Uniqlo: How cheap clothing brands hold up the richest man in Japan

From the time it was sold to being the leading casual wear brand in Japan, what is Uniqlo's magic drug?

On May 15th, Uniqlo opened its global flagship store on Nanjing West Road in Shanghai. The entrance lined up a long corner with many corners. The staff had to lift the wooden sign “Line up here and enter the store for 1 hour”. customer. "If you haven't visited the Expo, you will feel this array in advance." Someone complained. However, the team is still lengthening and it is still not reduced at 9:00 that evening.

Even the opening of the H&M Shanghai Huaihai Road flagship store has not been so popular. Uniqlo rented a half-building on Nanjing West Road with a business area of ​​3,300 square meters. The limelight covered any of the flagship stores in the past—London, New York, and Paris. Two weeks before the opening, the entire Nanjing West Road and Wujiang Road were covered with advertising banners. Despite preparations, the clerk remained unprepared when the business was opened.

After seeing this splendid scene, who would have thought that four months ago, Uniqlo was still struggling on the brink of the biggest crisis since its inception in 1984. Sales growth was flat, and Zhang's low-profit shops continued to be one after another like a nightmare.

In 2005, Uniqlo was experiencing a contraction in the European and American markets, and the Asian market was also worrying, with sales and brand awareness falling. The fiasco even led to the loss of the President’s real power at the time of the president’s president Yu Yuan’s V Yuan. The president of the company, Liu Jingzheng, has again become a company’s power holder.

The problem does not only appear in opening a store. The preference for the basic model instead of the trend line has given UNIQLO a “brilliant and clear” compliment and has made its brand unclear. In the trend-setting new products of H&M and ZARA, consumers think that Uniqlo is “not fashionable enough”. What's worse, the simple style makes it easy to copy and imitate.

The transition occurred after a meeting between Yanai Yanai and Sato Kato. Yanai is not the kind of person who is impressed by the "creativity". However, after seeing a television interview with Sato Kesho, he decided to meet with him. No one knew what they were talking about. Soon after, Yanai was hiring a young Japanese designer who almost never smiled as a creative director, and Uniqlo’s sales began to rise significantly.

Yoojeong is convinced that Sato Kato has a unique sense of creativity and modernity. “He not only knew the ideas of Japan but also understood Japan, so we chose to cooperate with him.”

In Japan, Sato is known as the "rapid samurai." Prior to this, he worked as a designer and creative director for Kirin Beer Advertising and NTT Docomo's mobile products. The designer who came from the advertising company liked not to go out of the box. In the Kirin project, he used the advertising screen printed with Logo to cover the vehicles parked on the street free of charge and successfully grabbed the eyeballs.

He put forward the concept of "superfinishing surgery" in which there is nothing in the office room except for tables and chairs, and only those items that meet the minimum need are taken out. Every time he finishes a project, Sato will force employees to organize computer and desktop data files. He thinks this has a lot to do with design. "To create a design, we must completely sort out and find out the essence."

This is almost a method he has used for each business owner who asks for help: communicating information and then prescribing the right medicine. He does not bother to cut off his creative ideas. In his opinion, creativity is in the business owner's mind. He is just the one who "performs superfinishing."

In 2005, it was a multiple-choice question placed in front of Yanai. Product, sales, service, and corporate identity, what is the key to turning the situation? In an interview with "First Financial Weekly" on the opening day, he emphasized "corporate identification" and "services."

Sato's "interviews" are beginning here. In the face of Uniqlo, which is gradually losing its appeal, Yanai is hoping that Sato will use the design to clarify the concept: clothes are the parts of clothes, and the combination is the freedom of consumers.

After learning the crux of the matter, Sato made the first job for Uniqlo—designing a New York flagship store. New York is the home base for casual wear. In addition to GAP, ZARA, H&M and other fast-fashion brands that manufacture retail companies, there are also a few companies that are similar to Uniqlo, which means that it does not account for much of the price.

Uniqlo’s slogan was freedom and democracy, which was too serious for a fashion brand. Sato and Yanai are discussing several times directly and sketching out a vision. Uniqlo needs "a super rationality with aesthetic consciousness." The meaning of this complex sentence is that Uniqlo products are not only beautiful but also cost-effective.

"I hope to be able to convey this feature that is enough to be proud of the world." Sato said. He immediately withdrew all of the old Logo of Uniqlo and changed it from dark red to pure red. The font only retains the skeleton. Sato also designed a Japanese Katakana version of Logo for Uniqlo — he didn't even care about Japanese in overseas markets.

Yanai is enjoying this logo very much. He said that even if foreigners do not understand it, it is enough to demonstrate the nature of Uniqlo. "The ironclad decision will be able to release strong force overseas."

When this logo appeared in the UNIQLO SOHO flagship store in New York opened in November 2006, the US media used two evaluations: "Reminiscent of the Japanese flag" and "unprecedented publicity."

This is exactly what Sato Koshi and wanted. Due to historical reasons, Japanese companies are generally low-key in European and American markets, and even well-known companies such as Toyota rarely make corporate propaganda. Uniqlo’s move is completely different. Apart from the katakana logo, there is also a “From Tokyo to New York” slogan.

Everything is to reshape the UNIQLO brand awareness. Sato Kosuke and Yosuke were referring to Japan's "Flash Godfather" and multimedia designer Nakamura Yoshigo, allowing him to redesign the U.S. website for Uniqlo. In addition, Sato introduced the world supermodel to shoot print advertisements for Uniqlo, and these western-style posters were quickly posted to Uniqlo stores around the world.

The flagship store in New York became popular and overseas markets began to shift. Sato was thus given the title of "Design Magician Who Can Drive Sales." He immediately designed a new corporate identity for the fast-selling group of Uniqlo's parent company—a pure red inverted triangle cut into three pieces. In addition to Uniqlo, Fast Retailing also manufactures and sells middle and high-end brands such as theory. Yanai is very satisfied with this design. He feels that his "climb up" and "sharp" feelings are reflected.

This breath penetrated into the product. Compared with H&M and ZARA's follow-up to the international T-Taiwan style, Uniqlo is more inclined to subconsciously “tide up.” They will not miss any of the popular elements, such as the current leggings, striped ocean winds and finely printed. However, Uniqlo has a more unique trick—the professional T-shirt brand UT.

Sato Cosmo has expanded a new business model for Uniqlo. He said to Yanai: "The Uniqlo brand is like a media, and there must be 'only Uniqlo's can do'." Yanai, after sorting through all the goods, replied: "That's a T-shirt."

T-shirts are the simplest products in all clothes and have the potential to become an ideal business model. Uniqlo has launched 500 T-shirt products every season. But this may also be a disadvantage - it is safe to buy anywhere, anytime, but it also means that there are two important labels: fashion and personality. In addition, once the types of T-shirts are increased, customers will untidy after the T-shirt confirmation patterns are displayed.

It's time for finishing surgery to work.

Sato tried to propose a business system. Compared to product production, system development is more important. “As Google and YouTube, we must be the brand that provides an epoch-making system. Once the infrastructure is completed, then just add content, you can become a global business brand, but also actively promote a variety of cooperation programs.”

The display style will also change. “The pure side-by-side approach has no deterrent effect. Shop displays should incorporate design concepts to convey more intense information.” In the new flagship store, POLO shirts of the same color are combined into a colored wall, and the momentum is pressing. In Japan, Sato Coss and each T-shirt was packed in a cylindrical red lid plastic jar and was sold over the entire wall.

Bottled t-shirts are easy to arrange and save space, but there is one more point - cylinder packaging can prevent customers from dismantling the clothes, and the clerk does not have to organize the store at any time behind. (Sample display is displayed in the store display. Customers only need to pick the middle code to try fitting. Find a can of the can in the canned wall and unscrew the lid.)

In April 2007, the Japanese UT flagship store that fully embodied this design concept opened in Harajuku. 500 T-shirts are displayed on the entire wall, and a search desk for "UT search" is installed on each floor. This specially developed system for UT allows customers to search for their favorite T-shirts from various angles such as color, graphics, theme, and keywords, as well as find out where the product is displayed. The new T-shirt purchase method has made UT launch a topic in Japan, and even appears to have sold out all of a sudden. The store has been crowded with customers for several days in a row.

The original meaning of UT is “Tee printed with a pattern”. All UT series products have two label cards. In addition to the ingredients and bar code cards usually found in Uniqlo's other products, there is a signboard that describes the designer background of this product. . Designers come in a variety of ways: they may be graffiti artists in London, or they may be British supermodel Agyness Deyn. Disney's new movie "Alice in Wonderland" has just released in the world. UT immediately hangs out Alice's limited series.

Sometimes something that only exists in people's memory may be reborn through UT: for example, the cover of "VOGUE" released in the past 100 years, or the mobile fighter who made the silver screen in early 1979. UT has become a platform for more designs.

UT is equal to the appeal. "To me, the so-called "trend card" is the kind of brand shop where I have nothing to want to visit." Shi Yiwen, a 25-year-old company employee, said, "Because they can always tell me about some new trends and new things."

In fact, Sato Keshi and Hope Uniqlo are topical at all times. He set the new flagship store's slogan as “From Shanghai to the World” because “Shanghai is very close to Tokyo and it is better to face the world together than emphasize differences”. Previously in a New York store, Sato emphasized Tokyo because it "will make New York young people feel cool."

In the Nanjing West Road flagship store in Shanghai, Uniqlo invited the company BCJ (Bohlin Cywinski Jackson), a designer of the Apple Store and Bill Gates, to design the store. The triangular topography of the intersection of Wujiang Road and Nanjing West Road attracted the attention of pedestrians. The transparent and tall buildings on the seats, and the pedestrian street and the subway entrance in close proximity can guarantee a steady flow of people.

Now, Yanai is in the process of determining that the number of Chinese stores will reach 100 in 2010 and nearly double the existing number of 59 stores. "China's future will be Uniqlo's largest market," Yanai said.