Web’s Next New Wave: Brands Moving Beyond

Facebook And Twitter

by Cate Corcoran

MKTG 480 ARTICLE ANALYSIS

Prepared for: Dr. Ibrahim Hegazy, written by Lina Geoushy
Executive Summary

The article, is written by Cate Corcoran, a journalist and the technology editor at
Women’s Wear Daily, where she writes about the intersection of technology, fashion and
business. She is interested in the anthropology of everyday life, particularly fashion and
the cultural meaning and effects of social media. The article reports on the move of
fashion companies as they improve and deepen their strategies from social media
networks Facebook and Twitter, blogs and other social media networks. The companies
are determining the content which is aimed at multiple platforms and networks of people
who add up to more than the sum of its parts. It notes that Twitter is often used for news
and discounts while Facebook is favorite for conversations.The article reports that the
growing adoption of social media Web sites changes the marketing and public relations
of many brands. It emphasizes that many businesspeople see social media sites including
Twitter, Facebook, and most importantly, the growing various fashion social networks as
public relations venues to connect with their clients through the engaging content and
strategies they develop. Hence, brands, according to Corcoran, are adapting their
advertising and altering their designs based on their customer’s feedback.

Analysis of the article content and core messages

Fashion brands and their adoption of social media is the topic de jour. The article is
addressing a very common and growing trend among international fashion brands. As
fashion has a very short PLC (product life cycle), many brands have taken the
opportunity and utilized social media in several ways, the most prevalent being
advertising. The main idea of the article is that engagement is becoming more effective in
advertising than monologues and its affecting order and design, therefore, this trend is
pushing brands to create their identity. Fashion companies, Corcoran alleges, are
desperately seeking customers and trying to create buzz by going beyond internet outlets
like Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, instead they are expanding on fashion social networks
and adopting new innovative ideas that create opportunities to develop brand affinity and
establish relationships with the next, younger generation of shoppers. An example of a
novel idea is partnering with fashion-oriented sites like Polyvore for sponsoring branded
contests within the web site’s community. These contests succeed in engaging users and
the content created can spread virally forever. While Facebook and Twitter are great for
mass marketing, more exclusive social destinations allow brands to extend their story and
promise to their customers, maximizing the user’s online brand experience.Thus far,
niche communities such as Lookbook have yielded impressive ROI (Return on
investment), as their audiences are more likely to become loyal customers. Saks senior
vice president of marketing believes that “Social media is becoming increasingly
important...” and therefore along with Jimmy Choo, they adopted a successful engaging
marketing strategy. Corcoran gives another successful example of the digital marketing
adopted by French Connection, the UK based fashion retailer which has stores
worldwide.
 Since smart phones like blackberries and iphones are spreading everywhere
especially among young and middle aged people, Marc Jacob’s partnership with
Foursquare- the web and mobile community for exploring places in different cities all
over the world.

The author thinks that just like Foodspotting -the visual guide to good food and
where to find it- it’s easy to mimic the same idea for fashion. He introduces another
unique website that could attract retailers called Blippy, it lets you share your purchases
and see what your friends are buying online and in real life. He then talks briefly and
vaguely about Gap’s plans of creating a microsite (not only featuring Gap products)
about the exclusive fashion trends to create buzz all over the social networks and get
engaging comments.

In a medium packed with websites and increasing social networks and users, some
websites are active and successful and others don’t make it and vanish. One of the new
entrants is Couturious which is part of a bigger network that belongs to Like.com, a
visual search engine that includes a fashion community for outfit sharing.

American Apparel teamed up with LOOKBOOK.nu to create a snapshot of their

customers at their most creative. Everyday, hundreds of users of LOOKBOOK.nu upload
pictures of themselves in their fashion outfits to get rated by the rest of the community.
American Apparel worked with the site in December 2009 where they announced a call
for LOOKBOOK.nu users to submit outfits that featured American Apparel styles. After
sorting through nearly a thousand entries, they created a lookbook with almost 80 young
people wearing the AA brand from around the world. 150,000 copies will be available in
their 280 stores around the globe.Some of the LOOKBOOK.nu users in the book who
sent in what AA considered were the best contributions have even been reshot by
professional photographers and were added to the cover and centerfolds. The brand also
took the risk and started to use them in their ads too. They already have a reputation for
creating eye-catching risque advertising. American Apparel succeeded in this strategy
because photographers and designers see the garments in one way and sometimes the
customers and fans see it a totally different way. So they decided to let the customers
inspire them and get inspired by taking part and interacting with them. They have also
done contests on Chicotopia or Polyovre (one of the biggest fashion social networks),
where they gave away or sold items to fashionable people. Polyovre is a huge traffic
driver with only 14 employees adding content everyday. Another benefit of online
branding is the fact that it influences your pre-orders, said Diane Von Furstenburg.

Coach Inc. ran contests and gave away gifts on Polyovre that attracted 1,700
individuals. They also ran a design competition in which people were to submit a design
for a coach tote. They also produced the tote of the winner and through a party. Coach
Senior Vice President of global web and digital media said they care the most about the
number of engagements. He sad that Facebook is the main source that drives people to
Coach’s website, they use it to presell products to their fans. He also confirmed that
Polyovre’s crowd is very qualified and enthusiastic.
 Rebecca Minkoff, the hostess of a blogging station during NY Fashion week said
that a blog or community has the same effect of spreading a trend as when a celebrity is
seen adopting this trend. Bill D’ Arienzo, CEO of brand consulting firm WDA Marketing
thinks that a community of customers is being created on the web and that brands a re
witnessing a major shift, therefore traditional brand advertising is no longer successful,
instead feedback from customers and engagement is the successful strategy nowadays.
He emphasized “It’s all about relationship marketing”, humility and authenticity are two
main factors for a brand to gain customer’s trust. That’s why brands now have to be
innovative in building strong identities and have clear messages to send.

Personal fashion Blogs inspire women. Twitter is used for news and discounts.
However, Facebook is used more for conversations. Tory Burch CMEO Miki Beradelli
feels that the new ways of advertising are more successful, engaging and possibly less
expensive.

Lessons learned from the article

Recognizing opportunities like a potential, untackled, virtual market is very

important. That’s what Saks senior vice president of marketing did as he believes that
“Social media is becoming increasingly important...” and therefore along with Jimmy
Choo, he adopted a successful engaging marketing strategy and publicized for it on
different platforms by partnering with the fashion community Closet Couture on an
online contest centered on styling. Internet users accessed virtual Saks and Jimmy Choo
closets on Closet Couture to style designer outfits to match Jimmy Choo shoes. The
footwear company then selected three winners who each received three pairs of shoes.

Being the first mover is risky but it has a lot of advantages. FCUK took the risky
opportunity and released a competition which is part of French Connection’s The Man,
The Woman campaign launched later which aims to draw more attention to its men’s
range of clothing. The competition is simple: Seduce a woman at Chatroulette! and Send
the proof of that to win a 250 pounds voucher. Although it did not recieve many entries,
it created a buzz in the press and many blogs. They capitalized on the large amount of
coverage they got and created a successful blog with interesting posts that attracted a
huge amount of visitors daily.

Partnerships are sometimes beneficial when you partner can easily reach your
customers. Marc Jacob’s took advantage of a fast growing trend and established a
partnership with Foursquare- the web and mobile community for exploring places in
different cities all over the world. That is a great example of major brands partnering with
a social networking sites that also works on mobile phones to bring their customers and
fans something exciting to look forward to, like exciting places to visit in return they get
their fans doing their advertising for them. Another example is when Amy Smilovic,
Tibi’s designer created a partnership with Couturious because thinks that focusing on
social media is contributing to the success of her business because there are innovative
ways to communicate with the customers.

Foodspotting -the visual guide to good food restaurant places. Foodspotting helps
you decide what to eat, not just where, by enabling you to find whatever you’re craving,
see what’s good at a particular restaurant and discover the best foods around you
wherever you go. it’s easy to mimic the same idea for fashion. However, a lot of research
should take place before adopting this idea because may be it won’t be as successful with
fashion when further research is done.

Customer engagement in advertising and thinking from the customer’s perspective

is a recipe for success. A very successful example is American Apparel’s. It’s a fun and
fast fashion retailer that teamed up with LOOKBOOK.nu to create a snapshot of their
customers at their most creative. Everyday, hundreds of users of LOOKBOOK.nu upload
pictures of themselves in their fashion outfits to get rated by the rest of the community.
They took the risk and started to use their customer’s posts in their ads too. They already
have a reputation for creating eye-catching risque advertising. American Apparel
succeeded in this strategy because photographers and designers see the garments in one
way and sometimes the customers and fans see it a totally different way. So they decided
to let the customers inspire them and get inspired by taking part and interacting with
them. Coach applied a similar engaging strategy when they ran a design competition in
which people were to submit a design for a coach tote. They also produced the tote of the
winner and through a party. Coach Senior Vice President of global web and digital media
said they care the most about the number of engagements. Basically, Coach reinvented its
brand online and succeeded to get store traffic because people wanted to come and see
the wining tote in person, they also capitalized on their online opportunities from their FB
page that drove traffic to their website.

Customer feedback is very beneficial for a brand, it should be given a lot of

attention, it helps you identify what people prefer and whether you should shift your
strategy to adapt with their real preferences. This flexibility is quite mandatory these
days, because in a highly competitive industry like Fashion, customer’s are looking for
the most convenient places to shop at, where they can easily find their preferences.
Traditional advertising is based on a monologue, so its a one man show that does not
communicate with the customer. Brands have to socialize with their customers to know
their preferences by heart.

“...Social Marketing is causing an evolutionary alteration of the brand’s identity”

Bill D’Arienzo. This is leading some brands to think carefully about their brand identity
and personality and what they should say because they have to be genuine in order to
build trust in their customer relationships. Sometimes this could lead to rebranding.

Brands should capitalize on their strengths while building their identities. For
instance, they can tell a story, like if their designer is very talented or popular that could
be their key strength and they could use it.
Recommendations

Although the article discusses a very important trend of online marketing and
advertising of brands and provides the reader with a lot of real life examples, it neglects
the disadvantages of online marketing that raise a lot of concerns among customers. One
of the main points that the article should’ve discussed is the Security issues. Not all
websites can provide full security to customer dealings.The transfer of personal
information over the internet is ripe for exploitation by unscrupulous merchants who can
sell or give your information to other companies. Generally, the bigger and more well-
known the company, the lesser the security risk.

Although the author breifly mentioned the spread of mobile devices in the
Foursquare example, she should have mentioned that smartphones have taken over as
broad band’s weaker cousin. The more limited connectivity and reduced hardware
performance require businesses to similarly temper their online multimedia marketing
extravaganzas to cater to this massively pervasive medium. A balance must be struck
between catering to the PC based platforms and mobile devices. Many companies, as a
way of dealing with this dichotomy, release their own stripped-down applications for
mobile devices so the user can experience a similar level of presentation without the
problems that occur when a limited capacity device struggles to cope with broadband-
focused material. I believe that’s an important trend that was left out by the author.

Another concern is that the consumer cannot gain first hand experience of a
physical product before he or she buys it. For example, you cannot try on a sweater you
buy online. Many companies combat this shortfall by employing rigorous return policies
and in-store pickups

The article makes building a brand seem easy although in reality Internet marketing is
a competitive field where thousands of products with same brand name fighting for
online visibility. So getting good visibility and ranking for your keyword is strenuous.

Finally, I thought that the Gap example was too brief, the author didn’t elaborate
on how they implemented their strategy, so it wasn’t so clear what exactly they were
intending on doing.