by Mandy de Waal (@mandyldewaal) Edgars is in trouble. Big trouble.
Read the September 2015 edition of Financial Mail and you’ll realise why. In a cover feature headlined “Edgars/Edcon Fashion Disaster”, Zeenat Moorad and Stafford Thomas write: “Walk through the doors of Edgars’ elephantine flagship store in Johannesburg’s upmarket Melrose Arch precinct, and you’re likely to see the saleslady reapplying her lipstick.”
“That may not seem unusual: her job, after all, is to be primped and primed. But attentive visitors will note that the lipstick is being reapplied every few minutes simply because there are so few customers for her to serve.”
The Financial Mail article covers Edgars/Edcon’s financial and management travails in detail, but the retailer’s flailing from a brand perspective, too. South Africa is being flooded by cheaper clothes — particularly Chinese imports — at the lower price point of the market. At the higher end of the market, brands that are distinctly local are reframing identity and style by being astute about generational trends, brand differentiation, and completely getting who their customers are, what they want, and how to connect with them.
Strong, local and African
A case in point is Butan, available in Sesha stores countrywide and online at Spree. The brand has become enormously successful: the line is now available in Namibia and Botswana, and Julian Kubel, who founded Butan, was recently invited to attend the Agenda Show in New York. Agenda is a global trade event that brings global retailers and fashion brands face-to-face in the US city.
Kubel says his success is due to Butan being a strong local and African brand. An anagram of the word Bantu, from the Zulu word “abantu” that means “people”, Butan is all about reclaiming what was lost to history and re-owning it. “Butan is about owning our history. About honouring past traditions but giving them new meaning,” Kubel, who started the line in 2006, explains.
“The Butan designs take a lot from South African culture and tradition, but repackage this in a modern way in terms of streetwear. This is an African brand and our garments speak to our experience of living in this country. In the old days, local fashion used to take a lot of reference from the US. It was all about creating a cheap imitation of what already existed in the west,” the founder of Butan says.
“But now we take pride in our own traditions and create signature garments that speak to the experience of living in the complexity that is Africa, and understanding the depth and complexity of what it is to be South African,” he says. Celebrities who wear Butan include the likes of Kwesta, Driemanskap, Proverb and many others in the Who’s Who of SA’s happening hip hop scene.
Unremarkable advertising
Back at Edgars, the clothing on the racks and being displayed in the clothing retailer’s advertising is unremarkable. Going through the retailer’s social media accounts, online website and press adverts, what’s evident is that its ads look like they could be a tired understudy for H&M.
Which is problematic, because H&M — the Swedish multinational —opened its very first fast-fashion store in South Africa on 17 October 2015. This store is one of H&M’s biggest, at 4 700m², and takes up two floors at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town.
Global branding agency, Interbrand, has twice ranked H&M as the most-valuable retail brand in the world. From a marketing and product perspective, H&M has collaborated with the likes of Madonna, Beyonce and Versace.
But back to Edgars: the problem with that brand is that it is tired and undifferentiated. Look at Edgar’s advertising and you’ll see zebra prints and giraffes echo the notion that being ‘African’ is all about the animals. This curio-styled cliche is a horribly reductive take on what it means to be an African fashion brand.
Stark contrast
By stark contrast, Woolworths’ fashion advertising is distinctive in that it celebrates individuals who use the Woolies style to make it their own. The quality store’s brand intuitively understands all about marketing to different generations, unlike Edgars, which takes a one-size-fits-all approach to its marketing.
This is evident when comparing Woolworths’ Instagram account to Edgars’. Now take a look at two more Instagram accounts. The first is for Butan Wear and, lastly, check out Unlabelled, a local fashion magazine run by the sassy Phendu Kuta. Like Butan, Kuta just gets the South African zeitgeist. Her magazine is complex, fresh, storied, steeped in local style, and engaging.
Of late, Edgars has started working with local Instagram sensation, Lebz Skywalker. This is a step in the right direction. But the brand needs a major overhaul. The buying and merchandising needs to be sorted, pronto. And then it needs to refresh its brand and the marketing of it.
If Edgars doesn’t start bringing crowds back to its couple of hundred stores, local online fashion retailers, competitors such as Mr Price, and new market entries such as H&M are going to eat it for breakfast, while its management watches Edcon’s debt load (over R23bn in March 2015) get even bigger.
Mandy de Waal is a writer based in Cape Town, South Africa. Follow her on Twitter at @mandyldewaal or email her at MandyLdeWaal [@] gmail.com.
— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every Monday and Thursday. Sign up here!