The Fashion Channel – Case Analysis
The Fashion Channel was a well-known cable TV network, which exclusively serves a
fashion-oriented audience, with entertaining features and information broadcast 24
hours per day, 7 days per week and was the most favorable niche networks among
U.S. households, especially women between 35 and 54 years old. TFC had constant
revenue and profit growth above industry average since Jared Thomas, founder and
CEO, founded it in 1996 until the beginning of 2006. Although, TFC is still the only pure
fashion channel, due to the highly demand in fashion-related programming, other
non-dedicated fashion networks such Lifetime and CNN had started to penetrate this
fashion-related program. Thus, TFC was facing an increased competition and
threatened market share. Therefore, Dana Wheeler, the Senior VP of Marketing,
certainly had to reconsider The Fashion Channel marketing approach and decide which
consumer segmentation TFC should aim in their new marketing strategy to boost up
the company revenue.
If I were Dana Wheeler, I would first formulate a well-thought list of market growth
strategies and consider the importance of the following types of consumer and market
data:
1. Target a new segment – TFC’s current viewers are women of 35–54 years old.
Targeting a more specific demographic will substantially result in more advertising
revenues and highest possible viewership numbers.
2. Competitive Trends –Although, it’s remained the only network dedicated to
fashion programming, this set up TFC to a double-edge competitive challenge. TFC
needs to change its marketing initiatives to improve consumer interest, awareness and
perceived value to compete with the two networks (Lifetime and CNN). TFC needs to
target men of all ages and women aged 18-34 demographics and compete with a
broad range of networks for advertising revenues boost since ad buyers are most
interested in ratings and demographics and less interested in programming subject.
