Supreme: An Integrated Marketing Communication Plan for Brand Growth

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Supreme's integrated marketing communication (IMC) plan. It begins with an executive summary outlining the report's structure, followed by an introduction to Supreme, its history, market segmentation, and competitive landscape. A detailed SWOT analysis examines the company's internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats, informing the development of the IMC strategy. The core of the report focuses on the IMC plan, detailing current marketing channels like social media and magazines, and establishing new marketing objectives to increase brand awareness, market share, and sales. Specific communication strategies are proposed, including paid social media campaigns on Facebook and Twitter, email marketing, and the development of a YouTube channel. The report provides estimated costs for these campaigns and projects their expected impact on sales and brand engagement. The conclusion synthesizes the proposed strategies, emphasizing their execution to maximize effectiveness and achieve the stated marketing objectives. The report provides a blueprint for Supreme to enhance its brand presence and achieve sustainable growth.

Running Head: INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION 1
Integrated Marketing Communication Plan
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Executive Summary
The paper is divided into four parts. That is, the introduction, the SWOT analysis of
the company, the integrated marketing communication plan and the conclusion. The
introduction gives background information of the company in terms of when it was formed
and its philosophy, current market segmentation and its competitors. The SWOT analysis
looks at the internal advantages and disadvantages that the company has before analyzing the
external factors that may affect how its business is carried out.
The strengths identified informs the main message that the company will advocate in
its communications, the weaknesses identified will be useful for the operations of the
company in general while the external analysis will also be used in the long-term decision
making process of the company. The integrated marketing communication strategy part is the
most important section as it discusses how the company is going to increase brand awareness,
increase market share and inevitably increase sales. It starts off by discussing strategies and
channels of advertising the company currently uses. Then it discusses the various forms of
promotion that it will use in relation to the targeted group and the estimated cost of these
campaigns. The section also speaks about the expected outcome of the integrated campaign.
The conclusion of the paper brings it all together by explaining how the strategies will
be executed in order for them to be as effective as possible.

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Integrated Marketing Communication for Supreme
Introduction
Supreme is a company known for an array of merchandise. The company produces
clothes, shoes, bags and many other fashionable items. However, skating is what is at the core
of the company's business model and passion. It was started in 1994 by a group of young
New York skaters, musicians and artists who became the initial staff and customers of the
company. At the time, the youth involved in the then young counter culture of hip hop, punk
and skating gravitated to the company and its philosophy (Bondaroff, O’Brien & Jebbia,
2010). This made it grow into the downtown Manhattan institution that it became.
The Supreme Store in New York City
Supreme has over the years established itself as one of style, authenticity and quality.
It has continued working with musicians, artists, photographers and designers to maintain the
right attitude and unique identity. Basically the company has segmented its market based on
geographical locations. It has stores in New York, Los Angeles, London and Japan. In fact, it
has four stores in Japan two of which are in Tokyo. Its main target group is the skating-youth
of between 14 to 25 years of age (Bondaroff, O’Brien & Jebbia, 2010). The same goes of its
clothing line which also caters for children of all age groups.

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Supreme Hoodie
The company faces a lot of competition being a clothing line. The competition comes
from the likes of established brands such as Louis Vuitton, Fubu, Hermes, Levi's among
many others. However direct competition comes from other skating based companies such as
Stussy, Cliche, Polar, Doomsayers, Palace Skateboards, Raw, Magenta Skateboards, Heroin
Skateboards (Supreme, 2015). The advantage that Supreme has over its competition is that it
is a better known brand as it has been around for a long time.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
 Supreme's image is that of a company for the rebellious skaters, musicians and artists.
It is a factor that matches well with its youthful market. This is especially because
skating is seen as a way of life that most youths would like to be identified with.
Supreme Skating team

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 The company is primarily run by artists, musicians and designers who are passionate
about skating. They therefore produce quality products on a regular basis. For
example, they have the releases for summer and spring which gives room for
continuous innovation. Their products also get endorsements from celebrities such as
Micheal Jordan.
Air Jordan Supreme Collaboration
 Supreme is also on top of its competition from the fact that it has been around longer
than most. Most of the competition mentioned above like Polar, Magenta,
Doomsayers, Magenta are between 1 to 5 years old. Supreme is therefore more
recognizable and has already proven that it is a business that will be around for years
to come.
 The company reduces some of its competition by collaborating with the likes of Levi's
in designing and coming up with new products to supplement their own. This strategy
increases their sales by riding on the brand image of its partners.
 The company also uses its website to sell to online customers who cannot access their
stores and are could be anywhere on the globe.
Weaknesses
 The company has diversified too much into clothing at the expense of skating gear
this was its main business and passion at the beginning. To the hardcore skating

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community this may come out as a betrayal and force into searching for skateboarding
companies that are true to the course.
 Supreme only has two stores in the United States, that is, in Los Angeles and in New
York. This limited access reduces the company's brand awareness. It has also given
room for competitors to open up their shops in areas where Supreme is not present
and in the process it will make things difficult when the company decides to get into
those new locations.
Opportunities
 Supreme can increase the number of stores it has by entering new states and cities.
This will allow more customers to be part of the Supreme experience and in the
process increase brand awareness. This expansion should not be limited to the United
States alone but the same can be done to expand into Europe and other parts of the
world.
Customers Shopping at the New York Store
 The clothing industry is one of continuous design and innovations. With the quality
of designers that supreme has in its stable, they are in a position of churning out
exciting new designs on a regular basis.
Threats
 The company has several competitors in its skateboarding segment let alone other
apparels. If any of the competitors decide to go on an aggressive marketing campaign

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and open up more stores, then Supreme's market share will be reduced drastically.
Integrated Marketing Communication Objectives
Current Marketing Communications
Supreme currently uses its own website, social media and magazines to market itself
to its target audience. The company has over 80 thousand followers on twitter at the moment.
However, it does not post any tweets. It only uses the platform to link its followers to its own
website.
On Facebook, Supreme has over 1.1 million likes. It is on this platform that it does
most of its publicity. Announcements for its seasonal releases are usually made here. For
example, it is on Facebook that it announced the launch date of its Air Jordan, Levi's and The
North Face collaborations. It also uses the platform to market its artists by posting their
biographies and some of their products.
Supreme’s Facebook Page
Supreme also markets itself through magazines. It uses magazines that have an
audience in areas where its stores are located. They have advertised and had editorials in
magazines such as Thrasher, Transworld and Cool Trans in Japan (Rajendran, 2012).
The company also creates short skating movies on a regular basis. In these movies
actors usually skate board and go about their business with clothes and skateboarding

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equipment that have been created by Supreme.
The company also sponsors a team to the Xgames championships which has a
skateboarding competition that takes place every year and serves as a good platform for
potential customers to become aware of the brand.
New Marketing Objectives
The new objective of the integrated marketing campaign would be the following: to
increase the brand awareness of Supreme; to enable potential and current consumers gain
knowledge of the range of products that Supreme has in store; to ensure that consumers like
the products and the brand itself; to ensure that the consumers detach themselves from
Supreme's competition by making them know of the unique selling points of the brand; to get
more customers who can access the store and to increase the sales unit for the coming years.
Communications Strategy Plan
Through social media the company should be able to create as much awareness of its
brand and products as possible. At the moment the company is in a position to alert its
followers on Facebook on the dates it is launching its products. It can only do this for
customers who have liked the company's page. The next step is to ensure that it gets the
attention of other Facebook users who have not liked the page. This means that the company
has to pay for Facebook advertisements. These advertisements will be advantageous because
the company gets to choose the demographics of the users that Facebook should direct these
advertisements towards.
For the company to progress it should obtain 1 million new Facebook likes in the
coming year, of whom an estimated 30% are expected to respond to the Facebook campaigns
that the company will have. This will be sure to increase sells by 7% in the coming year.
There are two ways of paying for Facebook advertisements. One is cost per click (cpc) the
other is cost per 1000 impressions (cpm). An impression is said to occur when someone visits

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a webpage with your advert on it. A bid for a cost per click ad on Facebook is $ 0.31 on
average. Therefore the budget for Facebook advertisements that will get Supreme 1 million
new users will be $310,000.
As for Twitter, Supreme should increase the number of followers by 200% to triple
the number from its current 80 thousand users. You can get new followers on twitter at a cost
of $2.40 (Twitter, 2015). Thus, $384,000 is what is required to get the 160,000 new followers.
The good thing about twitter, even though it is expensive, you can get the attention of users
through the use of promoted trending topics. The other thing to do to increase the number of
followers is to hire social media experts or an external public relations firm to do the twitting
on Supreme's behalf. The consultant hired should cost around $2000 a month and therefore
$24,000 a year. Two will be suitable for the job an annual cost of $48,000. The tweets should
also contain the information on the public activities of the company and it should target the
users of the ages between 18 to 25 years. This should see the sales of the company increase
by 30%.
Using the emails of registered users on the company website will also be important.
The company will therefore be sending weekly emails to the users with information on the
latest products, to promote the artists in the company, to mention the next product release
dates, offers in the stores in all locations and to tell them about collaborations with other
brands and celebrities. This is supposed to increase the inquiries about the products the
company offers by 50%. This digital campaign should increase sales from loyal customers by
20%. The cost of this exercise will be an increase of staff salaries by 2% because of the
individuals required to write to and answer emails from clients.
The other media that the company will pursue is Youtube. The company will open a
Youtube channel where it will be placing all its short movies, live launches, artist and
celebrity interviews. This should introduce the company to the Youtube audience that watches

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skating videos, whatever their age. Youtube advertisements will also be added to the menu.
The company will use the Youtube optimization to target children, the youth and their parents
and increase brand awareness. This should increase the number of new and potential
customers by over a 1000,000 people. Currently Supreme videos uploaded by other entities
like Complex have over 300,000 views. This figure is therefore bound to tripple. The average
cost of a Youtube ad is $ 0.20. To get a million potential customers to view the Youtube ads
will therefore cost the company $200,000.
The company also will increase its advertisements on traditional media such as
newspapers, magazines and television. Advertisements will be targeted at the children's and
teenage sections of the newspapers, at skating magazines with a youthful audience and in
television channels such as MTV which have a young following. This should increase the
brand awareness among the general population by about 50% of the people who use this sort
of media and do not know of Supreme. The sales figures should as a result improve by 15%
of what it is currently as a result. Advertising in both newspapers and magazines will not be
limited to hard copies, it will be extended to online sources as well. On this websites the
company will have advertisements with direct link to the company's website which will
undoubtedly lead to more online sales. According to Small Businesses (2015), running more
than one advert on a magazine costs about $1500. Supreme will carry out around 30 news
paper ads. This will cost the company $45,000. Radio stations with a youthful audience in
countries and states where the company operates will also be part of this marketing strategy.
The company will create a catchy message that mentions the physical locations of the stores,
the merchandise on display in these stores and the offers that would be there from time to
time.
The company will also involve itself more in direct marketing. 100 new employees
will be hired all over the globe to be going out in the field to sell the company to potential

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clients. They should be able to visit skating parks with catalogues of Supreme's product so as
to increase sales and increase brand awareness. They should be able to increase company
sales by at least 2%. a hundred new employees will mean an increased cost to the company in
terms of employee salaries (Supreme, 2015).
The company will increase its sponsorship of its Xgames team by 30%. it will do this
by looking for more skating talent to add to the team from regions which the current team
members do not represent. This will introduce Supreme to audiences from where these team
members come from who have a test for skating, clothing and the culture that the brand
represents. This is bound to increase sales relative to the number of new potential customers
that are made aware of Supreme as a result of this strategy. Supreme will also get involved in
academic sponsorship. It will do this by sponsoring a few students from needy backgrounds
to a university education every year from now on. It will be a public relation strategy that will
be part of the corporate social responsibility of the company (Bondaroff, O’Brien & Jebbia,
2010).
Conclusion
The social media campaign on Twitter and Facebook will come first as it is easier to
execute. The company should therefore hire the right PR company to take charge of the
campaign as soon as possible because this activity is linked to an online community that is
available at all time. Therefore, it will increase the number of new and potential customers
almost instantly. The next thing will be to hire the email marketing team to respond to
inquiries and businesses that come as a result of the digital marketing activity. Personal
marketing will also take a bit of time because the new employees have to b hired and trained
for a month before they go into the field. The current skate boarding team will also be
instructed to look for the next generation of skateboarders. This event will be documented
over a period of one month and will be placed on the company's Youtube channel. It will also

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be part of the company's next skateboarding movie. The advertisements to be placed on radio
and media will be created in a period of one week so that they can be as creative and as
memorable as possible. The aid of an advertising company will also be sought in this process
since such companies have the right experience of what sort of message will appeal to the
potential customers in the targeted market.
This plan is going to be effective in increasing brand awareness and encouraging
customer loyalty in the target market. The social media campaign especially will work
because platforms such as Facebook and Twitter will direct the advertisements directly to
users within the required age groups. Newspapers, radio and magazines can also get to the
right age group and illicit the required feeling. Although they are not the main target, the
newspapers, primarily read by parents will also enlighten them on the toy to buy their
children as gifts.
The red Supreme label is easy to remember and differentiate from that of the
competition. The artists used at the company also come up with unique and quality items
every other day. New customers obtained from all the visual media will find it easy to
differentiate supreme from its competition. Care will however be taken to ensure that the
radio audience knows that it should shop supreme when it is looking for skating gear.