Lululemon Marketing Management Analysis: A Comprehensive Case Study

This case study analyzes Lululemon's marketing strategies, examining its business model using the business model canvas, and evaluating its value creation process. The analysis includes a positioning statement for Lululemon and assesses the strategic soundness of expanding into men's apparel, discussing potential challenges. The study critically evaluates Lululemon's marketing mix decisions, including product, place, price, and promotion, assessing their alignment with the brand positioning strategy and offering recommendations for improvement. The student emphasizes the importance of product quality, online presence, competitive pricing, and effective promotional campaigns, especially social media marketing and health awareness initiatives, to enhance Lululemon's market position and customer loyalty.

Running Head: MARKETING MANAGEMENT
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student:
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Author Note:

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Question 1
The key partners of Lululemon are mainly the material providers, distributors and the
contract manufacturers. The company is trying to focus on the manufacturing of apparels. As a
result of that they are considered to be the important key partners. Therefore, the key activities of
the organisation is also resembled with manufacturing. Apart from that branding and marketing
are also identified as key activities of the company. In this regard, Lululemon requires resources
like the quality and design that will provide the organisation a unique position in the competitive
market. For maximising its market through attracting a range of customers, Lululemon also sets a
value proposition that identifies its vision and motive to attract number of customers. The value
proposition of the organisation is based on focusing the customers who are highly aware about
their fitness and highly health conscious. As a result of that it will be effective for them to set an
adequate measure that can contribute to the manufacturing of sports and athlete apparels for the
target customers. From the research of Nyadzayo and Khajehzadeh (2016) it can be stated that
for developing a good relationship with the customers it is always essential to figure out the
communication channels. Therefore, Lululemon also tries to develop a strong relationship with
the customers through the use of different online and offline channels. The offline channel can be
identified in the form of outlets from where the customers can physically buy products. On the
other hand, Lululemon also follows a number of online channels through the use of media,
online presence and YouTube channel. Both the online and offline presence is surely provided
strategic advantage in the expansion of Lululemon. The customers are also segmented in the
form of their motive to buy the Lululemon apparels. Mostly, yoga people, athletes and fit people
are fond of the Lululemon pants and other apparels. Focusing on the manufacturing of sports

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apparels is identified as the most important task for Lululemon in order to survive in the market.
Therefore, manufacturing, raw materials and cost of distribution are the primary cost structure
that Lululemon faces and revenue is earned mostly from selling sports apparels.
Question 2
2.1 Positioning statement
The positioning statement for Lululemon is as follows,
“Providing best fitted apparels to endorse healthy wellbeing”.
2.2 Analysis of value creation
The products of Lululemon are facing severe problem due to lack of value of the brand
and at the same time absence of different range of products. As a result of that it is important for
the company to set some measures to create a unique value in the competitive market.
Unique promotional activity
According to Haddoud, Jones and Newbery (2017) promotion is always considered to be
the most effective process that an organisation should follow in order to enhance the brand value.
In this regard, it is also essential for the business enterprises to follow unique promotional
technique that can attract the customers to a great scale (Shafigullina and Palyakin 2016). Based
on this understanding, it can be stated promotional campaigns are very effective to incorporate
target customers and the local communities as well. For Lululemon, organising a two days long
yoga and fitness awareness campaign will definitely help to refurbish its brand value and at the
same time the participants can get a demonstration of the exclusive design and easy to fit sports
apparels of Lululemon.

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Product differentiation
Pai et al. (2015) opined that product differentiation is basically practiced by the business
organisations in order to make the customers more attracted towards the diverse product ranges
of the brand. In addition to this, Davcik and Sharma (2015) also advocated that the purpose of
the product differentiation also leads to include a wide range of customers with their specific
product demands. Therefore, the value of the product can also be developed enough to get a
strategic advantage in the competitive market. In response to this, for Lululemon introducing
gym t-shirts and a limited range of sports gear can help to maximise customers. Therefore, the
customers will also get interested to try the new products and facilitates a good brand value for
Lululemon.
2.3 Challenges for Lululemon in men’s apparel
The case study shows that Lululemon is generally famous for its women’s apparel.
Therefore, it is definitely a significant step for Lululemon to extend and expand its men’s apparel
product line in order to increase the brand value among the male customers equally. Friedmann
and Lowengart (2019) corroborated the fact that gender preference in business restricted the
growth of an organisation to a great scale in compare to other non-gender manufacturing
companies. For the wardrobe and apparels industry, the change can be seen in a great extent
where the unisex wardrobe companies are comparatively successful than the gender specific
manufacturers. Moreover, the sports apparel industry across the world is highly competitive and
due to presence of giant sports manufacturers like Nike, Puma and Reebok, it is definitely a
strategic advantage for Lululemon to bring more male customers into the organisational fold by
expanding the men’s apparel product line extensively.

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However, there are definitely some challenges that Lululemon can face in order to
expand its business further. First of all, the existing competitiveness in the sports apparel
industry definitely provides a great challenge for Lululemon to achieve success. Apart from that
challenge can be generated through the management process. Lululemon management is not
capable enough to expand its product lines and control the expansion effectively. Therefore, it is
a threat to the potential expansion of Lululemon.
Question 3
3.1 Products
Lululemon is undoubtedly made enough effort to survive and get success in its business
operations through introducing a number of innovations in its product line for both men and
women customers. For women especially Lululemon has done very hard work to attract them
through manufacturing yoga pants with unique and scientific design. However, the company
failed to look after the quality of the product. As a result of that the brand value of Lululemon
faced major setbacks. Therefore, it can be recommended that the organisation should keep focus
on its quality in addition with design. The combination of quality and design will be a massive
impact into the existing market and definitely help Lululemon to get enough exposure.
3.2 Place
The unique distribution of the Lululemon products through different outlets has been
engineered through the former CEO Wilson. He fixed a great deal of focus on the process of
motivating and encouraging the store managers and employees so that they can usher success for
the organisation thorough increase the sales rate. However, lack of focus on the online presence
makes the company a great deal of problem in order to increase its customer base. Sam (2017)

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pointed out the relevance of online presence of the companies with the technological
advancement so that it will generate enough exposure to the brand values. At the same time,
maximising customers within limited investment can be possible through online presence.
Therefore, it can be suggested that the online presence of Lululemon should be maintained in
order to increase its loyal customer base in the competitive market.
3.3 Price
Wu and Li (2018) stated that pricing is part and parcel of target customers for a business
organisation. In other words, it can be argued that price can be fixed on the basis of the
expectation and aspiration of the customers. For Lululemon, a premium pricing strategy has been
followed for most of the products. As a result of that it can be stated that the expectation of the
customers are very high as they pay enough money to buy one yoga pants. However, there are
some allegation against the quality of Lululemon pants. It should be a grave concern for the
company because the customers pay well enough to buy the product. Henceforth, it can be
suggested that Lululemon should lower down its price a bit to compete in the market properly.
Moreover, it will be effective to appease the expectation of the customers properly.
3.4 Promotion
Lululemon is successfully make a presence in the social media marketing and
promotional techniques. It is identified as an important and exclusive initiative for Lululemon
because the current business companies are very much aware of the power of social media. They
are trying to exploit social media positively in order to create a large number of customer base.
Therefore, for Lululemon also the promotional techniques are sound enough to attract new
customers. The company is effectively engaged itself in the sponsorship of teams. For instance,
in 2012 Olympic, the company was sponsored the Men’s Volleyball team. Nevertheless, it can

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be stated that there are certain gaps into the promotional initiatives of Lululemon. As a result of
that health awareness and fitness campaigns can be initiated as important steps for Lululemon to
incorporate more customers into its business. Those campaigns will also endorse a goodwill of
Lululemon in the local community and in the international sphere as well.

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Reference
Davcik, N.S. and Sharma, P., 2015. Impact of product differentiation, marketing investments and
brand equity on pricing strategies: A brand level investigation. European Journal of
Marketing, 49(5/6), pp.760-781.
Friedmann, E. and Lowengart, O., 2019. Gender segmentation to increase brand preference? The
role of product involvement. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 28(3), pp.408-420.
Haddoud, M.Y., Jones, P. and Newbery, R., 2017. Export promotion programmes and SMEs’
performance: Exploring the network promotion role. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise
Development, 24(1), pp.68-87.
Nyadzayo, M.W. and Khajehzadeh, S., 2016. The antecedents of customer loyalty: A moderated
mediation model of customer relationship management quality and brand image. Journal of
Retailing and Consumer Services, 30, pp.262-270.
Pai, D.C., Lai, C.S., Chiu, C.J. and Yang, C.F., 2015. Corporate social responsibility and brand
advocacy in business-to-business market: The mediated moderating effect of attribution. Journal
of Business Ethics, 126(4), pp.685-696.
Sam, A.F., 2017. The Effects of Marketing Mix (4P) on Companies’ Profitability: A Case Study
of Automotive Industry in France. Journal of Research in Marketing, 8(1), pp.636-640.
Shafigullina, A.V. and Palyakin, R.B., 2016. Social media marketing as an effective instrument
of the promotion of social business-project in social entrepreneurial activity. Academy of
Marketing Studies Journal, 20, p.1.

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Wu, Y.L. and Li, E.Y., 2018. Marketing mix, customer value, and customer loyalty in social
commerce: A stimulus-organism-response perspective. Internet Research, 28(1), pp.74-104.

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Appendix
Key Partners
 Material
providers.
 Distribution
network.
 Contract
manufactur
er.
Key Activities
 Branding
 Marketing
 Manufacturin
g
 Sports
apparels
Value Proposition
 Creating
products for
the fit and
health
conscious
people.
Customer
Relationships
 Online
Presence
 Offline
channels
like stores.
Customer Segments
 Yoga
people.
 Sports fans
 Athletes.
 Healthy
people
Key Resources
 Quality
 Design
Channels
 TV
 Blogs
 Media
 Internet
Cost Structure
 Raw materials
 Cost of goods
 Stores
Revenue Streams
 Sale of products
Figure 1: Business model canvas of Lululemon
(Created by the author)