An exploration of fashion retailer own brand strategies

Purpose: It has been proposed within the branding literature that the theory of the brand be extended within a variety of industries. The purpose of this paper is to offer a deeper understanding of the centrality of the own brand to fashion retailer brand strategy. Design/methodology/approach: The research involved six in-depth interviews with large-scale fashion retailers from a sample of the 20 largest and most successful fashion retailers in the UK. Findings: Participants identified the motivations, dimensions, success factors and problems associated with the creation, development and management of the own brand Research limitations/implications: This is an exploratory study and as such is limited to the experiences of six fashion retailers. It is, however, part of a larger empirical study. Practical implications: The results of this study provide key areas for future research development to be applied within the fashion retail sector or to be expanded within alternative retail sectors. Originality/value: The development of brand strategy within the fashion retailing sector reveals a paucity of empirical and theoretical studies. This exploratory paper seeks to address this scarcity.