Ted Baker Project

Marketing the Fashion Product

[magfashion]

Editorial for Tailor-made Shirts

[magfashion]

Ted Baker tailor-made viral video

[magfashion]

TED'S LEAGUE - NO ORDINARY FOOTBALL TEAM

TED is always on the trend. World Cup 2014 on its way and he is not going to miss it. Ted has chosen team players for his ideal team by reminiscing memory of the best players of the century.

Have a look here who would play in Ted's team http://tedbakerblog.com/2014/06/tedspirit-meet-teds-world-cup-gents/

Ted also wants his customers to tweet @ted_baker with your choice of the player’s name #TedSpirit. If you’re picked you’ll win a gift from Ted!

Ted always know how to engage his customers! well done TED!

[magfashion]

TED IS READY FOR HIS TRAVELS - NOW YOU CAN PACK YOUR TED IN A BAG!

TED has just launched his new luggage collection. How the typical Ted's customers could have gone without it for such a long time? They love traveling the globe! This definitely perfect choice Ted! Just in time for summer!

[magfashion]

TED'S BLOOMING POP UP @SELFRIDGES

TED has just opened beautiful pop up store in Selfridges London. In Ted’s garden you can find beautiful accessories in full bloom, for a limited time only!

[magfashion]

ONE OF FAVORITED TED'S LINES :-)

Ted's campaign to submit today's line via social media for a chance to win Ted Baker 500 limited edition tote bag

[magfashion]

HOW MUCH DOES TED COST?

It's very difficult to pick core item in Ted's collection as Ted doesn't really do simple white top or jeans in 10 different versions. All his clothing is funky and it is offered in limited colours or options.

But let's look at some examples:

Womanswear:

-       floral tops (includes different prints) range from

£35-45,

£89-99,

£109-149 (100% silk, jacquard)

-       tops for work ( including embellished, lace) starting

£79 pleated panel top, 100%silk; each product in max 2 colours variation;

£109 box fit top –black only, 54%viscose, 46% acteate ;

£129 lace top

£149 cut out jacquard top

Menswear:

-       T-SHIRT

£30 v-neck t-shirt (grey, purple, mustard yellow, dark pink),

£45 contrast t-shirt with pocket £40, parrot printed ,

£55-60 polo shirt, embroidery , contrast, printed 

 Cheapest item and the most expensive item at Ted:

- Baby wear:

socksx2 £5,

suit jacket £65

- Womanswear:

bikini top/bottom £25,

hand embellished bodice dress £999,

- Menswear:

boxer shorts £15,

suit £499

- Man's Accessories:

ted’s grooming room hair gel £6.50 

embossed leather holdall bag £299

- Woman's Accessories:

purse spray fragrance 10ml £15,

leather tote bag £299

Proposal for improvement:

While researching product range I find that Ted offers very little variation of colours for very specific clothing item. For example some woman tops they only available in 2 bright colours, no just simple black and white colour. As much as I love your quirky stuff, you need to fill this gap TED – because I might want to team up very bright, quirky, flowery skirt with simple white top which I can’t find on your website- this means I need to shop somewhere else for it. That’s my suggestions for range development. Same applies to man’s shirt.

[magfashion]

Again about ethicality - TED and H&M MEASUREUP!

1. Ethical code?  -  yes

Ted Baker’s code of conduct can be found on the company’s website.

2. Code applies to supply chain?  -  yes

Ted Baker told us in an email dated 29 August 2012:

‘Our Ethical Code of Conduct applies to all parties who are involved in making Ted Baker product.  We expect our suppliers to ensure everyone who they work with meets our code of conduct.’

3. Living wages?  -  making progress

Ted Baker told us in an email dated 29 August 2012:

‘This is a difficult issue to tackle, and one that we continuously discuss with our suppliers and MADE-BY.  Last year we conducted a survey of our Chinese suppliers to find out the amount of the average wage within their factories.  This enabled us to look at wages against the Asia Floor Wage, and we were pleased to see many of our suppliers were able to meet or far surpass this mark, and were able to engage the rest with our hopes that they would be able to be above this in 2012.  We will conduct this survey this year again to see how wages have improved in China, and will begin to assess the rest of our supply base.’

4. Factory address list?  -  no

We asked Ted Baker about this.  They told us in an email dated 29 August 2012:

‘Unfortunately not, it takes a long time and a lot of effort for us to source suppliers and work with them to get to a suitable standard.  Whereas we are delighted to help and support our suppliers, we would not wish to help our competitors by publicising who we work with.’ 

5. Factories audited every 2 years?  -  yes

Ted Baker told us in an email dated 29 August 2012:

‘We don’t ask suppliers to perform audits especially for Ted Baker as so many of our suppliers struggle to keep up with social auditing requirements, but we do request in date audits or certification that factories already have.  These are assessed by a trained Social Systems Auditor in-house, as well as verified by our Supply Chain Consultant at MADE-BY.  Once a year these audits and certification are all benchmarked against Made-By’s social systems benchmark and they create a scorecard which is available on their website for our consumer to see how we are progressing.’ 

We looked at the standards MADE-BY use when assessing a brand’s supplier audits and found that suppliers are expected to be audited at least once a year.  P.17 of MADE-BY’s Benchmark for Social Standardsstates:

‘Though the quality of an audit is more important than the frequency, frequent (re)auditing of suppliers lowers the risk of under performance of the factories concerned. When a code is used based on the principle of certification of the factory, a factory should be audited twice a year (once announced and once unannounced).  When the code adopted is based on the principle of monitoring, the brand should audit all its (key) suppliers each year (internal audits) and at least 30% of the suppliers should be audited by an independent third party (external audits).’

6. Company staff visit factories?  -  yes

Ted Baker told us in an email dated 29 August 2012:

‘Yes, our production, design, technical and buying teams make regular visits to the factories to ensure we maintain excellent supplier relationships.  Each member of Ted’s Team has been briefed about labour standards and social compliance.’

7. Unannounced factory checks?  -  no

Ted Baker told us in an email dated 29 August 2012:

‘No we do not make unannounced visits to suppliers at this time; however some of the audits we receive from factories are from unannounced visits.’

8. Confidential audit interviews?  -  yes

Ted Baker told us in an email dated 29 August 2012:

‘Yes, all certification that MADE-BY classify on their Social Systems Benchmark contain information from confidential worker interviews.’

9. Published audit results?  -  yes

Ted Baker told us in an email dated 29 August 2012:

‘As the audits and certifications are not ours, we would not be able to publish them, however we do publish how many of our suppliers are ranked Class A, B, C or unclassified on our yearly scorecard.  Consumers can have confidence that 44% of our garments come from Class A or Low Risk factories and our target is to improve this number year on year.’  

Ted Baker’s scorecard can be found on the MADE-BY website.

10. Worker complaint procedure?  -  no

Ted Baker told us in an email dated 29 August 2012:

‘No this is something that we have not done as yet.’

1. Ethical code?  -  yes

H&M’s code of conduct can be found on the company’s website.

2. Code applies to supply chain?  -  yes

The H&M Group’s code of conduct states:

‘It is the responsibility of H&M’s suppliers and other business partners to inform their subcontractors about H&M’s Code of Conduct and Policy for Homework, and to ensure that these are implemented in every factory and workplace that produces, finishes packs or otherwise handles goods or performs services for H&M’ (p.1).

The H&M Group has also started a programme to audit suppliers further back in the supply chain.  More information about it can be found on the relevant page of the company’s website.

3. Living wages?  -  making progress

P.39-40 of H&M’s Conscious Actions Sustainability Report 2012 describe the work H&M is doing to ‘promote higher wages for garment workers across the industry.’  This includes working with the Fair Labor Association to ‘implement the fair wage concept in selected model factories aiming to deliver best practice examples.’

4. Factory address list?  -  yes

H&M Group’s supplier list can be found on the company’s website. 

5. Factories audited every 2 years?  -  yes

The ‘Monitoring and Grading’ page on H&M Group’s website states:

‘A full audit cycle regularly consists of one head audits and three follow-up audits over a period of 18-24 months.’ 

6. Company staff visit factories?  -  yes

The ‘Why do we have our own auditors’ page of H&M Group’s website states:

‘We are sometimes asked why we do not rely completely on external monitoring and why we have a team of over 70 people working on supplier monitoring and supporting their progress. The answer is very clear to us. By doing audits ourselves we immediately get a comprehensive picture of how well our suppliers comply with our social and environmental requirements.’

7. Unannounced factory checks?  -  yes

Section 2.3 of the ‘Our Conscious Actions’ pages of H&M Group’s website states:

‘Initial head audits are largely unannounced (2012: 66 percent).’ 

8. Confidential audit interviews?  -  yes

The H&M Group told us in an email dated 23 September 2011:

‘Our audits always include confidential interviews with workers randomly selected by the auditor, both from the factory floor and personal files. The aim of the selection process is to cover both gender, age and work positions.’

The company’s Conscious Actions Sustainability Report 2012 noted that in 2012 9,815 worker interviews were conducted.  

9. Published audit results?  -  yes

The ‘Supplier Compliance in Detail’ page of the H&M Group’s website contains information on the company’s latest audit results.

10. Worker complaint procedure?  -  no

The H&M Group told us in an email dated 23 September 2011:

‘Yes, we have thought about this, and are seriously looking into different alternatives, but is nothing that we can confirm today.’

We asked them if they have any more news about this yet.  In an email dated 30 March 2012, they were unable to confirm any progress, however.  Although they did say:

‘During 2011 we conducted about 11 000 worker interviews at our suppliers and all the workers being interviewed have received information on how to get in contact with us, so it happens that we get contacted by them directly.’

[magfashion]

GOOD NEWS - TED OFFERS 20% OFF with discount code online but even better news is that there is 20% OFF FOR STUDENTS ALL YEAR ROUND IN STORES. Never seen this advertised but I have been told by Ted's shop assistant.

[magfashion]

ETHICAL TED AND HIS RESPONSIBILITIES - Do we love TED?

TED'S Ethical Statement

At our head office, stores and warehouses we are working tirelessly to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill, and we would love you to help us by thinking about your waste too. After all, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

We especially want to make sure that all electrical products are taken care of properly; things like batteries can be extremely harmful to the environment if not disposed of correctly. Within the UK, we have grouped together with other retailers and joined the 'Distributor Take Back Scheme', helping the UK's local councils with the provision of improved recycling facilities for you as part of our commitment to the UK and European WEEE Directive (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment).

This is why on these products we display the crossed-out wheelie bin symbol. Please do not dispose of these with your household waste. For our UK customers, please take them to your local recycling centre run by your local council. You can find your closest centre at www.recycle-more.co.uk. Here you can also find out where to recycle things as diverse as fridges, milk cartons and even your old Ted clothes.

We also believe in playing fair. It's not just about being honest and open in the way we do business. We encourage our suppliers to do the same. Important as those points are, it's bigger than that, global in fact.

You see we also have a responsibility to do right by the environment in terms of reducing our waste and consumption of resources. In other words, keeping our carbon footprint as dainty as possible.

We have joined forces with MADE-BY, a not for profit association who are helping Ted to look at our garments a bit more closely, from the fibres we use to make the products to the conditions for the people who work within our factories. They have helped us to set targets to continuously improve the overall sustainability of our collections, and you will soon be able see our progress measured against MADE-BY's internationally accredited and recognised benchmarks on their website www.made-by.org.

As part of our commitment to “Protect”, the Group has engaged in a number of environmental projects during the course of the year:

We continue to participate in the Carbon Disclosure Project to measure and disclose our greenhouse gas emissions and climate change strategies. We received a score of 66% and disclosed many of our Scope 3 emissions for the first time.

All of our business travel within Scopes 1 and 3 is CarbonNeutral®. This means that the unavoidable emissions generated by air, road and rail journeys required to visit our stores and suppliers have been reduced to net zero through purchasing carbon credits from Voluntary Carbon Standard (“VCS”) validated projects.

We are constantly reviewing the waste our business generates in an effort to achieve our overall aim of sending no waste to landfill. We participate in the Wastepack Compliance Scheme as part of the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997 and continue to reduce unnecessary packaging.

We work with the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (“NISP”) to recycle as much waste as we can through their network of charities, such as Scrapstores.

Through relationships with charities Oxfam, Newlife and World Jewish Relief we have been able to ensure that our end of life garments are utilised in the best way, raising over £300,000 and diverting 18 tonnes of waste from landfill.

Ethical and Sustainable Sourcing

As part of our commitment to “Product”, we place great importance on ethical and sustainable sourcing within the Group. We believe our products should be produced in factories that are committed to providing a fair and safe environment for their workers. Our trusted partners within the supply chain are one of our most valuable assets.

All Ted Baker suppliers are governed by our Company Code of Conduct, which is based on the Social Accountability International Code, an internationally recognised benchmark for ethical excellence, and can be found at http://externalresources.tedbaker.com/legaldocs/codes_of_conduct.pdf.

Through our partnership with MADE-BY, a non-profit multi-stakeholder initiative set up to improve sustainability within the fashion industry, we have been able to set long-term internal targets for the amount of sustainable fibres we use in our collections. Our Social Scorecard for 2011 was released during the period and can be found at http://www.made-by.org/partner-brand/34/ted-baker/scorecard. This shows the improvement we have made in sourcing from more sustainable factories and we worked to further improve this in our 2012 scorecard. Our third Scorecard will be released during the period.

During the period we continued two long-term social improvement programmes with key suppliers as part of our partnership with MADE-BY and started a third. These projects involve working closely with these suppliers to improve their social and working practices.

We participate in the Metrics group, which is responsible for identifying the key hotspots within the industry to measure, as well as working on a tool to measure our baseline carbon, water and waste footprints and what improvement actions are possible to take in this area.

We are also part of the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan, a Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs sponsored action plan, organised to improve the sustainability of clothing across its lifecycle by bringing together industry, government and third parties to develop sector-wide targets, along with the tools and guidance necessary to reach them.

Animal welfare is an important issue to many consumers and we have always sourced from the highest quality suppliers. Our Group Animal Welfare Policy was made public this year and can be found at www.tedbaker.com/about_us/our_policies/content.aspx#ethical_statement. We have decided not to retail fragrance or skinwear in our Chinese stores to ensure we are able to hold true to our principles of not testing on animals.

Community

In order to “Practise” our goals and achieve our targets we place great importance on the Teducation of our employees to support the community in a number of ways. Throughout the year we have supported various charities and taken part in valuable and exciting projects.

Our employees are our greatest asset and we have Ted’s Conscience Team members in every department and store worldwide encouraging colleagues to be more environmentally aware. During 2012/13 we trialled participation in Ted’s Conscience with a number of our concessions and aim to roll this out during 2013/14.

Our Green Guardian gives twice yearly store team training sessions to ensure our sustainability issues are communicated across the business.

We released our first Ted’s Conscience Newsletter which has been sent to all areas of the business to advise team members on our policies, plans, targets and partners.

Movember: We supported the Movember Initiative, asking as many of our teams as possible to grow a moustache to raise awareness and funds for prostate and testicular cancer.

Oxfam: We continued to encourage our teams to use our inhouse “Oxfam Collects” Collection Point. This enables team members to donate any unwanted items to Oxfam during the course of their usual working week.

We also donated various garments to other charities and groups during 2012 such as Dress for Success, an agency that assists women getting back into work, Centrepoint, which supports Homeless young people, and Kids Co, a London based charity that supports under privileged children.

We keep two buckfast bee colonies on the roof of our London head office from which we had a hugely successful honey harvest during 2012.

[magfashion]

TED travelling the globe for BEST SUPPLIERS

Ted Baker doesn’t disclose his supplier list explaining this that he doesn’t want to give an advantage to their competitors.

Ted Baker partnered with MADE-BY in May 2010 to work on a step-by-step action plan to improve the overall sustainability of its collections. More about how ethical TED is in my next post.

I have listed countries where the brand’s collections are being produced from Made By report:

China 44%

Turkey 32%

Portugal 10%

Other (to include: India, Italy, Germany, Tunisia, Morocco, USA, UK, …)

Source: http://www.made-by.org/partnership/brands/ted-baker/

[magfashion]

" Ted’s Mum was always on hand to make sure everyone was treated like royalty… and excellent customer service is still at the heart of what makes Ted Baker tick"...

[magfashion]

TED'S product range

Ted Baker offers a wide range of collections including:

Menswear;

Womenswear;

Accessories ( to include bags, jewellery, eyewear and watches)

Lingerie and Sleepwear;

Childrenswear;

Fragrance and Skinwear;

Footwear

Below you can see what fabrics, prints and patterns TED is using.

Fabrics used by TED:

Corduroy, Crepe, Crepe De Chine, Crochet, Denim, Dobby, Eyelet, elastine, Flannel, Georgette, Jersey, Linen, Lyocell, Marled Yard, Merino Wool, Modal, Organic Cotton, Pique, Pointelle, Poplin, Sateen, Shantung, Silk, Tencel, Twill, Velour, Velvet, Yard-dyed, Viscose, Recycled Polyester, Polyamide,

For more info about what type of fabrics they are and garment care instructions go to http://www.tedbaker.com/uk/fabric-and-garment-care

Other characteristics of TED's products:

the variety of product, - Small colour variety

signature prints, (floral, car sketches, houses prints, deepdye,),

patterns (metallic floral jacquard, diamond printed, spot printed, tile printed; floral jacquard shirt, paisley pattern Applique, Embroidery, argyle),

colours (classic together with neon, bright colours),

how on trend/ fashionable the product is - very fashionable and quirky

quality - very good quality fabrics, long lasting

special occasions: wedding , prom dresses, elegant suits (Made in Italy collection)

[magfashion]

TED LIKES TO COMMUNICATE - social media and the website

TED is being sociable!

Ted baker is available across most of popular social media together with his own blog. His high level of engagement on social media is due to very low profile of the brand chosen not to advertise. Ted’s is eccentric and individual by not advertising in glossy magazine and prefers to communicate with his target customer through social media. I must say he does this in the same way he design his creation. The essence of the brand is visible in all of his post, campaign, pictures posted.

Statistics:

FACEBOOK      207.4K Likes; posts every day

3.7K People Talking About This

Most engaged insights: City: London, England, United Kingdom; Age group25-34 years old

INSTAGRAM   79,571 followers; posts every 2-3 days

TWITTER         50.5K followers; posts every day

PINTEREST      8,954 followers

YOUTUBE        1,099 subscribers; only fashion films available

GOOGLE+      188 followers; not very active – don’t blame him, I never used it

TEDBAKERBLOG.COM    posts very day

Ted's website.

The website looks very nice and nite. i like it -it's quite simple but gives an essence of the brand. Each product has picture of the product itself and model wearing it from the front, side and the back. But I have a ONE complaint - pictures of models wearing products aren't very attractive for some reason which I can't explain. After my visit to the store I was totally in love with your collection but after spending some time on your website - I'm thinking -I wouldn't buy any of these items if only seen them online. Your items looks much more attractive in reality. There is a room for improvement.

The Website offers free delivery on all orders to UK and many other countries while to some countries like to for example Poland – only for order over £150. I think that is a great idea to offer free delivery, very attracting for every customer. From my personal experience I’m never willing to pay for delivery and always looking for promotional codes to avoid it. Well done Ted – I Like you already J

While shopping I have spotted few things which weren’t up to standard. You can between price filters, for example: 0-50, 50-100, 100-150, but ones you chosen it you can’t clear the filter so you need to go back to previous page and choose again. The navigation needs a bit of improvement to speed up shopping. I personally don’t like when I can’t move around the website easy and quickly.

While checking product range I have noticed website hasn’t got very clear categorization of products. For example:

Shirts- casual, work, printed, short sleeve – Ted if you differentiate short sleeved shirts, how do I look for long sleeved only?

The most important thing I can’t go back to home page!

  My suggestion for improvement – to divide the product range more specifically and work on making it even more user friendly.

[magfashion]

Visit at TED'S Regent Street store

Visit in the Ted Baker Regent Street store

Ted Baker on the Regent Street is located next door to Karen Millen and Apple store, not far from French Connection, Lacoste; Right opposite H&M and Armani store.

5.30 pm I go to visit Ted Baker store in Regent street. It’s the time when some people already finished work and heading home. And that’s exactly what I can observe. There are quite a few people- man and woman in suit after work. I have spotted quite a few couples too. I’m watching one of them – she is dressed causal, has Karen Millen shopping bag, he- is dressed formal, has Russell Bromley bag. They are both young, around 27-30. They shopping for jeans for him. I checked the price jeans are very reasonable price – from £40 -£80.

I can also see big Chinese family. Parents, teenargers, aunties, aunckles possibly. They all look very interested in Ted Baker clothing.

I spotted 4 young Chinese students. They all very excited about iconic shopper bag and jelly flip flop with Ted Baker’s signature bow. This are the items Ted has been designing for years and they still seem to attract many shoppers.

I’m also watching 2 young women who are trying on elegant dresses. They probably are shopping for a special occasion. The most expensive dress cost £1000.

At the till I can see the guy, casual dressed with Topman and Russell Bromley bags – he is buying Ted Baker suit. Very stylish couple, around their 20s is paying for a very pretty dress. Another 2 young girls, early 20s are buying accessories and dress each.

Now it’s a time to take a deeper look at the store and visual merchandising. Store is not massively big. I took few pictures before I was told that I’m not allowed to take pictures. There is downstairs for women and man. Clothing for man is more casual, every day stuff.  Woman clothing is mixed – a bit of formal and elegant wear. On the pictures you can see the stand with all jelly stuff, shoppers bag, flip flops, wallets – all in neon colours which is very appealing. I would say that there is more quirky stuff downstairs than upstairs.

There is a sign on the wall with quirky angels saying more menswear and woman swear upstairs. Does it tempt me? Yes, it does a lot as I think Ted Baker clothing is fab for woman and some of the man stuff too.

 Upstairs more elegant stuff for men – expensive suits and made to measure section and for woman- most expensive dressed for wedding, proms as well as casual, formal, beachwear. But also you can see again all jelly stuff together with swimwear. There are men watches on display on separate stand- they look a bit random and lonely in this specious space - not very highlighted, display stand is dusted and you are looking at the watches @ £199 upwards. My personal opinion is that this is not looking very encouraging. Would you like to buy very expensive while everything is dusted around it? My answer is NO. I think they should be place somewhere closer to the till, where you always can ask someone for help and should be better presented for this price as well.

Next to made to measure sign I spotted old sewing machine - exactly the same style as in ALL SAINTS shops. There is also similarity in those angels on the wall downstairs. But are they really similar? - NOT AT ALL! there is a huge difference - Ted's got a different style and knows how to keep his customer entertained while All Saints became dull and totally forgot about his customer. 

Man and woman have separate stands upstairs for bags and accessories iPad, iPhone cases bags, cases, wallets and also woman’s jewellery which is much cheaper than woman watches and presented much better – in the glass cabinet.  Perhaps should be other way round.

Changing rooms look a bit small for me but I can see they have a steam iron and iron the clothes if needed before you pay for it. Upstairs nice brown wall with embossed pattern

Store is very spacious and clothing looks very well presented. Nice design interior reflects the brand and the trends - a bit flower wall, colours dominating in the collection and associated with the brand. Although there is enough space I can only see two mannequins upstairs as you come up. I personally they could have more clothing displayed on the mannequins.

At the tills they have on one side grooming cosmetics, Perfumes, Key rings and shawl, scarfs on the other side. There is also a Mailbox, where you can put your filled in form to sign up for newsletter.

Regarding customer service I have been approached by store assistant straight away when I started looking at the shoes, asking if I need any help. Stuff looks very friendly.

One more thing which needs attention is a window display. I haven't visit any other Ted's store but on Regent Street window display isn't very appealing while inside interior is very interesting. Ted needs to improve the display and make them more interesting. Ted's has had interesting theme for collections for years and perhaps he could demonstrate a bit more in his window displays. Also I have been twice in 2 weeks and display hasn't changed. It is worth looking into Ted :-)

[magfashion]

[magfashion]

WHO IS MR BAKER?

Pen Portrait for TED'S WOMAN