Description:

Vans was launched in 1966 by Paul Van Doren with his brother James and two partners. Van Doren was aiming to make almost durable and affordable casual deck shoe in the market which eventually turned out to be the most liked shoes by youngsters, athletes and others. From its own retail store in Anaheim, California Van Doren was able to open few more stores in other places.But, the main concern was to promote those stores. Van Doren was involved in producing shoes that would match people’s dress, styles; colors .vans was also a favorite of hard-to –fit customers, who required non-standard widths and lengths. Because of this vans was able to create its own loyal customers and create international exposure within a period. In 70’s Vans was able to become thee favorite brand for the skaters because of its grips and low price. Later at 80’s turbulent phase of Vans came into existence. After seeing his shoes in teenage movie called ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’ James Van Doren responded it by broadening Van’s product mix in an effort to grab share from Nike and Reebok.Soon,Vans was producing shoes for baseball,football,soccer,basketball,wrestling,boxing and even umpiring. This decision led Vans into bankruptcy because of high production costs, strong competition from mainstream brands and unreceptive market. Although company was able to revitalize company by ignoring the fashion and just doing as before. Again in 90’s deep recession, Gulf war, Oil shortages led to higher rubber costs made the shoes prices higher and lowered the margins. Meanwhile ‘grunge ‘fashion trends and ‘urban chick ‘replaced the surf and sun look and Vans had to close its two factories and the volatile currency of ‘cool’ no longer favored Vans.Then, in 1995, Gary Schoenfeld took over operations of Vans. He again made the brand stronger by taking consideration of the company’s competitive advantages like connection to new generation of sports, youngsters, their lifestyles. He believed that the company’s key challenge was to maintain relationship with these unpredictable, fashion conscious kids. He too involved in discussion with these kids to know their tastes and preferences and then focused on their five core sports excluding other that didn’t matched with Vans messages. After this Vans also involved sponsoring carefully selected games, financed in shoes related movies, involved young sports player in promoting the brand, young musician, etc.who can ultimately lead Vans in positioning its brand in the market. Although Schoenfeld knew that competition was still alive from big company like Nike and Adidas, medium sized company and other small companies.So, he thought off to expand Vans three business units into six business lines and reconsidering other several issues.

Problems:

Few problems that we knew after reading the case are as follows:

-Competition was always the big problem of Vans. Nikes was the company with high turnover and most ambitious marketing effort.Adidas was taking the market of skate shoes by making its sub

brand.Similarly, other few companies were making market competitive by introducing lower prices in the market.

-How to drive the next stage of growth is the other problem of Vans. As Vans faced bankruptcy with an eagerness of capitalizing after there was increased demands of product by expanding too rapidly.

-If Vans would not proceed incrementally then it may have chances to alienate its core customer base.

-The changing nature of youngster’s lifestyle, choices, tastes, prefernces.

Analysis/Options:

Vans faced with these problems because of few reasons. The company like Nike was spending lots of money into marketing and its strategy, developing big and expensive television advertisements. These companies like Nike, Adidas were focusing on expanding its products and focusing on different marketing approach. Vans went into bankruptcy may be because of inadequate market analysis and eagerness of capturing the market. As skaters were the main players that Vans were focusing, but with a sudden they made shoes for other different sports player which didn’t worked well and led unacceptance by the customers.Although, to gain customers loyalty Vans need to expand its products and bring into new and different product lines. The tastes and preferences of youngsters are changing rapidly, so to stick into the market it’s necessary to know their changing needs and demands.

Conclusion and Recommendation:

After looking through the case, its problems and possible option we can conclude with the fact that Vans have been able to make its own image in customers mind as a sport shoes mainly focused for skaters. It’s also a fact that should be known by Vans that customers taste, need, preferences are not stable and the company needs to move with it. The competition is always there and it’s the company’s strategy how they are going to handle it. I would recommend Vans in making different and unique marketing strategy that would appeal its core and potential customers so that they would be loyal for the company. It’s also necessary for Vans in utilizing their competitive advantages like connection to new generation of sports, youngsters, their lifestyles by producing the product of their choice. For this Vans need to make different surveys at different interval of times along with intense research and development, so that they would be updated on people’s choices and changing needs. It’s better for Vans in focusing on sports shoes rather than on other normal shoes so that it can position its brand in people’s mind as best sports shoes. The strategy of Vans involving in different ventures like movies, games, young players is good as it will help Vans in upgrading its brand in higher level.