Represent's Marketing Masterclass: A Marketing Case Study

UK brothers George & Michael Heaton have created a world-famous streetwear brand that is projected to do £250 million in revenue by 2025. After founding Represent, the two have not only built a prominent brand, but also a fortified ethos and marketing blueprint rooted within quality and transparency. But what marketing strategies did the Heaton brothers leverage to build one of the greatest, up-and-coming streetwear brands, and how have they been able to effortlessly tap into US and European markets? This marketing case study highlights Represent, it’s successful marketing strategies, and how it has become one of the most iconic high-end brands in the 21st century.

Represent's Origin Story

Beginning in 2011, Michael Heaton began screen printing t shirts to sell his art in the form of clothing to those in the UK. Soon joined by his brother, George, the two would begin experimenting with different designs and brand names for their new business. After 15 attempts, Michael finally decided on ‘Representing’ as the name of the brand; that is until his brother abruptly advised to drop the -ing. The brand Represent was born, and would soon begin to make its mark on British streetwear.

Since its humble beginning, Represent has expanded from its branded t-shirts to full collection spanning across seasons, collaborations, and much more. In fact, its ‘Vault’ is the brand’s seasonal sale that attracts customers with lower prices across multiple collections. Each vault release springs new campaigns and videos enticing new and existing customers to browse their website and shop items on sale. While Represent is a predominantly ecommerce business, it recently opened its first location in Hollywood, California in 2024. With 20% of the brand’s revenue coming from US shoppers, establishing a physical presence in the states will help expand and grow that revenue as Represent grows over time. 

Successful Marketing Strategies

With Represent growing at exponential speeds, its evident that its marketing and brand strategy have elevated the brand to where it is today. Of the strategies the company utilizes, these are the prominent factors that attribute to the brand’s successful blueprint. 

- Shared Strategies to Become Industry Trailblazer: Represent recycled strategies that had shown proven success as the brand was in its beginning stages. The brand began by creating its own box logo shirts in 2012, which mimicked the iconic box logo graphics that were made famous by Supreme. Since then, Represent has grown from its simple graphics to create one-of-a-kind pieces that not only feature graphic shirts, but some of the highest quality hoodies, pants, footwear, and accessories on the streetwear market. The brand would expand its outreach after its collections would be featured by media companies Hypebeast, High Snobiety, and others.

- Selling the Feeling: While Represent specializes in creating premium quality pieces without the designer-level price tag, they specialize in coupling its products with the experience and feeling of owning their collection. This is often showcased through media outlets like the brand’s YouTube and Instagram, which have amassed significant following over the past few years. Represent’s videos often display its manufacturing process, product testing, and the full transparency of the brand which creates a documentary of the business’ life. 

In addition, Represent’s advertisements towards its Vault sale often reflect a utopian-like world where its products are stored. Naturally, this gives the impression that its products not only mimic the utopian environment, but also portray that now is the perfect opportunity to get limited pieces for a slashed price.

- Hyper Aware of Target Market: Represent invests the majority of its marketing efforts towards millennials and generation Z through Instagram and YouTube. Since this demographic grew up with the brand and have the available money to spend on their collections, Represent advertises its new and existing collections through short-form video on Instagram Reels and YouTube shorts. Short-form videos have a much higher performance rate when attracting new customers, and Represent will continue leveraging this strategy as it looks to expand its US-based audience.

- Ever Expanding Influencer Marketing: What started in the sneaker industry has now blossomed into a full-on campaign strategy for Represent’s influencer marketing. It began with onboarding several content creators like Qias Omar, Harrison Nevel, Elliott Page, and many others. These influencers would review and share the brand’s newest collection on their social channels, which would often receive millions of views per creator. However, Represent has grown to new target audiences as celebrities like Jamie Foxx and others support this upcoming brand. 

- Quality as Company Cornerstone: Nothing is more important and screams “Represent” than quality. With dozens of product collections, Represent takes pride in creating the best pieces for its customers. However, quality doesn't’ stop there; in fact, Represent prioritizes quality in nearly every aspect of its business. From its product photos, marketing campaigns, pricing, packaging, videos, and much more, it's evident that quality is at the forefront of the brand since its quality acts as a calling card. Everyone knows about the company’s quality once they feel it in-hand, and that experience is what keeps customers coming back and purchasing more pieces from their online (or in-person) store.

Represent's Sky-High Trajectory

After bringing in former Puma EU Sales Director Paul Spencer as the new CEO in 2022, Represent has turned its brand into a full-on business as it looks to expand to new heights. The company has doubled its work force, and has taken continual steps to become one of the greatest streetwear brands in the world. Spencer expressed his gratitude for the Heaton brothers and the need for a change by stating,

“The boys had built a fantastic brand — the creativity, hype, scarcity, quality. But, there was no HR infrastructure, for example; they’d been rightly frugal with hiring.”

But aside from the expansion of employees, here is how Represent will reach its untapped potential in the near future

- Building Network of Store Locations: Opening multiple locations serves many purposes for Represent. Brick-and-Mortar locations not only build brand awareness, but allow for the company to hold in-store promotions and exclusive deals that bring in new and existing customers from all over. Fortunately for Represent, they already have an established presence in both the United States and Europe; so its next moves will most likely be opening up stores in major cities like New York City, Miami, London, and others.

Establishing Media Branch: As Represent grows in staff and content output, it is likely for the brand to create its own media company to promote its products along with other marketing deliverables. Its website has content ranging from blogs, lookbooks, style articles, and more, so Represent is far from ‘starting from scratch.’ Building a media company creates another layer of brand exposure across international borders while also becoming an industry pioneer in this new endeavor of business. The only business operating on a similar level is KITH, and Represent can soon join that small circle if they wish to grow towards this new idea.

Conclusion

Represent’s marketing strategies have been the vessel that has taken them from making box-logo shirts in 2012, to aiming for a £250 million revenue by 2025. After hiring a new CEO to transform the brand into a business, Represent’s new corporate infrastructure has helped them gain a greater employee base, social following, faster product manufacturing process, and a significantly higher sales volume. Quality has been the cornerstone of Represent’s ethos that has helped draw in more content creators, customers, marketers, and revenue; and as long as it remains that way, it may not be long before Represent achieves its goals on a streamlined trajectory.