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Fashion group takes care of 300 labels

MOST MARKETING executives would be ecstatic to get their professional hands on one well-known brand, but 300 of them? This is the task that awaits Deborah Cheng and her team at fashion firm I.T Group.

'It's definitely a unique business model,' said Ms Cheng who has been with the company for nearly 10 years and is the marketing and communications director.

'I feel like a mother who has lots of kids. I don't prefer one brand over any of the others. Our in-house lines give us bigger profit margins, but it's our import labels that give us the image and branding we need.'

The listed company is in the enviable position of catering to every market segment, from high-end consumers who want brands such as Alexander McQueen and Anna Sui bags and accessories, to those who want trendy and more affordable streetwear such as X-Large and Carhartt. Brands are sold in multibrand stores like I.T and double-park, or offered in single-brand stores like French Connection.

But I.T Group's marketing team of 24 does not spend its time promoting all 300 brands.

'There is no way we could do that. Each season we come up with a 'push list' and concentrate on that, although we do tend to focus more on our in-house labels as they need more nurturing,' Ms Cheng said.

Brands like French Connection and Maison Martin Margiela provide guidelines, but this does not mean less effort for the marketing team. Ms Cheng said the head offices of international brands such as these would provide marketing direction as well as advertising materials, meaning staff working on those accounts did not need to be as creative as say someone working on an in-house label. However, implementing global guidelines at a local level also had its challenges.

'For our in-house brands, the work we do is a lot more extensive. It's a different business model and we have to be more flexible,' Ms Cheng said. 'There are no head office guidelines we have to follow, so we get to be more creative - which we have to be if we are going to make the product sell.'

An example of this is the strategy used to promote the newest label under I.T - Chocoolate. Launched at the end of last year, Chocoolate is a line of basic menswear that is 20 to 30 per cent more expensive than clothing at Baleno or Giordano. Opening the first Chocoolate store in Festival Walk was a challenge.

'We only had six months to build the brand from scratch, and it's harder to do it with menswear because research shows that men are less responsive to marketing and advertising than women.

'Our brief was to make Chocoolate prominent in a very short period of time, and that's what we did.'

To get the message across, the firm splashed out on advertising everywhere, from the sides of buses to billboards and the MTR.

It also secured many magazine interviews and tied up with local artist and DJ Jan Lamb Hoi-fung. There are now seven Chocoolate stores and sales have exceeded expectations, according to Ms Cheng.

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