Practical Investigation Rationale // Lululemon Rebrand Proposal

Essay Question


“What is the relationship between branding and The Consumer Self?"

Rationale


Athleisure, or sports luxe, is a fashion trend that has and continues to become more and more popular in current times. The trends sees clothing designed for athletic motives worn outside of active/ physical environments, instead worn as an everyday fashion statement to capture a certain lifestyle visual. Athleisure apparel is characterised by fashionable, dressed-up sweats and exercise clothing that would most commonly be worn during spells of exercise or sporting activity and is prominently a female driven market. The trend is unquestionably a result of the transcendence of major sporting brands, such as Adidas, into popular culture. Using the notion of 'sports luxe' as an example of brands' ability to manifest themselves into sub-brands and new sectors of popular culture and social presence, I plan to put the brand strategies used by sports brand Adidas into action to re-brand a lesser-known brand with issues that would benefit from a change in visual identity and strategic outlook.


I plan to re-brand yoga-apparel brand 'Lululemon Athletica' due to the multitude of controversies experienced by the company, including:

• Product recalls.

• Product quality issues.

• Overpriced merchandise.

• Misleading statements to artificially inflate its stock price.

• Marketing efforts that exclude overweight customers.

• Accusations by shareholders of fraud.

• False advertising.

• Controversial statements made by the founder. 

• Lululemon murder.

In addition to these controversies, I also discovered that the brand's current visual identity was in fact designed considering an alternative name that they decided not to select when finalising the brand, meaning a lack of relevancy, consideration and context is evident within the brand. I aim to produce the rebrand alongside pieces of collateral to show the new brand in context. I will put this rationale forward to a critique to establish a distinct direction to take the re-brand in.