Calvin Klein Marketing Strategy & Marketing Mix (4Ps)

Published in Products category by MBA Skool Team

Marketing Strategy of Calvin Klein analyzes the brand with the marketing mix framework which covers the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). These business strategies, based on Calvin Klein marketing mix, help the brand succeed in the market. Let us start the Calvin Klein Marketing Strategy & Mix to understand its product, pricing, advertising & distribution strategies:

Calvin Klein Product Strategy:

The product strategy and mix in Calvin Klein marketing strategy can be explained as follows:

Calvin Klein is a leading premium apparel, clothing and accessories brand serving customers worldwide. Calvin Klein carries several products under its portfolio. Following is the product strategy in its marketing mix.

Product width includes Calvin Klein Apparels, Fragrances, Accessories

Product length:

• Calvin Klein Apparels

o Black Label – upscale top-end designer line

o White Label – basic fashion

o Grey Label – bridge collection line

o Sports – high-end sportswear for Macy’s

o Jeans – denim wear

o Home – home products like bed linen, toilet accessories etc.

o The Khaki Collection – medium to high range home products

o Golf

o Underwear – underwear collection and one of the most popular line of the brand

o CK One lifestyle brand – this includes jeans, underwear and fragrances

o Watches and Jewellery

o Fragrances – licensed by Cosmetics company, a Unilever Company

• Fragrances

o CK – CK All, CK Be, CK Free, CK IN2U, CK One,

o Euphoria – Endless Euphoria, Euphoria Crystal Edition, Euphoria Gold etc.

o Eternity – Eternity Aqua, Eternity Love, Eternity Moment, Eternity Now etc.

o Calvin Klein Man

o Obsession – Dark Obsession, Obsession Night, Obsession Sheer, Secret Obsession etc.

• Accessories

o Bags, Belts and Wallets

o Shoes and Socks

o Sunglasses

o Watches & Jewellery

• Cosmetics


Image: Wikimedia


Calvin Klein Price/Pricing Strategy:

Below is the pricing strategy in Calvin Klein marketing strategy:

The price of Calvin Klein products is usually on a bit higher side as it markets its products for upper middle class and higher class individuals. It carries designer apparels and accessories in its Black Label range which are priced higher their basic clothing from the White Label range.

Calvin Klein’s competitors include Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfiger etc. and it tries to maintain its prices slightly lower than its competitors and tries to gain the market share. Through this pricing strategy it was able to successful in capturing its customer’s attention and gain popularity amongst them. It follows a target pricing strategy where it tries to compete with the players in the market place by setting its prices marginally lower than them and accordingly reduce its costs so as to make more profits. Because of competitive pricing, the customers tend to stick to a brand and become loyal customers. Calvin Klein products are also available to purchase online where it runs several offers and sells products at discounted prices for old stock or to match competitors prices, which in turn result in higher sales volumes and thus higher turnover. It also carries a premium range of products names the Black Label range which is targeted towards the upper class customers. Calvin Klein follows a skimming pricing strategy in its marketing mix where these products have high margin but are usually sold in lesser quantities as compared to other products.

Calvin Klein Place & Distribution Strategy:

Following is the distribution strategy in the Calvin Klein marketing mix:

Calvin Klein has a strong international presence. The first store was set up in Dallas suburb. It included products such as apparel, accessories, fragrances, cosmetics, home linen etc. Currently it has a flagship store at Madison Ave in New York. Apart from U.S. it has its presence in 21 countries. In addition to stand alone stores it also sells its products in departmental stores such as Nordstorm, Macy’s, and Lord & Taylor. High end departmental stores such as BergDorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus also carry the Calvin Klein collection. Apart from departmental stores, some small stores also carry this brand. In Asia, Calvin Klein mostly focuses on fragrances, Calvin Klein Underwear and the Grey Label and Calvin Klein Collection range which is most popular given the income level of the citizens. Since Calvin Klein is present both at brick and mortar stores and also has a vast presence online it has to define its distribution channels accordingly. Their main aim was to make their products available at all times so that there is less chance of brand conversion amongst the customers. CK used licensing to distribute its products around the world.

The three main licensees are: Warnco, Coty and G-III Apparel group


Calvin Klein Promotion & Advertising Strategy:

The promotional and advertising strategy in the Calvin Klein marketing strategy is as follows:

The many marketing strategies used by Calvin Klein to promote its products amongst its customers include TV advertisements, direct marketing, social media marketing, promotional offers, advocacy and personal selling. With the development in Internet, Social Media and Technology, Calvin Klein has forayed into these areas to advertise their products and generate huge sales for their line and thus increase revenues. Although it is a renowned brand now, Calvin Klein got into its own share of controversies. Like many other brands, Calvin Klein also used famous personalities to showcase their products in their visual ads. Some of the names include Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Sabato Jr., Kate Moss, Eva Mendes, Scarlett Johansson, Mehcad Brooks, and Alexander Skarsgård. In Recent times we have also seen Justin Beiber and Kendall Jenner advertise for Calvin Klein underwear range. In order to establish the brand, Calvin Klein has adopted a monogram for their brand called the “ck” emblem. During the early days Calvin Klein used to target the teenage customers by providing email addresses in the ads. When they used to mail their queries to the email, it used to store these addresses and send them emails on vague timings providing information about the models and their lives which seemed relevant and seemed to establish connection with the recipients. Hence this gives an insight about Calvin Klein marketing mix.


About Calvin Klein:

Calvin Klein is one of the top most American Fashion house which was established in 1968 by the designer Calvin Klein himself in the partnership of his childhood friend Barry K. Schwartz. Although it was started as an independent company, in 2002, it was taken over by Philips-Van Heusen Corporation (PVH), and American clothing company. After its acquisition by PVH, Francisco Costa and Italo Zucchelli were appointed as the Women’s and Men’s Creative Director of the Calvin Klein Collection respectively. It majorly deals in Fashion apparels, Perfumes and accessories. Its products usually appeal to the youth and they constitute major proportion of their consumers. They target their products to the middle to high income groups. It focuses on comfort in their apparels. Their customers include the youth, fashion conscious and brand conscious people who are inclined towards rich and quality products and Calvin Klein provides just that.

There are several Calvin Klein outlet stores, factory outlets and some departmental stores selling Calvin Klein products around the world in over 21 countries. It is widely spread and popular in many cities such as Hong Kong, Mumbai, Singapore, Dubai, Qatar, Bangkok, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, and Shanghai.

This article has been researched & authored by the Content & Research Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

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The names and other brand information used in the Marketing Strategy & Mix section are properties of their respective companies. The companies are not associated with MBA Skool in any way.

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