Topshop introduces runway to retail business strategy his fashion month is the season of the ‘shoppable runway’ it seems. With Burberry leading the pack, now high street retailer Topshop is inviting its consumer to shop looks straight from their upcoming S/S17 runway show. Topshop just announced that it will be debuting its Runway-to-Retail strategy globally on the 18th September 2016, providing consumers with the chance to shop a carefully selected edit of Topshop Unique pieces direct from the runway. This consumer decision from Topshop, follows the blueprint of what the luxury world is doing this season too. Back in February, Burberry announced plans to move into super fast fashion territory with their upcoming September show, offering consumers a chance to “physically explore the collections for themselves” right after the show. Consumers will be able to buy the Topshop Unique pieces in store, online and at the brand’s new London Fashion Week show space in East London’s Old Spitalfields Market.
How Brands Can Take Advantage of Snapchat (Infographic) Sometimes it’s the craziest ideas that take off. A social network where users send and read 140 character messages. An app where users send the message “Yo” to one another. And now we have Snapchat, an app that launched with a simple value proposition. And now that idea has turned into a $10 billion company. If you think Snapchat is still used by a bunch of kids sending pictures to each other, it’s time to reevaluate. It launched features like Discover and Stories, which major brands like General Electric, Acura, Coca-Cola, CNN and National Geographic are using to connect with their fans.There are over 100 million people using it everyday. Now obviously Snapchat isn’t for everyone. But if you’re selling to young consumers and looking for a new way to connect with them, Snapchat might be your new untapped outlet. Today’s infographic outlines the reach of Snapchat, what brands are using it, how they are using it, and some tips for brands that are new to the platform.
Are ‘See Now, Buy Now’ Shows Driving Sales? | Intelligence | BoF LONDON, United Kingdom — The fashion industry’s “see now, buy now” experiment is underway. Over the last few weeks, brands including Tom Ford, Burberry, Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren staged their first shoppable runway shows, enabling customers to buy their collections immediately after they debut on the catwalk, with the aim to translate the interest and excitement generated by runway shows into sales. BoF spoke to key brands and retailers to gauge the impact of the “see now, buy now” shows in the hours, days and weeks that followed, with some reporting sales spikes immediately after the runway shows. “We had our largest Tom Ford day of the year immediately following his New York show,” revealed Joshua Schulman, president of Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus Group International. In turn, the new Burberry collection — which showed at London Fashion Week on Monday — sparked “an instant uplift in sales,” according to Michael Kliger, president of MyTheresa.com. Related Articles:
How Burberry is Operationalising 'See Now, Buy Now' | Intelligence | BoF LONDON, United Kingdom — Burberry will unveil its first ever “see now, buy now” show at London Fashion Week today, heralding a new era for the industry in which fans can get their hands on "seasonless" items immediately after they are presented on the runway. But the new approach has significant implications for production and supply chains, which were out of sync with communications and marketing departments, and all eyes remain on the brand to see how it has executed the changes needed to adapt towards a fashion immediacy model. When the company announced its new consumer-facing concept in February, it was held up as a solution to long-standing problems with the traditional fashion calendar. Fashion shows had long been strictly industry events for press and buyers to preview collections. The innovative concept ignited a new chapter for the global fashion industry. If any brand can make it work though, it is Burberry. Designing Sampling Burberry's latest campaign | Source: Courtesy
Kylie Jenner, Anna Ewers, Tyga, Zoe Kravitz Star in Alexander Wang Fall 2016 Ads - Alexander Wang Teases Fall 2016 Campaign on Instagram Update, 10/3: In anticipation for the release of its full campaign, Alexander Wang revealed another video clip via Complex today. The short features the new Wang Squad—artists like Tinashe, Zoe Kravitz, Vince Staples and A$AP Ferg among models including Anna Ewers, Hanne Gaby and Issa Lish—partying up in an L.A. mansion. There are red solo cups, a Chinese food takeout feast, plenty of dancing and even a stripper pole. The clip, filmed by music video vet Director X, is soundtracked to "King Pin" by RL Grime and Big Sean, two of the campaign stars. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Watch the video below. Another clip was also shared last week on the Wang Squad Instagram: Update, 9/27: Alexander Wang's Fall 2016 campaign literally looks like an epic party, according to a teaser the brand Instagrammed today. As the caption suggests, there's more to come.
L’Oréal on why other brands are using influencers the wrong way L’Oréal Paris has signed up five British beauty bloggers to create content on an ongoing basis as it looks to “craft a different type of relationship” when it comes to working with influencers. The brand’s self-proclaimed ‘beauty squad’, which has a combined reach of 5.5 million, will be revealing the brand’s latest products, creating “fun and engaging” content as well as attend key beauty events including London Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week and Cannes Film Festival. Speaking to Marketing Week, L’Oréal’s UK general manager Adrien Koskas discusses how the brand is hoping to craft a new relationship working with influencers, how it looks to avoid consumer fatigue and why other brands get it so wrong. What was the strategic thinking behind this move? It was quite natural for us to move in this direction as consumers are really changing the way they interact with brands and are very engaged on social media. It is an ongoing partnership. Absolutely. That’s a fair question.
Instagram Stories Puts the "See Now" In Fashion Week At the beginning of August this summer, Instagram launched "Stories," its Snapchat-like feature that allows for live, un-curated, off-the-cuff updates of every moment of users' lives, which disappear after 24-hours and won’t appear on their profiles. This gave the fashion crowd one month to get a hang of it before the Spring 2017 shows in September, when it was put to the test by influencers, models, editors, and brands — many of whom aren't on Snapchat or have minimal followings. The results were overwhelming, but perhaps in a good way. "If you look at it from the perspective of a 20-year-old student who goes to FIT, who is able to follow along from all these different perspectives — from a casting agent, to a model, to a designer, to a set designer, to PR agencies — you really get to see Fashion Week come to life," said Eva Chen, head of fashion partnerships at Instagram. For the fashion industry in particular, Instagram has become a platform that will make or break you.
Why Your Content Marketing Needs an Influencer Strategy Trust. As you’ve no doubt heard, it takes years to build, seconds to break and forever to repair. And that’s in terms of relationships among people. With corporations, it gets even trickier. There is, perhaps, no greater challenge in marketing than that of building brand trust. Enter influencer marketing. If you’re not tapping into the influential voices in your given space, you’re not only missing out on valuable insights, but also on the trust and amplification these individuals can lend to your brand’s message. Influencer marketing can no longer be considered an optional component of a content marketing strategy1. Harnessing the Voices of Influencers Leveraging influencers to help tell the story of your brand needs to be a vital part of your content and social strategies. But in short, they are the people who live and breathe the space in which your company plays. Trust Amplification Influencers represent a media channel unto themselves. Engagement Strategic Feedback from Influencers
Move Over Kardashians: Why Average Joes Are More Influential Than Celebrities on Social Media Who wouldn’t want Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner endorsing their product? The only problem is, you have to pay them more than $200,000 each for a single brand post. The traditional perspective of influencer marketing is that celebrities have more influence over audiences than others, and if they encourage people to get behind a product/service, brand affinity rises. But now there’s a new breed of stars – the average Joes – who in many cases have a good amount of social media influence, and don’t demand big pay checks. These are the folks who continue to break Hollywood’s long-held monopoly over social media influence. Average Joes Are Reshaping Influencer Marketing The key to benefitting from influencer marketing is to identify the right social users with the influence in a particular field. Brands normally think of celebrities when fitting individuals in this category, but there are influencers in all industries. Also, most of the comments on her videos are positive. Image source: Oracle
The New York Times acquires influencer marketing agency HelloSociety | TechCrunch The New York Times is expanding its native ad studio with the acquisition of HelloSociety, a digital marketing agency owned by Science, Inc. Los Angeles-based Science both invest in startups and builds its own companies. It launched HelloSociety (which it fully owned) back in 2012 as an analytics platform for Pinterest marketers. Since then, it’s broadened beyond Pinterest to platforms like Instagram and YouTube, as well as turning into an agency that connects brands with influential social media users who can help promote their marketing efforts. HelloSociety currently has more than 1,500 influencers in its network. The companies say that the agency’s “tools, talent and approach” will become part of T Brand Studio, The Times’ native ad team. In the acquisition release, Times CEO Mark Thompson said T Brand Studio doubled its revenue in 2015 compared to 2014. The companies say it was an all-cash deal, but they did not disclose the price.
Could Micro-Influencers Be Your Best Bet for Paid Marketing? Credit: Alliance/Shutterstock Have you ever considered working with a popular public figure to promote your brand? If so, you're jumping on the influencer marketing bandwagon. According to a Social Media Today podcast, sponsored by Blog Meets Brand, 59 percent of marketers will increase their influencer marketing budgets next year. This might be because marketing-induced consumer-to-consumer word of mouth generates twice the sales of paid advertising, according to the podcast. But it's not just celebrities who can influence your target consumers. Bloglovin', a lifestyle social discovery platform, surveyed 2,500 of its micro-influencers to identify the top trends that address the state of the influencer marketing industry and ultimately help brands better develop their influencer marketing strategies. Based on Bloglovin's survey results, here's how micro-influencers view some of the most popular social networks: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Influencers: Instagram Is the Most Engaging Platform (Report) Influencer marketing has come into its own this year, with marketers and influencers gaining a better understanding of the power it holds. However, many still find the market unclear, and more insight is always helpful. A report from Bloglovin, a media platform that connects influencers with audiences, examines current trends in influencer marketing and provides advice for marketers. One major trend is the shift away from big celebrity bloggers, to micro-influencers, which Bloglovin defined as “mid-sized influencers, with dedicated, highly engaged followers. Nearly 60 percent of the 2,500 micr-influencers surveyed by Bloglovin said they felt that Instagram is most effective for engaging with audiences, while 18 percent think the same of Facebook. Despite the high levels of interest in Snapchat from both marketers and brands, only 1 percent of the survey respondents favored it as a way to connect with audiences.
Micro-influencers are changing the way brands do social marketing according to new report New York based discovery platform Bloglovin' has released research showing that it is micro-influencers that are changing the industry. It has noticed a critical shift in what it terms the "next generation" of influencers. The survey was conducted in June 2016 through online polling of 2,500 micro-influencers that utilize its platform. The research found that 34 percent of influencers state that brands are unaware of the true costs of influencer marketing programs. The company took an in-depth look into best practices that brands can utilize to make influencer marketing work for them. The study surveyed a set of of micro-influencers, those not in the top 10 percent of mega-bloggers, to identify trends on the state of the influencer marketing industry so that brands can develop influencer marketing strategies. The rise of micro-influencers has been slow but steady. 42 percent work with Instagram collaborations, 32 percent with Facebook promotions, and 29 percent with Twitter promotions.