Desigual

A. The main facts about the activities of the company.

Desigual is a Spanish firm, which was founded in 1984 in Ibiza by brothers Christian Meyer and Thomas Meyer, who is the actual president of the company. Thomas Meyer was born in Switzerland and at the age of 20, he wanted to create a future in which people would be dressed in a singular way. His main aim was to design clothes that could generate positive feelings and emotions to people.

Desigual belongs to the fashion industry and it designs clothes and accessories for women, men and children being different, as the first slogan claimed: “Desigual is not the same”.

Desigual is present in 72 different countries with 200 own stores and contributing in 7000 stores with different brands. It is a company characterized by a constant growth and an unstoppable international expansion. The internationalization and the innovation are the main lines of growth. Their own stores have the goal of creating singular and positive experiences to customers, trying to create spaces of imagination and illumination to make users to have fun creating alternative worlds. Buying has to be a different pleasure.

B. The Ethical challenges this company is addressing.

From their corporate website, it is said that “Desigual is built around the concept that fun and business are not only compatible and complementary, but necessary. Work must go with pleasure”. Thus, we think that the ability for maintaining their sustainability growth levels (annual growth of over 50%) without jeopardizing their ethical values is the most important ethical challenge nowadays.

Similarly, regarding with their unstoppable international expansion, it is important to see how the firm is communicating the ethical dimension of their business in the countries where they already operate and how they will do it in those countries in which they pretend to operate.

C. What makes you believe this company is really ethical and why you trust it?

In our opinion, Desigual is a trustful company because actions “speak themselves” during the past years. When we refer to this expression, we mean that this company is a very good example that they act according to what they say. In particular, it is worth mentioning the huge commitment between the company and the whole of their stakeholders.

For instance, one of the characteristics that define this company is their manner of working. Concretely, it shows an interesting tradeoff between fun and profit that they call “the secret of Desigual success”. Thus the company cares about their employees’ well-being by creating an enjoyable and pleasant working area. Moreover, as it is explicit in their corporate slogan: “We dress people, not bodies”, the company also tries to improve people lives by providing them with clothes that make them feeling happier.

Furthermore, we think that the ethical dimension of their advertising campaigns is very inspiring. Their ads show examples of atypical marketing which make some people feel identified creating a beautiful link between the company and costumers. Thus, it is interesting to see how Desigual has provoked these feelings in their customers in order to gain their confidence and hence making profit. We would like to highlight the following ads (source: Youtube website), which are a very good example of how they communicate and promote their ethical approach in their business strategy:

• “Anuncio Desigual #tudecides 2014 (SIN CENSURA)”
• “Anuncio Desigual 2013 - Sexy, Fun & Love - La Vida es Chula”
• “Desigual desnuda Madrid para celebrar el inicio de las rebajas”
• “The Color Run Barcelona by Desigual - Sé un Color Runner”
• “DESIGUAL: Friends & Family Nights in BCN”

D.The possible challenges facing the company in the future and how you think this company may improve.

For Desigual, continue growing as a company and continue increasing sales without compromising the image with customers is the most difficult challenge. In this sense, in the fashion industry, with social connotations that are difficult to handle, make no mistakes is very important to maintain the brand image, and it is a job that should involve all the efforts of Desigual.

Moreover, from our point of view, Desigual should improve the communication to the customers, even knowing that the company has never performed traditional advertising. In this way, all potential customers should be aware of the efforts of the company to act ethically in every event.

Finally, the company should make an effort to ensure that the production of the clothes is made with all necessary human conditions, since Desigual produces in China and India. Also, transfer the tax headquarters to the country where the real headquarters are; now are in Holland that is a tax haven.