YOUNIFORM

In my Marketing Plan for YOUNIFORM, I wanted to create a merchandise plan where YOUNIFORM would collaborate with young designers to create exclusive merchandise seasonally for the app to give back to the community. I created a pitch deck to send to designers that I reached out to in regards to create CADS or Illustrations of their interpreted merch.

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After realizing and simplifying YOUNIFORM as a social networking app, our competitor market changed drastically. I decided to identify my competitors based on Media Houses as well as mobile applications. Here are the mobile applications:

Although Grailed is a marketplace application and we are a social networking one, their platform within Grailed is DRYCLEANONLY – an educational and community driven platform within Grailed. ‘Dry Clean Only, our exclusive editorial platform, provides unique perspective on designers, drops and more. From designer archives to celebrity closet sales, it’s your springboard to shop the best pieces on the planet.’

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SLYDE: Slyde is a mobile application that is based around fashion. They want to treat your outfits the way they deserve to be treated – as artwork.Thousands of people will rate your outfits and give you the constructive feedback you deserve. There is a toplist in the app, showing the highest rated fits in the world. If you manage to get featured here, you’ll get more clout than you ever would anywhere else. The toplist also makes it pretty easy to spot trends, whether these are local or global. (This app is a competitor due to our Inspo page, but instead of pitting users against each other which can get tricky, we embrace with positive feedback)

NTWRK offers shoppable shows featuring the best brands and biggest names in pop culture in a mobile application. The app allows users to secure sneakers, streetwear, collectibles, and more during each episode. Products drop during each episode and are available exclusively on the app and website. The only similarities between YOUNIFORM and NTWRK that is concerning is the chat feature which connects users and the watch feature. The difference is that the content they produce is in-house.

MEDIA COMPETITORS

Highsnobiety is a media platform. They describe it as: “Highsnobiety is a brand dedicated to today’s generation of style-conscious individuals. Our scope encompasses everything from fashion, to sneakers, to design, music, and entertainment. In a world where being culture-obsessed has become the rule (not the exception), our mission is to turn curious outsiders into cultivated insiders.”

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HYPEBEAST’s daily news section has become an important destination for those interested in the latest developments within the fashion community as well as other aspects of culturally-relevant content such as art, music, design and lifestyle. HYPEBEAST has also ventured into making their own app and convention in NY.

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Complex isn’t a magazine but a media based and entertainment company for youth culture. It reports on emerging trends in style, sneakers, food, music, sports and pop culture. They are famous for their sneaker shopping videos, and their convention that has connected a subculture in a physical space and the first of its kind for streetwear.

I was collecting a variety of research through articles and academic papers, so I can understand the psychological behavior of potential users, and why users would want to download YOUNIFORM over others as Gen-Z. I read one theoretical article written in 2019 by the LSE Business Review: ‘Using consumer psychology to enhance mobile app recommendations.’

I learned what the ‘involvement’ theory is (in regards to mobile application downloads):

• Existing mobile app recommenders mostly predict users’ download behaviours by mining their behavioural patterns, for example recommendations are made so that users who download app A also download app B. – so for example (IN THEORY), if a user is in the apple app store, they may download the hype beast application, and be referred YOUNIFORM.

• Involvement is an internal state of mind a consumer experiences when choosing a product or a service, and the degree of involvement (high or low) is manifested by the amount of time, effort and consideration expended in the process of information search and product acquisition

• For example:
• in purchases of some durable products with high price tags, consumers are often associated with high involvement and actively search and collect information before purchases
• In contrast, while purchasing consumable, low-cost products (such as groceries, instant coffee, and bubble bath soap)
• consumers are more likely to have low involvement, with few or even no searches and comparisons.

In the case of mobile apps, different apps have different abilities to elicit involvement due to their unique characteristics such as complexity, perceived risk, emotional appeal, and hedonic value.

In order to effectively locate the apps that a user would be interested in downloading, identifying the user’s internal involvement state and taking it into consideration in the recommendations is indeed helpful.

The involvement theory suggests that it is feasible to infer it from the person’s browsing behaviours preceding downloads – In the case of mobile apps, information search before an app download is embodied in users’ browsing behaviours on a mobile app platform.

A user who has high involvement with a mobile app category may browse many apps in that category to make comparisons before downloading one, while on the other hand, a user who has low involvement with an app category may do little or even no browsing before downloading an app in that category. 

Therefore, the intensity of browsing behaviours preceding a download is affected by a user’s involvement state with the download, and thus can be used to learn it.

This theory can back my reasoning of why those already involved in this community or subculture who are high involvement users would download YOUNIFORM as a recommendation, and those who are low involvement can be changed if we use this theory to obtain the upper hand and influence them.

How is this pandemic affecting the way we shop digitally?

I had planned to meet up with a couple of archivists during my visit back to Los Angeles, but due to the outbreak and Los Angeles being on lockdown, those plans of photographing those popular individuals within the community was also on lockdown. Instead, I interviewed Fernando Rangel of the @silverleague shop- one of the archivists I had not yet spoken with. We went over my original semi-structured interview questions, and spoke a bit about how COVID-19 outbreak is affecting his business.

Due to the pandemic, the way we shop and the way the fashion industry works- is all up in the air, the market is crashing and Gen-Zers who are already in the workforce don’t know when or where their expendable paycheck is coming from. Fernando has shut his brand new showroom in downtown LA, and provided a discount code – like many other shops during this uneasy time.

He informed me about how his perspective on how we will shop may change, if those Gen-Zers who have their own income flow will halt with large scale purchases due to this stockmarket crash and future recession. I have begun to listen to podcasts as well that cover this subject matter. As of right now, many of these archivists are taking a halt, instead searching through online platforms to find Pandemic deals on Grailed, to grow their shop for when this is all over, potential buyers will come flooding through for these bargain pieces.

I was told my Natalie to go to the Google Start Up hub for events that would aid in YOUNIFORM’s steps to becoming a business. I was able to talk to Investors, Incubator services, etc. about YOUNIFORM and receive advice from them. I was told to look into Grants, Incubators, Crowdfunding with the elevated streetwear community. Possibly creating an event to prove for press and investing in the application personally. I should look into the kickback or affiliating market. I was also told to look into the Angel academy, which provides an angel investment network. I met a woman from PwC: which is helps with leadership and developments of start ups to form them, as well as helping them find funding.

I met with Natalie Grogan and Lucas Shrovon from ALL EYES. As Natalie is an LCF Alumni who was focused in the start up world, it was very interesting meeting with her and her boyfriend who is her co-founder of ALL EYES. We met at Soho House and I went through the concept and deck of my mobile application from term 1. We went over potential accelerator programs such as HFarm in which Depop made an impact, Enterprise model data within the app, creating a newsletter hinting for new features releasing requests, community involvement in the news portion of the app, News aggregators as a whole, and promotions to make cash flow within events. We realized a way of revenue in the future can be collection of data from the app to sell to potential companies as insight – as the consumer is extremely niche and desired by both high street and luxury brands. I have been offered a place as an internship this June with All Eyes to learn about what it takes to make a start up, as well as partake in streetwear photography during fashion week.

As I am trying to understand a subculture that is so wide because of their digital footprint, I want to understand the reasonings and visual aesthetic associated with their movements and milestones. So I went to visit the ‘Real Thing’ exhibition at the LCF gallery. I has listened to the podcasts in collaboration with this subcultures exhibition, and I was excited to see it visualized.

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I think what I appreciated the most out of this exhibition was the re-interpretation of what branding and labels can do to objects – something I’d like to see within the content of YOUNIFORM, and its relationship with users.

I recently went to visit the Dazed offices at the Strand to meet with Ahmad to discuss the social media strategy and overall storytelling of the branding within YOUNIFORM. We went over thinking of the Unique Selling Point of the app, something that has been running through my mind recently – with all these features what is the idea we are pushing? – Community, shopping, or education? I realized throughout this journey my application is changing and evolving through this academic theoretical research. My unique selling point to its core is that this identifies as a social networking application, that connects a community online, that educates and challenges the user to explore their personal identity through dress.

After having a meeting with my tech co-founder Luca and my UX designer Jason, we are trying to see if the shopping feature is an actual possibility as it is hard to link all of these items within the application. It may have to come in a later version.

When working as a start up, and while attending the Bootcamp provided by UAL, I was told to always figure out my 5 minute pitch. I keep getting this advice, with the variety of industry individuals I am gaining mentorship from. I want to post weekly, tweaking and editing this pitch to make it perfect. Here is my first draft after writing a blurb for the SET Challenge, I tweaked it.

For those who are fashion conscious within the elevated streetwear subculture, they have hit a wall creatively with Instagram. For those who are fashion curious and want to get involved, they don’t know how to, or where to begin. There is a gap within this Gen-Z subculture to create a safe space for the online community. 

Youniform is an online social networking application that is extremely personalized to the user as a one-stop-shop for everything elevated streetwear. It takes pre-existing data from the other platforms these users frequent, and provide features such as personalized news and videos, discussions and chats, fashion event finder, Gain outfit inspiration, digital outfit creation, management of buying and selling. The user’s profile creates a timeline to archive and document the user’s journey with their personal style. 

We are in the current process of developing the back end. Luca my co-founder has told me that it is best to develop a website format and app format at the same time as it makes everything easier in the future. Jason and I are working on the design and UX journey of each feature to make sure everything makes sense.

As of right now the prioritizing of the features are as follows:

1. Profile
2. Inspo
3. Events
4. Chat
5. Create
6. News
7. Entertain
8. Wishlist
9. Sell
10. Shop

We are also looking at domain titles: We found the domain name www.youniformapp.com for £0.99 a year vs. www.youniform.global which is also available but it is £39 a year. Youniform.global maintains the branding, while youniformapp.com may come up faster for SEO, something we are trying to focus on to understand why the consumer will find and download the application.