Over one year has passed since the Metersbonwe Group, the largest retailer of its kind in China, launched the brand ME&CITY. The young brand, which has been compared to Zara of Spain and H&M of Sweden, emphasizes quality, style and personality.

Metersbonwe introduced the new brand to capture the market of consumers aged 25 to 35, a group that has not yet received much attention from other domestic brands. The market for consumers below 24 is crowded with competitors, including Baleno, Jeanswest, Giordano, and Semir. The market for customers over 40 also has many established players, such as Septwolves, Li Lang, Jin Ba and others. Targeting 25 to 35 year olds makes sense for ME & CITY as many Chinese young adults have a strong appetite for European and American styles. Even websites Renren and Kaixin have shown that European fashion is one of the most popular topics young people like and talk about.
At first, ME&CITY attracted a great deal of attention and visitors by hiring top designers to decorate the stores for initial promotion. But as time went by, this tactic has not been highly effective. Most Chinese youth feel that ME&CITY is just a second brand of Metersbonwe so they do not regard it as a high-end brand. Meanwhile, Metersbonwe is gradually being trapped by its weaknesses- a lack of top designers and non-responsiveness to trends. So what can we learn from Metersbonwe and ME&CITY’s challenges over the past year? It is important to strategically build a brand, starting with market research and a well-formulated brand vision and position. Although these two brands have identified their target markets and have engaged in promotional activities, they don’t seem to have a good understanding of those consumers and how to connect with them over the long term. Let’s hope they pay more attention to building brand value, rather than only short term promotional tactics, in the years to come.