Competitor research - Chris

We identified the shoe brand TOMS and US web-based clothing company Threadless as competing brands with a similar ethos and similar ideas as DECE.

I looked into these two companies, in detail, to ascertain what sort of design ideas and strategies they employ in order to be successful. Understanding these things will help us to see what sort of things we should be aiming to do, as well as how we can differentiate ourselves from other brands.

TOMS is a shoe brand with a similar ethos to that of DECE - they provide a fashion product and for each pair of shoes sold they donate a pair of shoes to people in Argentina (and now other under-developed areas) who are in need of such things. They call this 'One For One' and it is something that their market is fairly aware of because of the way TOMS promote it. Their logo has a strong link to Argentina, with it being a recreation of the Argentinian national flag with 'TOMS' text.

An example of some of their current web banners - using organic and neutral/washed out colours, as well as combining inky/painty/hand drawn type and illustration combined with relevant photography which gives an honest feel. They also use the canvas texture throughout their branding - this builds a theme, relating to the material of the shoes and, again, holding an earthy and organic feel.

A few examples of how they use Illustration and photography within their advertising, as well as how they portray their audience within their design. 

The company also has campaigns aimed at involving the community. Shown above is their 'How We Wear Them' campaign, displaying community submitted images of themselves wearing TOMS. 

Threadless is a US Web-based company with a similar business model to the 'DECE Inspired' part of the DECE brand. Users of the company's website can submit designs with a view to them being printed as t shirts. The community also votes on which shirts they like the best, and the most popular designs are realised as t shirts which are available to be bought on the website. The designer and Threadless then make money from these sales. 

Threadless seems to aim itself at a similar target audience to that of DECE's, but does so in a more edgy way that probably would not be suitable to portray a charitable, positive brand. We should look at how we can differentiate DECE from this brand, whilst also taking on board what it does in order to achieve success. 

 I came up with a couple of quick initial ideas based on the idea of using earthy and organic tones and textures as well as tying in the theme of the Romanian connection.