Comparison of Marketing Strategies of David Jones and Myer

This report provides a comparison between the marketing strategies of both the companies. It analyses the personalisation strategies, marketing communication strategies, leveraging secondary brand association strategy, and brand architecture strategy of both the companies and analyse the market situation of these two popular brands of Australia.

Running Head: Brand Management
Brand Management
Report
System04104
10/4/2019

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Introduction
David Jones and Myer are two retail giants in the Australian market and they have large
numbers of retail stores in Australia. Myer is known for its largest departmental stores and
focusing on more intimate customer experiences. Apart from this, Myer is also applying the
David-Jones-esque approach to provide excellent customer experience to the Australian retail
customers. This report provides a comparison between the marketing strategies of both the
companies. This report analyses the personalisation strategies, marketing communication
strategies, leveraging secondary brand association strategy, and brand architecture strategy of
both the companies and analyse the market situation of these two popular brands of Australia.
Personalisation Strategy
Personalisation strategy is the way of communicating emphatically with the customers and
designs the business model in such a way that fulfils the particular needs of the customers.
The personalisation strategy of an organisation allows the business organisation to identify
the suitable segment of customers and their preferences or needs. Then after create the
products and services in such a way that will give a world best experience to the customers
(Craik, 2017).
The David Jones in Australia is known for its well-designed and personalised business
practices. The retail company focuses on providing a unique experience to its customers,
which is different from its customers. For example, the organisation reduced the role of a
sales manager in administrative work rather it allows the sells manager to care about the
customer needs and involve in the sales work of the organisation. The company also provides
a great experience to its customers through its online retail services (Craik, 2015). The
company also believe to provide a unique experience to its customers in the retail stores and
arrange the buying procedures in such a way that gives a joyful shopping to the customers in
the stores. David Jones also cares about its customer busy schedule and provides an easy
payment method to its customer after purchasing the product both online and offline. The
company also practices the private label strategy just like the Woolworth’s brands and it will
help the company to grow its sales from 3.5% to 20% in 2017-18. The information printed on
the products are showing well targeted messages for the consumers and the insight of the
stores of David Jones also provide a unique buying experience to its customers where they

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can easily find their required products and enjoy the advanced customer care facilities of
stores (Xu, Gao, and Hammond, 2017).
The Myer is the best competitor of David Jones in Australian retail market and almost covers
10% of the Australian retail market. Myer’s personalisation strategy is based on the approach
of dealing customers with great luxury and convenience. The company depends on its new
advanced technologies (Melewar, et. al., 2017). However, the Myer’s strategy of circulating
cards to ensure loyalty of customers towards the Myer products through ‘Myer One’ was one
of great initiatives of the company under which more than five millions cards circulated.
Although the strategy of Myer is somewhere successful and is comparatively better than
David Jones because it’s online sells can increase its market share. The focus of the company
is to target premium customers while David Jones appears in the market with unclear
directions and goals. The clarity in objective of provides personalised experience to
customers make the Myer superior over its competitors David Jones (Hsu, Fournier, and
Srinivasan, 2016).
Marketing Communication Strategy
Market communication strategy helps an organisation to reach its customers or potential
customers through various modes and channel of communication. Marketing strategy helps
the company to know the potential customers or target market and design the message in such
a way that will attract more and more customers towards the organisation and retain the
existing customers in expectations of future benefits and unique buying experiences (Tamm,
et. al., 2015).
David Jones is known for its marketing communication strategy because it depends on its
approach “Digital First.” The company targets its customers through online practices and
deliver its promotional and other message to its customers via its e-mail services, mobile text-
messages, or advertisement through social media channels. This strategy of David Jones
gives an edge over the Myer. The company uses the online channels and e-commerce
business stores to spread its marketing campaign, spread its promotional messages and offers
to the customers (Bailey, 2017). However, the company also uses the online data and insights
about its customers for making effective communication strategy for its customers and gain
the edge over its competitors. The customer data analytics program of the David Jones help
the company to develop an effective marketing strategy communication programs (Kotler, et.

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al., 2015). However, for making communication strategy for the customers the company
depends on three types of data such as in-store data, data collected through its loyalty
programs and outside of the store with the key audience segments. These practices help the
company to design an effective communication strategy for the customers through which it
can target a large numbers of customers. One of the important parts of the David Jones
communication strategy is that selecting the relevant channels to promote its messages to the
targeted customers (Miller and Merrilees, 2016).
Myer is also known for its effective communication strategy. However, the company spends
a huge amount on its brand strategies and marketing communication strategies. The company
spends more than AUD $600 million in last five years to make an effective relationship with
customers (Melewar, et. al., 2017). However, such a huge amount on the advertisement and
communication strategy affects the profit margin of the company. However, even the
company has less than 5% market share in the Australian retail market; it spends a huge
amount the communication strategy. The modern retail business is all about communication
and relationship with customers. It has been noted that company is expected to increase its
online sales up to 30% of total online sales in Australian retail market (Kalantari, and
Johnson, 2018).
In such a scenario, where Myer spends a huge amount on customers, it directly affects its
profitability and also increases its spending on consumers. However, the David Jones here
gain the edge over Myer and spends comparative less amount of money on its communication
strategy and select the best mode of communication that will give an edge and competitive
advantage over the Myer.
Leveraging Secondary Brand Association Strategy
The linkage of brand with another brand is helpful in creating a place in the mind of
customers. The brand association is the way of creating a space in the mind of customer when
they accept the attribute of brand with the name of the company or with the company when
they talk about the brand. This is a most effective type of brand equity where a company want
to focus on the attribute of the brand. The marketing communication is also a way or choice
of medium for creating brand equity in the mind of people. Here the brand off the company
brings some brand attributes that has already created a place in the mind of customers and

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association with this brand leveraging the brand equity of the company (Hollensen, Kotler,
and Opresnik, 2017).
The brand value of David Jones has created a unique place in the mind of its customers. In
such a scenario, the association of David Jones with the other brand or leveraging the brand
association will help the company to establish itself as the more popular brand among its
customers. Apart from this, the brand equity of the company will also improve the reputation
of the brand in the market by creating a unique value proposition in the mind of customers.
David jones always target premium class customers while the Myer is a brand of middle-
income class of people. In such a situation, the association of David Jones to leverage the
brand association will increase its brand equity in the market and helps to place itself as more
valuable brand (English and Fleischman, 2019). David Jones is known for its association with
various popular brands linkage and its brand association helps the company to place itself as
one of the popular and most valuable retail company in Australian market. David Jones is
current operates its business operation under the Woolworths company which is one of the
most popular company in the Australia. This will help the company to establish it as one of
the most of the valuable brand of the country. The association of the company with
Woolworths gives an edge over its competitors (Melewar, et. al., 2017).
The Myer is one of the popular retail organisations of Australia that deals in menswear, baby
products, household products, and digital products. The company operates its business in
more than 64 numbers of locations. However, the brand association of company is generally
one of the important objectives of the key people in the organisation to leveraging its brand
equity in the market (Kotler, et. al., 2015). The company linked its secondary brand
association strategy with its communication strategy that enable the company to create a
place in the mind of customers as one of the most valuable brand of the country that cares
about the needs and preferences of customers. Although, it is really beneficial for the Myer
that it makes itself as one of the most chipper brand in the country and more accessible for
the people even in the urban areas of Australia. However, this strategy of the company makes
its more popular among its customers. However, in the presence of Coles, Woolworths, and
David Jones, it is really difficult of the Myer to leverage its brand association with some
popular companies of Australia.

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Brand Architecture Strategy
Brand architecture or Brand house of a company is a system or architecture of the brand,
products, or services that helps the customers to access these products or services and relate it
to another brand. A well brand architecture of the company enables of prefer to help the
customers to give their opinion about all brand by just evaluating or examine the features or
attributes of one brand in that family. For example, a person who used the Dove Soap of
Proctor & Gamble (P&G) can say that all soaps of P&G are high-class products and gives
immense value of customer’s money (Luxton, Reid and Mavondo, 2015). Generally, there are
three type of brand architecture seen in the company, which is shown below:
(Source: Baltes, 2015)
David Jones is also known for its best brand architecture and it also provides world’s best
products to the customers. David Jones generally focuses on the Pluralistic brand architecture
where it wants to create a place in the mind of customers with multiple of product brands.
The people loves the products of David Jones because it focuses on the superior quality of the
products, apart from this, the private labelling on the products makes the products or brands
of the company more popular among its customers (Baltes, 2015). The company uses the
Omni-channel retail for selling its products and provide a best experience to its customers
with superior quality products. This will help the company to create a good image of its
brands among its customers and they believe that all brands or products of the company will

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be superior of that particular family brand. For example, the cloths and fashionable products
of David Jones are more superior quality than other products and thus it creates an image and
perception in the mind of people that the products of David Jones are of good quality.
However, this strategy of the company gives an edge over the Myer and it will help the
company to increase its market share (Baltes, 2015).
Myer has also good brand architecture in the Australian retail market. With the help of its
successful and attractive brand architecture, company creates a huge space in the heart of its
customers. However, the perception of people that Myer is generally target the lower middle
income class people affect the mind-set of premium class customers. Myer generally focuses
on the monolith brand architecture where it wants to create a place in the mind of customers
with some superior quality products and services.
Conclusion
In conclusion, David Jones is known for its best marketing strategies that give an edge over
its competitors. The communication strategy of the company is totally depends on the digital
platform and data analytics while Myer depends on various mode of communicational
channels. The backup of David Jones is a strength point of the company because Woolworths
is a large retail company in the country. Although, Myer still have to work hard on building
its brand image and brand equity in the company because it is still focusing on middle class
income people while David Jones focuses on premium customers. Apart from this, the
marketing strategies of David Jones create a difference, which allows David Jones to gain
competitive advantage over Myer.

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