Prada, an Italian luxury house of fashion, was discovered by Mario Prada in 1913. Globally, known for selling its products related to fashion right from clothing to leather handbags to accessories, shoes, perfumes, etc. It is considered to be a luxury fashion brand not only in India but also worldwide.

In this blog, we shall learn about the marketing mix of Prada including its 7Ps, but before diving into it, let’s learn more about the company first.

About Prada

 

             

    

Prada is known for its fashion products. As mentioned earlier, it was discovered in Italy since then the company has evolved and became a renowned fashion brand across the globe. Currently the CEO of Prada is Patrizio Bertelli.  

The brand gained its popularity in 1985, where it launched a series of black nylon handbags and backpacks with understated labelling labour. From 1913 to the present Prada has over 618 boutiques worldwide.

Being a luxury brand, it is famous amongst the upper class, rich society, and also fashion influencers. Now that we learned some details about the brand, let’s dive into its marketing mix.

 

Marketing Mix Of Prada

The marketing mix refers to a combination of all the actions and strategies that are used by a company for promoting and creating awareness about the products in the market. The main terms that are used for marketing are Product, Place, Price, Promotion, People, Process, and Physical Evidence which are referred to as the 7Ps of Marketing Mix.

A company combines these 7Ps and its products in the market to its target audience and gains an edge amongst its competitors.

Let us now know in detail about the 7Ps of the marketing mix and how Prada uses it to its benefit to promote its products in the market.

 

 

1. Product Strategy of Prada

Prada has a vast product portfolio. It has a wide range of collections of fashion products and apparel to offer to its customers. Initially, the brand started by selling animal goods and imported truckers and handbags. As mentioned before, the company started gaining popularity by selling nylon waterproof backpacks. Later, it started selling bags and also clothing, accessories, perfumes, shoes, etc for both men and women. The fashion hub has also launched a clothing and product line called Miu Miu dedicated to younger consumers.

Recently in 2021, Prada collaborated with Adidas to present two new brand colourways of the  LUNA ROSSA sneakers which will be available from July 19th, 2021. This can prove to be a massive success for both these brands since it has massive followers all over the world. In June 2021, the company also launched “ Prada Outdoor Coast Brodum”, inspired by the calm and carefree nature of the beach. Along with this, the company also launched an exclusive collection for men and women concerning its coast theme.

It had an electronic partnership deal with LG Electronics and sells mobile phones named LG Prada, LG Prada II, and so on. 

Now let’s find the pricing strategy of Prada to know about the brand even better.

 

 

2. Pricing Strategy of Prada

Prada is a luxurious and prestigious brand. It has carefully curated products that cater to the needs of its niche segment of upper-class society; it’s safe to assume that the price ranges are extremely high. Since the luxury fashion house sells very good quality products and also due to its high branding value, the brand charges premium prices for its products. It has a considerable amount of audience who are willing to pay for the same.

Up until 2019, the annual net sales were around 3 billion euros. However in 2020, due to a pandemic, there was a fall in its revenues and a 40% decline in its sales. But the fashion brand saw a 60% growth in its retail sales in Mainland China in June and 66% in July. On the contrary, in European Markets even after the restrictions eased, it remained negative due to lack of tourists.

The cost of the products starts from $50 and can go up to $3000 and above. At times the organization also sells customized products to its customers at the highest premium price.

Due to its pricing strategy, Prada is known as a high fashion brand with a premium status symbol. Let’s have a look at its distribution strategy in the below section.

 

3. Place and Distribution Strategy of Prada

 

                   

 

Prada has been in the fashion business for more than 100 years now. It opened its first store in Milan, Italy in 1913 and had its headquarters situated there. It expanded its business in 1983 by opening its boutiques in Madrid, New York, London, Tokyo, and Paris. Currently, Prada is having 618 boutiques spread globally across malls, megastores, etc. It opened its first largest store in Emirates, Dubai in the year 2012.

For its distribution strategy, the brand has opened flagship stores known as the Prada Epicenters, to give its customers some unique Prada experience. These flagship stores are constructed by some of the best and renowned architectures owing to the brand value. The flagship store opened on Broadway in New York is one the most successful store globally.

Along with this, it also launched its official website of an online store for its customers where they can buy different range products. The company has built a huge online presence as its products are available on various other websites like Darveys, Farfetch, etc in addition to its existent official website.

As mentioned before, in June 2021 Prada launched a project known as “Prada Outdoor Coast Brodum”, inspired by the beach. The setting for this store included beach sand dues, ocean-blue tents, and sunglasses. The customer can come chill at the beach by the sunsets and also have a drink on the beach bar’s terrace. 

This was a great distribution strategy led out by Prada. So now, we will dig deep into the section of promotional strategy of Prada. 

 

4. Promotion Strategy of Prada   

                                       

 

Prada has always brought innovation and quality in its products. The brand has adopted various promotional strategies to promote its new launch of products to its target audience. It has conducted a lot of fashion shows and runaways where various company models promote its product which proved to be very persuasive and successful in the fashion industry.

These shows are attended by a lot of famous personalities who wear the brand’s product or being a part of its ad campaigns. Of course, being a luxury brand, Prada cast big personalities in its ad campaigns and appoint them as brand ambassadors to create an impact amongst its audience and promote its products. It also features top magazines like Vogue, Elle, etc.

As a part of its promotional strategy, Miuccia Prada conducted an art gallery tour for its brand Mui Mui where it targeted its younger customers and created an awareness about clothing lines amongst them. 

To contribute its part towards social work the company also associated in Milan charity event to educate its audience and spread awareness about Breast Cancer. Along with these promotional strategies Prada also does promotional activities through hoardings, billboards, newspapers and giving details about its product or campaigns, launch, etc through its official online website.

These are some of the marketing mix strategies used by Prada to promote its products in the market and to create its presence in the minds of the people.

Other Ps include people, process, and physical evidence that many companies use to promote products. Prada also uses them for its marketing mix strategy. Let us have a look at these 3Ps: people, process, and physical evidence in the upcoming sections.

 

5. People Strategy of Prada

Prada being a brand has to live up to people’s expectations towards the brand and therefore, it has a lot of people working under it in different departments.

The company has people working in its sales team who are trained. The firm has been taught to respect its customers. People are working in the customer service department wherein case a customer has any issue related to a product they can approach them and through their guidances get their issue resolved.

People working with the suppliers obtain the raw materials and make sure that the high quality of the final product is maintained. People working in the retail stores answer customer queries and help them make choices while buying by suggesting them a product that’s best suited to their taste.

Now we got the basic idea of the people strategy used by Prada. So, let’s gander over the process strategy of the company. 

 

6. Process Strategy of Prada

The retail stores of Prada have a lot of systems involved. The people working over there have to make sure that the products are available to its customers all time. If a particular inventory level is low they need to notify and restock them.

For its online store, the company has a computer system that records the orders received online and then based on these orders the product is shipped from their inventory to the delivery site. It also conducts market research to know more about its customer needs and ask their feedback about its experience with Prada.

This helps the brand to improve and cater to its customer needs. So now, let’s tear it down and finish the case study with the last marketing mix of Prada – Physical Evidence Strategy below. 

 

7. Physical Evidence of Prada

The corporation has a distinct colour and packing of its products so that it is easier for its customers to identify the product placed on retail shelves. It also has a distinct design on its retail shelves making it more identifiable amongst the rest of the shelves.

The online website is also user-friendly which provides images of the products clicked in high quality and from every angle so that a customer does not face any difficulties while shopping online.

Thus, this concludes the case study of the marketing mix of Prada. Let’s wrap it up shortly.

 

Conclusion

 

With this, we come to the end of our Marketing Mix Strategy Of Prada using the 4Ps. We also learned about the other 3Ps that the companies make use of to promote their products in the market and create an impact on their target audience.

Prada is running a successful business in the fashion industry since 1913. The brand keeps launching new lines of products for its customers and has stuck to manufacture good high quality and improved products for its customers. They have maintained their sophisticated image and owned to its high brand value. Prada has a lot of exciting future projects and new launches of new products lined up for their consumers.

With this, we sum up the entire case study. We hope that this information was useful and you enjoyed learning how Prada makes use of the marketing mix using 7Ps. If you are interested in learning more about digital marketing, we at IIDE provide Free Masterclass On Digital Marketing. If you liked this case study please like, share, and leave a comment. Thank you for spending your valuable time reading this blog.

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