J. Crew is an American apparel retailer headquartered in New York City that debuted in 1983 with the mailing of its first catalog. After six years since their debut in the clothing retail industry J. Crew opened a flagship store at New York South Street Seaport. They are a multi- brand, multi-channel specialty retailer. J. Crew has been selling upscale high-quality clothing to men, women and children. They use high quality and luxurious material such as cashmere, wool, leather along with the finest global fabric mills and craftsmen creating classic clothing styles and accessories with a twist.
The mission statement of J. Crew is nationally recognized apparel and accessories retailer that we believe embraces a high standard of style, craftsmanship, quality and customer service. We are a fully integrated multi-channel, multi-brand, specialty retailer. We seek to consistently communicate our vision of J. Crew through every aspect of our business, including through the imagery in our catalogs and on our Internet website and the inviting atmosphere of our stores.

Banana Republic is one of J.Crew’s leading competitors. The mission statement of Banana Republic offers versatile, contemporary classics, designed for today with style that endures. “Through thoughtful design, we create clothing and accessories with detailed craftsmanship in luxurious materials. We dress men and women who see every day as full of possibilities and seek to make the most of every moment and opportunity. We see life a little differently. We take it all in. We add to it. We make it our own and we live with style.” Even though J. Crew and Banana Republic may have similar mission statements in the fact that both pride themselves in design, style and quality. While J.Crew caters to working professionals, Banana appeals to customers who are interested in affordable luxury. In an article written by Business of Fashion, “At Work with Mickey Drexler”, “A big part of what makes J.Crew the most compelling American retail — and dare we say it, fashion — success story of the past 10 years is Drexler’s uncanny ability to pick up on market trends and patterns incredibly quickly, consult data to back up his observations, then bring those trends to the masses. It’s perhaps the core reason he was able to transform a once-promising, long-struggling catalogue business into a powerful arbiter of taste.” The company has implemented this same dedication to qualitative trend assessment in its digital marketing strategy.
According to J.Crew’s annual Securities and Exchange Commission filing for 2013, “We communicate our brand message to customers through all channels, including our websites, our catalogs, email marketing, online advertising, and our social media presence. Our core marketing objectives are structured to drive awareness and differentiation of our brands, increase new customer acquisition, maintain and build customer retention and loyalty, and build brand awareness internationally.
Digital marketing and social media have played an important part of our strategy in our recent history and are among our most effective marketing tools. We have found that J.Crew customers who engage with us via our social media outlets (Facebook, twitter, Pinterest or Instagram) generally spend approximately 2x more than the average J.Crew customer. Facebook is the current leading player in terms of size and time spent on site, but there are significant growth opportunities in our new visual platforms, such as Pinterest and Instagram.” For J.Crew by driving their product throughout all social media channels, their data-driven marketing has cultivated an audience that spends twice as much as the average customer through online. In 2013 J.Crew focused primarily on their print catalog, with barely speaking about digital marketing. Their catalog has always been one of their biggest strengths since the begging of the company. “The J.Crew catalog is the primary branding and advertising vehicle for the J.Crew brand. We believe our catalog reinforces the J.Crew mission and brand image, while driving sales in all of our channels. We believe we have distinguished ourselves from other catalog retailers by utilizing high quality photography and art direction. We have also expanded our marketing strategy to include online, print and outdoor advertising.” One of the company’s weakness in marketing, Pinterest and Instagram. They have significant growth opportunities in these social medias. J. Crew target market is a fashion-forward, trendier woman. It is not so much anymore the young recently graduated professional. Within the last year they have made mistakes in the product and are working to get the younger market back into their stores, myself included. I honestly believe that J. Crew really caters to all ages, specifically woman. I worked for J.Crew for about five years in management and I would see all the types of the clientele walk into the stores.