Social Listening - PEACEINWAR

 

       My main interest in this brand lies within its underground influence it has on other brands, they have created micro tends within the space without some people actually even realizing it. PEACEINWAR is a clothing brand predominantly known on Instagram for its amazing online presence and its person-ability to the owner. The brand was created by a teenage kid by the name of Brendan, his online presence through multiple accounts and mysteriously and almost a Morse code he has created along the way with his fans/customers. He didn’t start off with himself trying to become an influencer his brand took off before he had any online presence as his actual self, but he did a remarkable job at implementing himself with his cult like community. Creating private accounts only a certain amount of people can get into for behind the scenes drops, private group chats, and creating entirely other brands that fuel his creative personality.

        Their value proposition lies within the private community you can be apart of, while many other brands try to focus on being the most professional and the most “clean’ looking, along with keeping a specific main page and no other community inclusion. PEACEINWAR sneak peeks, pop ups, and discount codes, along with a community vernacular can be spotted and seen through many different accounts. This is a major thing people like to notice about this brand, Their advertising is so much more mysterious and “grunge” than any other brand. Another major thing that people criticize them for is poor customer service, I am a reoccurring customer and I can definitely say that there are some holes that can be patched when it comes to the customer service they offer. The only sort of updates that they give out to people/customers is posts about production and when they are sending out tracking info, no sort of direct messages from them. They may be doing it to add on to heir mysterious and ominous aura, but it really is hurting their current reputation. Another thing is people are running into some harsh shipping times, and perhaps none shipping at all. Now I have personally never run into this issue before but this an issue with a lot of smaller brands especially on Instagram, normally it is a one man army with these businesses so a lot of people’s questions or complaints may not be answered. I personally find it very easy to contact the owner of this particular company, I have personally talked to the owner before and think it just takes a little but more effort to reach them but it is definitely possible. 

        PEACEINWAR has a just shy of 90k followers, their posts consist of advertisements for their clothing, models, and the owner wearing the brand along with another brand owner that he has done collaborative drops with. They do generate really good engagement not only with their ads but their community, their community is their greatest asset they have because of the loyalty. Buying anything with their tag, just like how consumers will buy anything with an apple that has a bite in it. Their overall marketing is remarkable, other brands that use their strategy are easily noticeable. Brendon, the owner uses an un-anticipatory strategy that keeps the customer on their toes and always trying to tune in, it’s almost like a niche and members-only type of strategy that some music artists do that overall helps their personal brand. Along with each piece that goes along with each drop they do he writes a small story about it in the description of the post, describing he once had a dream about where he was going to end up. As well as the name of his drops, the name being “Evolution” he goes on to explain in an Instagram story on his personal page and expresses his work that he put into the drop and how he is “evolving” as a person and the pieces will reflect how he has changed in his personal life. A major thing Chan be noticed within his advertising, he ties it to himself and his brand is an extension of himself, truly remarkable within such a niche style. There is not any news jacking that they do that is known, they are a very lonesome brand, but there are other smaller influencers that wear them so they do collect some earned media, and with their brand name on the clothes, it is easily reachable which in turn creates consumers. The brand recognition they have created is their logo, the logo is a peace sign with a skull layered, hence the name peaceinwar. They put their logo on everything they do, some people have it tattooed, with pretty much makes them walking advertisements. 

        On their online posts many people joke about “not shipping”, it’s a running joke that instagram focused brands do not ship, peaceinwar is one of few that actually ship. But there are occasionally issues with shipping with them, I have personally never ran into them but I know other people have. Usually if you directly message the official account you can get a shipping confirmation or some details on why your order has not showed up yet. With overseas manufacturing and normal delivery companies such as USPS and UPS, shipping troubles can be a big issue, due to the amount that they are shipping it is very possible for items to take awhile to get to your house, much different than Amazon that offers one day shipping. When the company does receive public backlash they often do not respond, but there are some outlying responses that they give such as “pinning this so u can watch ur dreams fail infront of your eyes” maybe not the nicest thing to say to a comment, the comment stated “peaceinwar falloff” assuming the owner was not fond of the comment they decided to pin the casual comment to the to o the comment section and did not respond to any other comment. The comment is open to the public eye which could lead consumers to think that they have a fragile ego or perhaps they really are falling off and they do not want to admit it. They really could have gone without the comment but it does add on to their edgy and mysterious vibe. 

         

If I was the brand manager of the company I would try to appeal to a larger audience while still keeping the same message behind the company. The company has a very niche target audience, I would try to broaden the company target audience, bring in some sort of women’s product, like skirts or female tanks, i would introduce a whole other audience. I would use the media to promote a little bit of a nicer way, they are currently a pretty blunt company without a lot of upcoming drop details. The way they advertise is pretty basic, so I would introduce the idea of a small movie trailer, within a budget of course, make the owner of the company the main character. And have the upcoming drop shown within the short film, and have the clothes explain themselves within the film, a bright shirt worn by someone who may be louder with colorful hair, and a darker pair of pants worn by a more grunge person and quieter. The idea shows the clothes not only on body, but also shows that thy can be worn by anyone with any personality.

This assignment opened my eyes to how basic the marketing is from my favorite company, brand personality is the most important thing to a brand, and if you humanize it to the consumer and make them connect with your product, your potential is infinite.

Brand Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peaceinwar.us?igsh=MTFwdHgwMmtlcnF2aw==

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