and effective.  The packaging ties in with the branding of the product. 

http://www.jaystrut.com/2015/06/yeezy-boost-350-yeezyboost-unboxing.html

The above image shows just how simple the packaging for the shoes are, it's a vast contrast from the actual product, but with this, you can clearly see the brand of the product, you can see that it's from Kanye West's Yeezy line, you can see that it's by Adidas.  Kanye West knows that by providing a shoe box that is simple but has the brand put on the box, collectors or fans of his shoes will be able to keep this as a memento, the packaging is very effective.

In the words of the (Author, Unknown, NY Times) Kanye West pulled it off.  This essentially sums up the fact that by knowing his consumers, and knowing what they want, Kanye West is selling his product and he is selling it well.

Place

Place in a simplistic meaning is the ways of distribution.  Do they sell online? Do they sell in shops? How can consumers buy the product?  

When it comes to Kanye's Yeezy line, he has several places in which you can buy the shoes.  First and foremost is the online retailer.  His online retailer comes directly from the Adidas website and he does this a specific way.  Due to the high demand of the shoes and the multiple website crashes, Adidas had to find a way in which they can successfully maintain traffic whilst selling the shoes, so to overcome this, you are placed in a queue and the queue is randomised so you have an equal chance to buy the product.  

Image taken from the Adidas website

From the above image, you can see that they have advertised and are distributing from the online retailer, however, there is only a limited supply, which moves us onto the next distribution channel, local retailers.   Local retailers, like online, have a limited supply, and because of this, when Kanye and Adidas announce the local retailers, there are usually queues outside, people sometimes camp.   Usually with local retailers, like above, you have to sign up to register your interest and once the local retailers have been announced, you are put into a raffle, quite like the online queue, for your chance to buy your shoes, so if you do not get a chance to buy online, you have another chance to go to your local retailer.  

Image taken from the Adidas Website

From the above image, you can see that there are a vast amount of UK retailers who supply the Yeezy shoe line, including smaller cities like Norwich.  By these means of distribution, it is allowing Kanye to branch out to a wider set of consumers through these smaller cities.  

Finally, due to the limited release of these shoes for each distributor, Kanye West has now introduced "pop up shops" in select cities, including London.  Basically these shops stock all Yeezy shoes from previous lines as well as a limited amount of Yeezy shoes from this season, however, the difference with the pop up stores are they contain a much higher amount of shoes from this season. 

You can see from the image here that Kanye West's Yeezy shoes are very much in high demand, people are queueing outside well before opening times (note: security guard) and this is mainly due to the fact that the products are of limited edition, and it's quite like the Hunger Games (waiting for your district number).  

There is an extreme want for this product and for Kanye and Adidas to make these shoes available not only online or using Adidas prolific online presence, but also taking the idea of opening pop up shops and having exclusive deals with local retailers, Kanye is taking his product to the next level.  

Limited edition shoes made by one of Hip Hop's most iconic rapper is going to bring attention to both Adidas and the Yeezy product itself, it's very smart.

Price

When determining the price of the product, it's important to know what the consumer would value your product as and ensuring that when setting the price, they at least "reflect the pricing strategies of competitors products." (Dibb, 2012, Marketing Concepts and Strategies) 

When it comes to Kanye West's Yeezy shoes, I think it's safe to say that they are not cheap, however, most of his consumers will willingly pay these prices, it's quite absurd really.  

Let's have a look at these prices.

http://www.highsnobiety.com/2016/07/11/yeezy-shoes-price-ranked-resell/

The figures are hard to see, so here is a breakdown of them;

For the Yeezy Turtledove shoes, pictured above, the retail price is $200 (£160) which is an incredible amount of money to spend on a pair of shoes! Compare the Turtledove to the latest release of the V2 (red striped; pictured above) the retail price of those shoes are £150, which is £10 lower, not significant, but realistically, it shows that Kanye is at least listening to his consumers who complain about the price, I get the fact that spending £150 on shoes is absurd, but these consumers worship Kanye, they are willing to pay around about anything, which brings me to the resell price of these shoes.  The Turtledove resale is listed as $1571 and the V2 which have just been released do not have a resale figure as of yet, but I would presume it'd be around about the same.  (figures taken from highsnobriety) 

If you do the maths for how much the Turtledove shoe alone costs, ($200) and there are only 9000 shoes made of this kind, Kanye West has made $1.8 million dollars, on top of the deal Adidas already makes him.  (9000 figure taken from myfirstclasslife) Therefore if you do the same maths for each shoe and how many shoes are released, Kanye West is making a fortune, so why can't he set his own prices? People are clearly happy with paying that amount of money.  

So when it comes to setting prices, I think that because Kanye has no real competition from other rappers or musicians whom have their own shoe line, he is free to alter and manipulate the shoe market with the prices that he currently has, tie that in with his high celebrity status and the fact his consumers are so loyal, his pricing is what Kanye thinks he is worth in terms of being a "designer."   This is essentially the influence on why the prices are so high and why the prices on the resale are so high, Kanye West is a celebrity, he has a deal with Adidas worth more than $4 million dollars, he has full control of his shoe line, therefore, he can set the prices to what he wants.

"Every release is anticipated with bated breath and in terms of interest level, it's surpassed all other sneaker models across all brands" (Limited Edt Founder, Mandeep Chopra)  This further backs up the argument that Kanye West can make the shoe price as high as he wants and people will still buy them.

Promotion

Promotion by definition is an action of communications to "generate extra sales, both from existing customers purchasing more products and by temporarily attracting new customers." (De Pelsmacker, Geuens and Van den Bergh, 2010)  When it comes to the promotion of his products, Kanye West has several ways he does this, it ranges from Advertising to PR methods.  West's approach to promotion is quite dynamic, in a sense, that he knows his consumers, so he knows what they want to see, he knows that if he posts a picture wearing them with a link to buy those shoes, they'll be gone in seconds.  

He is a PR mastermind. 

Image taken from Adidas' Instagram Account

instagram.com/adidas

The image above is in reference to a new deal that Adidas offered Kanye in the summer of this year, it's an example of good promotion. 

The announcement of the deal came straight from Kanye's shoe retailer Adidas, this not only draws attention to the fact that there's an announcement, but it also draws attention to the fact that the announcement is in regards to Kanye's new shoe line which dropped on Wednesday 22nd of November 2016.  Both parties hyped up the fact that Kanye will continue to make shoes with Adidas but also the fact that Kanye himself will continue to design the shoes and take full control, something his consumers evidently love.  

Aside from this, Kanye's method of PR is quite divisive amongst his consumers, purely for the fact that his PR "machine" is none other than reality "star" (term used loosely) and his wife Kim Kardashian West.  Why does Kanye enlist the help of his wife to help promote his products?  Well aside from the fact that she is a businesswoman, Kim Kardashian West is a well known social media celebrity, on Twitter alone, she has accumulated 49.2 MILLION followers who "worship" (again used loosely) her.  So where does she come into play?  Kim Kardashian West has actively tweeted links to Kanye's shoe line, tweeted his fans and even sent some free Yeezy's to his fans, and because of this, Kanye's product is gaining a serious amount of attention much to the acceptance of his fans.  However, with any social media star it has caused a divide in opinions, purely because of the fact that Kanye is "using" Kim to promote his products instead of him using traditional methods.  

Image taken from Kim Kardashian's Twitter

twitter.com/kimkardashian

Image taken from Kim Kardashian's Twitter

Image taken from kicksonfire

Image taken from Kim Kardashian's Twitter

These images above are just the brunt of the Kim Kardashian/Kanye West PR train.   

Using his wife for PR is clearly working for him if consumers are essentially begging them for free pairs hence the "take the L" (Twitter slang for - take the loss) meaning they couldn't get a chance to buy them.  By using social media PR, Kanye West is successfully promoting his Yeezy brand, he is drawing attention to the brand, he is making people want more shoes from him, he has people begging him for free shoes, he has manipulated his celebrity status to become one of the top shoe designers around right now, and he is doing this through, knowing his product, consumers and the right way to use PR. 

Another way in which Kanye promotes his products is through advertising on shop windows.  

As you can see in the image, there isn't much to the advertisement except the fact it has one shoe in the window, the place to reserve the shoe and the advertising of the Adidas/Yeezy app.  A design so simple is very effective as well, the fact it has a shoe in the window, it's showing consumers what the next release is, it's showing you how to reserve it, it's drawing attention to the Yeezy/Adidas brand (it has it in big bold lettering with the Adidas logo above it)  It's a basic way to advertise his product, but is probably one of the biggest ways in which he would draw sales to the product, especially if people are going to constantly walk past the window, they'll eventually be inclined to check the product out.   This alone will help to target new consumers whilst keeping previous consumers interested. 

A final way in which Kanye allows his product to be promoted is through the use of social media.  Social media has become integral in today's society which in turn makes it essential for any company to use as means of promotion.  

Adidas' preference of promotion of such product is through Instagram and Twitter.

Image taken from the Adidas Twitter

twitter.com/adidasoriginals

Image taken from the Adidas Twitter

Image taken from the Adidas Instagram

Image taken from the Adidas Instagram

Image taken from the Adidas Instagram

Each of these images are doing their own part in the promotion of the Yeezy brand and product.  One image shows what's to come, it teases the consumer, it leaves them wanting more, it's an effective way to promote the product, it piques interest and can drive traffic to their social media and online retailing site.   Two of the other images contain dates on when the product will be releasing with details on where to purchase them - Adidas.com/Kanye.  He has his own domain for his Yeezy line, this goes hand in hand with the promotional aspect of the product, by advertising the shoes on the Adidas social media, it again, drives traffic to the Adidas site, this time it's Kanye's domain instead of the Adidas main page, it helps to draw attention to what Kanye is promoting and what his products are.

The ways in which Kanye promotes his products are effective in their own way, from his PR method of using his wife who has an abundance of Twitter followers, to using shop windows as a means of advertising, to using social media. 

Kanye West is successfully using conventional promotional ways to make consumers aware of his products and has even successfully gained new consumers through these ways.

Conclusion

Kanye West has undoubtedly become one of the world's most recognised shoe designers and sellers in the world, irregardless if you are a fan or not.  

By his use of the marketing mix, Kanye West has successfully managed to create a product that is accepted by consumers, in fact, is very eagerly accepted by his consumers since they sell out in minutes.  Along with his, he uses various ways to distribute his product to maximise the consumer sales in which he will get, this allows him to gain new consumers.  By using such a public way of distributing, Kanye and his partner Adidas are gaining attention and they are gaining it incredibly fast.  

Although the price of the Yeezy shoes are less than attractive, people are willing to buy the product, they are willing to queue for hours in hopes to get a pair, they are more than eager to sit online and wait in an online queue with the smallest of hope that they will be able to purchase a pair.  The price is unconventional but it works with Kanye and that's why he is able to set such high and quite frankly eye-watering prices.  

Each of these factors are taken into consideration and finally brings us to the promotional aspect of his product.  Sure, he might use PR methods that people might find to be quite off putting since Kim Kardashian is not liked by everybody, but it works for him and that's important.   If Kanye can use his wife as a promotional method and still be able to gain attention to his product then why should he stop using her?  He shouldn't.  

Kanye West's prime aim of his product is a design that isn't standard to other designers therefore it stands out.   He uses his celebrity status to his advantage and gives his consumers what they want, and that's everything that Kanye can offer.  His consumers are fans of his music, so it benefits him.  He knows himself that fans worship him so much that they will buy pretty much anything he puts out.

Image taken from Twitter

This tweet alone shows that whatever Kanye puts out, people will "break" their devices just to say they had the chance to buy something that Kanye has designed and released.  

Kanye West has successfully used the marketing mix to create an empire with his Yeezy brand which will ultimately make him millions of dollars a year.

Kanye is very happy about this.