1. GU’s Facebook Analysis
New Media Advertising Prof. Jay Moon
Culture and Tourism
1375462
Misaki SAMUNO

2. agenda
>All about GU
>Analysis of GU’s Facebook fan page
-The most successful example and the worst example
-Whole page analysis
>Facebook Analysis Conclusion
>Analyzing their competitors
-UNIQLO
-Bershka
>Insight
-GU’s recent situation analysis
-Similarities & differences
-Unexpected things
>Recommendation

3. All about GU
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GU is the casual fashion brand built in 2008.
GU is targeting 20s, 30s and families.
They have 214 branches.
Total sale is 83,7 billion yen and operating profit is 7,6 billion yen
The concept is “Wear freedom”
GU is pronounced like “自由”(Jiyuu) meaning freedom in
Japanese.(genesis)
• GU sets importance on fashionableness and low plice than UNIQLO
• Casting Atsuko Maeda(AKB:Japanese idol),Kyary Pamyu pamyu(Japanese
artist), Peace(Japanese comedian)

4. Analysis of GU’s Facebook fan page
>GU created their Facebook fan page to promote their philosophy “Wear freedom”. They
are promoting their brand with this philosophy by posting some interesting posts. All the
posts are written in Japanese.(but they opened the first oversea branch store in Shanghai
recently
>They have 86,980 likes (2013/10/12)
>0~3 postings are updated their Facebook fan page in a day.
>They usually get 200~400 likes for 1 posting
>I will observe previous 1 month posting of their Facebook fan page.
>They get only a few comment on their postings.
>They don’t give a feedback to their fans on their Facebook fan page.
>They often post photo + text postings.

5. >They often use formal tone but they also use “☆ (cute expression)” or “(*^^*)
(facial expression)”
>Almost all of their posting are based on informative advertising.
>>>It could be said GU’s Facebook fan page is on the way to developing
>I categorized GU’s Facebook fan page contents into 4 categories
-Personal experience contents: provide personal experience to their fans from UNIQLO company
or staff. It could include any types of information. (Photo, text, video)
-Mutual communication contents: need some reactions from their fans. For example, it could be
voting contents or quiz.
-Purchase encouraging contents: provide information with web-shop link, sale information, and
so on. It should be a content that encourage customer’s buying intention.
-Information providing contents: provide information to their fans. (New store’s
information, volunteer event information, and so on.)

6. The most successful example and the worst example
:I chose the most successful example and the worst one.
(Because many other postings got similar number of likes )
>Their most successful posting got 1,351 likes (by 2013/10/13)
(Information providing contents)
The informative posting that provide
the information about the new and first
oversea branch opened in Shanghai
They also tell thanks to their customer
and express strong desire to diffuse their
philosophy “Wear freedom”

7. They also got more comments
than usual. They got comments
even from foreigners.

8. What made this posting so successful?
>Fact—”The first oversea branch”
The fact that the first step of advance of GU made their fans to push like. Many fans of them
congratulated their first step to oversea.
>Tone—“♡” and “＼(^o^)／”
The friendly tone of they use gave their fans the friendly image of GU. They also say “Hello” in
Chinese. This is also gave good impression to Chinese people.
The reasons of many comments
The got more comments than usual, even from foreigners. There are many fans of Japanese
fashion in the world. Many comments were about the desire to build GU in their fan’s own
countries.
To be more successful
Although this posting was about the advance to oversea of GU, they updated this posting in
Japanese. It means this posting could be read by Japanese and few foreigners. If they want to get
more likes or comments, they should update in English or two languages (Japanese + English).

9. The worst example
(information providing and purchase encouraging contents)
This information is about the
new branch in Aichi.
It got only 36 likes
Reasons of failures
>Because GU has already had many stores in Japan, this information
couldn’t attract their fan’s interests.
>They provided the information of sale, but GU always has big sale, so it
wasn’t big attractiveness.

10. Whole page analysis
Personal experience
+Purchase encouraging
>Their most frequent posting is about “Coordinate recommendation from staff”
by using GU’s fashion items.
>They are posting this kind of posting
about once a day.
“Coordinate recommendation from staff”
>they provide their coordinate
recommendations with total price, detail
price and web link (to their website and
online shop)
They got around 200 likes and 2,3
comments for 1 posting.

11. They also provide male’s
coordinate recommendations.
Although they use polite
sentences, they use ☆ or
some cute
expression, customer feel close
with GU.
Many contents of
posting are this
“Coordinate
recommendation
”

12. The good
>Their fan could feel closer to GU by providing coordinate
recommendation by staff.
>Providing coordinate by using their company’s products can promote
more customer purchasing.
>We can expect the improvement of consciousness as a member of
fashion industry by exposing their idea of coordinate recommendation.
The bad
>High frequency of similar posting can make their fans feel bored, and
attractiveness of postings can be decreased
→This is proved by a number of likes. These kind of postings get similar
number of likes and it is quite small amount comparing with a number
of their fans.

13. Purchase encouraging contents
The good
>This posting absolutely catch
customers’ eyes.
>They also provide information
encouraging to register mobile
membership.

14. Information providing contents
The bad
>This posting doesn’t have
a big impact to catch their
fan’s eye.
>Too simple to get interest

15. GU
Facebook Analysis Conclusion
>Almost all postings of GU’s fan page are about these three contents : New opened branch’s
information (information providing contents or purchase encouraging contents), Sales
information (purchase encouraging contents), Mobile membership encouraged
contents(purchase encouraging contents), and Coordinate recommendation from staffs (personal
experience).
>The reasons why their contents can get only 100~400 likes (average) although they have 86,980
fans: almost all of their contents are so similar and seems like repeated. It can make their fans
make bored.
>They have many sales and provide these information. However, they don’t have mutual contacts
with their fans. (ex: feedback to comments, present campaign, etc)
--They should have more “Mutual communication contents”.
>Their friendly tone could be effective because of closeness.

16. GU
Analyzing their competitors
UNIQLO: UNIQLO is top Japanese casual fashion brand. They have 854
branches in Japan and 441 branches oversea. They have 944,614 likes(main
page, in Japanese) and several fan pages in all languages of nations where
they have branch.
Bershka: Bershka is sister band of ZARA. They have 899 branches all over
the world and 5 branches in Japan. They also have several languages pages.
They have 6,081,530 likes.(main page, in English)

17. UNIQLO
Purchase encouraging contents
>interesting posting
The good
UNIQLO did a
successful posting in
terms of creativity.
This posting is for
encouraging
customers to
purchase Bandanna.
They use cultural
fact that Japanese
use bandanna to
wrap lunch box and
wrote their logo on
the rice.
This posting got
1,265 likes and 28
share in 6 hours.

18. >Using celebrities
>They often use Japanese
celebrities to promote their
products or some campaigns.
>By using celebrities, the
posting has bigger impact.
>By using celebrities credit is
getting higher.

19. Mutual communication contents
The good
This is the
contents that
need their fans to
vote. These kind
of contents often
attract their
customer’s
attention. UNIQLO
got 1267 likes and
94
comments, especi
ally from female
fans.

20. Personal experience
>Individual story
The good
>This posting provides the staff’s
individual story with UNIQLO. She
is talking her hard experiences and
heartwarming experiences on this
posting and it got 1030 likes, 46
share, and 18 comments
>Her cheerful smile make
UNIQLO’s image up.
>Exposing personal experiences of
staff make customer feel closer.

21. Information providing contents
The good
This posting provide
the information
about volunteer
project to send
second handed
clothes to people
who need clothes
(Syria, Africa, etc)
This posting got 1163
likes and 38 shares.
These kind of
contents
(volunteering things)
can make customers
moved. Tones are
also formal and we
can see how serious
UNIQLO is for this
project.

22. The bad
>Too innovative
--The most Japanese
don’t know the
SNS, Pinterest.
--This picture is not
the common image
of UNIQLO
--high individuality

23. Bershka
Mutual communication contents
The good
>This contents asked
their fans which outfit is
better for Saturday
night.
>This post got 2,467 likes
and 248 comments and
about 50 share.
>This posting is simple
and stylish
>They provide simple
question that is easy to
answer

24. Purchase encouraging contents
The good
>There posting feature is
simple and eye catchy.
>There posting usually get
more than 2,000 likes
>People can understand
easily at the first sight.

25. Non needed contents
The bad
>They often provide non
needed contents such as Fes
or some movies that don’t
have relationship with them.
>These kind of contents
couldn’t get even 500 likes.
>Their fans merely
understand the necessity of
postings.

26. Insight
GU’s recent situation analysis
GU has developed with low price, trendiness and quality. However, sometimes people
are afraid of wearing same clothes with other people by chance. Recent trend of fast
fashion promotes to make people to buy GU’s stuff. Moreover, recent bad economy
makes people save money and people have become seek cheaper things more and
more. These facts promoted GU’s popularity. However, many other fast fashion (ex:
H&M, Forever21, and so on) brands have been advancing into Japanese market, so GU
should prepare better advertising contents to defeat their rival companies.
Similarities & differences
Similarities: can be seen in “Purchase encouraging contents”. GU and their competitor
put their shop links on their postings to encourage purchasing
Differences: can be seen in many postings. First of all GU has only Japanese page but
competitors have several different language pages. GU always has same contents
regularly but competitors has many variety of contents. GU use more friendly tone
than competitors.
Unexpected thing
I didn’t expected that GU get really small number of likes. As I compared GU’s
Facebook fan page with competitors, It can be said GU should improve their contents
more.

27. Recommendation
>Personal experience contents
:I recommend to provide more individual contents of staffs or company related GU.
:Example→ to show the process of making ~ selling GU’s clothes
→staff’s personal experience related GU
>Mutual communication contents
:GU should provide more mutual communication contents. GU merely provide
questions or voting postings. They also don’t feedback to customer, so they should
respond their fan’s comments sometimes.
:Example→to create the posting to vote to Coordinate recommendation from staff
once a month (regularly), and show staff’s comment who got the first prize.

28. >Purchase encouraging contents
:They always use staff to promote purchasing, so I recommend to use
Japanese celebrities sometimes.
:Example→ to provide the Coordinate example from brand image
character (Kyary pamyu pamyu, Maeda Atsuko, and peace).
>Information providing contents
:I recommend to provide more information providing contents and it
should be more creative and attract fan’s attention.
:Example: to use celebrities, video interview.
>Others
:They should provide information in several languages.