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I am so excited for thursday! As you may have known from my previous posts I have been building up the chat regarding the Apple Tablet! The device itself does not excite me as much as the content that is being stewed up. Magazines are moving to digital! Small drops in the ocean were already created by Conde Nast through Iphone applications which were very weak compared to what is coming up next! If you have not seen the Iphone application mag versions of GQ click here.
So on thursday Steve Jobs is emerging from his bear lair to announce the release of the Apple Tablet (its not officially announced by Apple as a means to generate speculative buzz such as my post here).
The New York times has released a very good video explaining what this new Apple device means for media companies and how they will start monetizing their content. This is so exciting as a whole new genre of consumer media experience is landing! With the official kick off being this week (unofficially).
If you have no idea what I am talking about just click the video above to listen to the conversation and if by chance you still have not seen the new ‘tablet’ publications watch the Sports Illustrated demo here.
SOO EXCITED!
Bobbi Brown Pretty Powerful Campaign
Bobbi Brown cosmetics has always been known to reach out to real women. Bobbi’s latest campaign “Pretty Powerful” composes real women from various skin tones and age ranges as part of its digital campaign. This is great as nothing resonates with consumers than real people behind a brand’s products. The new campaign is visually stunning and an attempt to create a user experience online around the brand. However I was really disappointed that the site did not link ‘how-to’ videos of how to achieve the various looks. If Bobbi Brown team were to implement how-to videos these could have also served as promoting some of the brand’s key products with direct links to the e-commerce site. Hmm I would think this would be an obvious move and wondering why this was not executed?
Luxury retailer Intermix old store merchandising
Intermix's interior rebrand
Going along with my last post of where I mentioned about resonating with consumers based on emotional branding, I find it amazing how some upscale retailers expect to flog expensive goods without tapping into what today’s consumer is really after.
Small high end retailer Intermix here in the US (think $2,000 cashmere Michael Kors dresses, $1,000 Chloe jackets etc.) has recently been forced to shut down a few of their stores, and is rolling out with a new merchandising direction for its remaining units.
What is shocking is how retailers invest so much money into creating change hoping to excited the consumer but only come up with a concept that is equally as boring as their previous one. Intermix’s new store concept is so uninspiring. Its just a bunch of expensive products on a white background…there is no story being told by the retailer, no fantasy, the retailer has no identity. In today’s market fashion retailers are fighting tooth and nail for consumer’s attention both off line and online and Intermix just tanks in this department.
There was a brilliant article recently written by Meeta Roy for Business of Fashion that delves deeper into this retail experience matter, here is a snippet
Having already invested in hundreds of thousands of square footage of retail space in recent years, it is more important than ever for luxury brands to protect their return on investment. Retail spaces must provide shoppers a compelling reason to leave the house, enter a store, and spend money. So, what is it exactly that will lure customers back to bricks and mortar?
Last month, American retailer Anthropologie opened a store on Regent Street in London — their first in the European market. In its opening week, consumers were invited in with a window display of colourful tea bags strung together like garlands of flowers, quirky chandeliers made from recycled plastics, life-size model sheep draped in heavy yarn and a 20-metre high vertical garden.
Having built its reputation on this unique shopping experience, luxury brands can learn a great deal from Anthropologie. By studying customer behaviour and movement patterns, retailers like Anthropologie know that when shoppers enter a new or unfamiliar store, they make a quick, decisive assessment of the merchandise and the surroundings. If something doesn’t catch their eye or give them a reason to stay within the first thirty seconds, more often than not, would-be buyers leave empty-handed.
You can read the rest of the article here.
Fragrance and smell is one our senses that brings nostalgia, memories and thoughts of experience into our head. Catching a sniff of a perfume fragrance is one of those intimate experiences we have that can activate a particular memory of a person, an event or a place. The only other time our senses activate our imagination in this same fashion is sound or music to be more particular. The digital world is only limited to sight and sound and therefore for luxury goods companies recreating a plush multi sensory environment to experience their brand/products online becomes more of a challenge.
Consumers connect with a product when there is story that captures the imagination. The story of a product is sometimes stronger than any display or merchandising efforts created within bricks and mortar retail. A story allows us to connect on a personal level. Brands that tap into the emotional are the most ’stickiest’.
Luxury brands aren’t just commodities or products they are a lifestyle. Telling a story is the perfect way to experience the lifestyle.
Burberry’s latest efforts online deserve a little shout out, yes it is interesting what they are doing online. However I am a little nervous about too many luxury brands using this as a ‘case study’ within digital. Yes the brand is heading into the right direction but I would not say it is doing everything it can.
What is great about Burberry’s efforts: Their Art of the Trench website launched last year, and current main brand site goes beyond just still images of luxury products. Majority of the content is sharable across social media platforms- this is great compared to anything else anybody is doing within the luxury field.
However the next step a brand like Burberry needs to think (especially since CEO Angela Ahrendts mission is to reach out to a younger generation gap) is how can their audience be ‘engaged’ by the brands content. As the current model stands Burberry’s content is a one way communication tool-its only speaking AT the audience. Besides commenting back on Facebook links, fans can’t do much else in terms of participation.
Also just look at a snip of Twitter conversations about Burberry…pretty much all of it is packaged as regurgitated spam.
Here is the typical luxury brand social marketing model “make sexy videos+use cute celebrities=raise brand profile X create aspiration= audience thinks its cool and we hope spreads the message online = drives more traffic into the store/online = people buy more product= company makes a good deal of money= share holders are happy”
This could be one angle of approaching but within social media there are so many more layers. First off brands at the moment approach social media with ‘how do we benefit from this?’ this is WRONG. Social media is all about people online, peer to peer engagement. Luxury brands creating a presence within these networks need to shift to thinking ‘how does our audience benefit from this’? What is their incentive to take part with our brand?
Burberry has an artillery of 700,000 Facebook members but what do the members get out of it? Besides constantly being fed videos how can these members become part of the brand?
By now pretty much every luxury brand is doing behind the scenes videos, interviews with designers, models etc.- but after about 2 minutes watching a video it gets a little boring. It’s still the brand talking at me.
‘Engagement’ is about a brand being interested in its audience, listening to what they have to say as opposed to just piping commercial messages. We all know that Emma Watson is being paid a lot of money to be a spokes person for Burberry. So this does not really motivate me to go out and spend hundreds of dollars on a handbag just because she says its great.
Luxury brands need to adopt a style of thinking that it’s about you’r customers not you. What is you’r customers message about you’r brand? What are their interests, and how do those interests enhance your brand?
Now lets all go back and rethink this space 
Hello Dear Readers,
I have been bombarded with personal emails and Tweets from you requesting more examples of what fashion/beauty brands are doing within social media. Also there is a lot of interest in actual case studies…well to tell you honestly I am still waiting for a really great case study within fashion and beauty brands. I will start collecting some info to share with you but in the mean time I will post up information to communicate what social media means (and no its not about having a Facebook fan page one way interaction). One of my colleagues put together (a while ago) a slideshare which gives you a taster of what is to come!
Happy New Year everybody! The start of a new decade, 2010 is here. As many are still working on describing what really defined the pervious ten years in terms of the consumer experience, I on the other hand am here to share what will define the next decade! If I rewind back to the year 2000, I was fifteen years old, a real defining point for me at the time when I received my first ever mobile phone. The dynamic of my social life literally transformed. I remember having the influence, power all thanks to the convenience of having a communication tool that I could pull out of my pocket.
Do you remember how exciting it was to receive your first ever text message? It was so unique and cool! Now a decade later this simple form of communication via SMS seems absolute compared to all the other forms of digital communication such as Facebook status updates, Twitter, BlackBerry messenger, Google Latitude etc. The new digital platforms are defining our style of communication,SMS and email now act as insular old-fashioned formats, we feel more at ease communicating to an audience as opposed to an individual whether it be through social status updates, self publishing (like me right now!) or Geo tagging.
The ever-growing digital landscape that is intimidating many executives and brand managers at the start of this new decade is just the tipping point of what is to come. Earlier in 2009 I put up a few posts regarding the future of publications and the digitization of paper publishing. The video above shows an example of the way we will be consuming and experiencing content. Feature stories will be visually enhanced through video, sound and social interactivity, reading paper publications in a years time will be the two-dimensional prehistoric version of consuming content. And just like the SMS text message that seemed exciting and cutting edge a decade ago, the current digital experience that is shaping 2010 will also be out of date by the time 2020 rolls around. Watch this space!
Image by EBOY
Social Media- everybody is talking about, trying to understand it and producing quite a lot of hype and fluff too. Currently there is a lot of industry conversation around ‘followers’ and ‘audience’ in terms of numbers. I cringe when I hear brands and marketers talk about trying to monetize their ‘popularity contest’ trying to gain more followers in order to blanket more ‘potential consumers’. Wrong, wrong, wrong… I will soon put up a post regarding brand engagement as the new form of advertising, but for the moment enjoy this little excerpt from Social Media Today ‘ 2010: The Year Marketing Dies’
Of course, if marketing burns to the ground in 2010, a new and more powerful marketing will rise from the ashes. The role of the new marketer:
- Won’t be simply to focus on outbound messaging but to consult with sales, customer service, and human resources on how the brand must be communicated in every consumer interaction, every tweet, and every touchpoint,
- Won’t be merely to imagine creative messages but to fashion programs that are seamless with the actual product and service experience,
- Won’t be to plan bursts of communication on a yearlong calendar but to respond to and be part of the ever-changing dialog with consumers,
- Won’t be to count friends, page visits, eyeballs, readers, or viewers but to measure changes in consumer attitude and intent,
- Won’t be merely to talk at consumers but to listen and engage one to one,
- Won’t be to build campaigns but relationships,
- Won’t be to create impressions but experiences, and
- Won’t be buy media but to earn it.
Just came across a great feature on WWD. Sister beauty brand of Avon called ‘Mark’ aimed for 20 something gals is providing its young representatives to build the brand up through selling via Facebook. Mark mimics the selling format of Avon, where the brand is sold through representatives to their family and friends. As the old format of selling door to door is not relevant with the 20 something generation, Mark representatives tap into their social networks on Facebook as a means to reach out to new potential customers. Representatives are equipped with an Iphone application that includes the full product catalogue and a widget on Facebook that allows direct selling of Mark products. The brand allows each representative to manage their own e-boutique via Facebook and create genuine dialogues about products within the social network. And the best part? Reps and their customers never have to leave Facebook to access the brand and its products.
Can I just say I am getting really bored of luxury goods companies who are avoiding investing into the online retail side of their business. So many claims saying that their customer is not online etc. I find that most luxury brands have very boring websites in terms of user engagement. To many click throughs just to view a product, lack of choice, no unique merchandising, no unique content for potential customers to connect with etc. blah blah blah. I am very bored. So much ego in the luxury industry but when I speak to luxury goods purveyors I am finding that very little people have a clue about the internet, its purpose and where it’s all heading.
| According to Barclays Wealth statistics on HNWIs; 76% consider themselves technologically intelligent, 72% consider technology to be important to their success, 88% say they have shopped online, 89% say they shop more often online than in-store.
As luxury brands have built up iconic flagship stores that emulated their brand’s lifestyle, a brand’s website should behave the same. I want luxury retailers to start behaving like online fashion publications. Lifestyle images of your products that evoke emotion, beautifully merchandised not just plain mannequin shots. I want to see each luxury brand to have their own YouTube channel linked up with behind the scenes videos of fashion shoots, behind the scenes takes from fashion shows, interviews with designers who make the brand, takes on inspiration boards etc. I then want to be able to export and share this sort of content with my network of friends whether done through Twitter, Facebook or my own personal blog. I know luxury brands are scared about the fact that they will not be able to control the information being dispersed onto the internet. But guess what there are already millions of people taking photos of your stores through camera phones, taking screen grabs of merchandise online and having their own conversations around this content. So many incredible editors, creative directors, writers are blowing around the streets of New York like tumble weeds thanks to Conde Nast pulling so many plugs. Luxury brands please scoop them up! Pick up a few technology wizards, and hire young graduates who are proficient within the social realms (and please don’t pay these young, creative, talented people peanut salaries as this is becoming a joke within luxury firms). Add all these people into the mix, get them around one table and watch the magic happen! Stop focusing on expanding your retail footprint already as well- to many streets around the world are becoming so homogenized thanks to luxury goods players nesting together. Take that budget and invest it into your website. Hire a mega digital team who have the ability to communicate on the same realm as the rest of team members- please don’t teams operate in separate silos. A luxury brand’s creative director should be on first name basis with members from the digital team. Your young graduate hires should have their opinion counted as much as the CEO’s. Brand synergy, it’s a beautiful thing! I am waiting to be pleasantly surprised in 2010 |
