Brief company overviewMyer, which started in 1900 is Australia’s largest department store group and has been synonymous with style and fashion for over a century. The present Myer as a retail department store evolved, having gone through myriad business life cycles over the years, including acquisitions, a merger, and an eventual rebadging into present day Myer (Myer Holdings Limited Overview, n.d).

Myer has a valuable footprint of 67 stores in prime retail locations across Australia that is perfected by its well-recognised brand. This institutional presence is supported by recently improved online, digital and mobile platforms, and the amalgamation sets the platform for a leading Omni-channel experience for customers. “Myer is a significant employer and has a long history of philanthropy and local community engagement” (Myer Today, n.

d, para. 2).Myer caters for a large number of Australian households, offering more than 600,000 product lines, comprising 2,400 brands sourced from over 800 suppliers globally. “The Myer merchandise offer includes 11 core product categories: Women’s wear; Men’s wear; Miss Shop (Youth); Children’s wear; Intimate apparel; Beauty, fragrance and cosmetics; Home wares; Electrical goods; Toys; Footwear, handbags and accessories; and General merchandise” (Myer Today, n.

d, para. 3).Competitive environmentCharacteristics of current target audience/s: In order for Myer to be relevant to its primary customers so it delivers a sharper and more focused offer, substantial research has been undertaken into the Myer One loyalty customer base, and the Roy Morgan data on Australian customer retail segments has also been consulted to identify Myers key customers.

(Cameron, 2015).Myers’ current target audiences include middle class and upper middle class individuals. These are high value consumers, who are up to date with fashion, family-oriented, professionally successful and have an interest in brands and quality. They are fashion forward people, who lead the fashion pack, or those looking for better everyday value (Cameron, 2015). These “high-value shoppers are 60 per cent more likely to have a preference for the department store, have a total annual average spend of $4600 per person, and spend two times the average of other customers” (Cameron, 2015, para. 8).What the audience currently thinks of the brand: According to the Roy Morgan Research (2016) on how Australians view different department stores, Myers is a higher-end retailer.

The most commonly held perception of Myer is less about low prices and more about quality, which evidently impacts on customer volume. Just over four in every 10 Australians believe that Myer stores have ‘good quality products’. Consumers perceive Myer as having ‘a wide choice of products’. The proportion who thinks Myer has ‘low prices’, on the other hand, is negligible (Roy Morgan Research, 2016).The existing campaignCurrent strategy: The ‘New Myer’ strategy, with four key pillars for turning the business around include: Customer-led offers, wonderful experiences, omni-channel shopping and a productivity step change. Myer plans to invest more than $600m into its five-year transformation plans, including $150m into product placements and experiences and $200m into omni-channel capabilities (Cameron, 2015, para. 2).

Also, digital marketing strategies, stronger in-store customer experiences and brand overhaul form part of the current strategy employed (Cameron, 2015).