Social Media for
Fashion Marketing
Bendoni, W. (2017). Social media for fashion marketing. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.
- In order for brands to efficiently engage with their audience on social media, they must be able to curate, share and convey their story
- Storytelling is critical; it enables the consumer to experience different elements of that brand
- The principle idea of storytelling is to satisfy the curiosity of the brands target audience whilst simultaneously maintaining their interest throughout the story
- Loyal customers forge a personal connection between the brand's story and its audience
- The age old craft of storytelling conveys a message, persuades the reader, and creates a bon between the narrator and the reader through relatable content and the context of shared experiences
- With all of todays online clutter, marketers face the challenge of capturing and retaining customers attention
> so marketers must add a human component to their stories in order to resonate with their target audience
- Digital storytelling through social networks creates a level of shared experience for a wider audience
- Storytelling is a vital tool for content marketing that allows brands to take consumers on a journey that will relay insights and forge stronger connections
- Telling a brand story requires more than laying images together and posting the throughout multiple social media feeds.
> it requires carefully placed images, words, and videos in a sequence that best tells a story, giving the consumer the feeling of self-discovery and intriguing them to follow or engage with that story
- Brands use a collaborative method of communicating directly with consumers through storytelling narrative that personifies those brands and creates new, emotion-based connections.
- There are many approaches in delivering a brand story
> it involves carefully planned sequences and positioning to capture the attention of consumers
- The role of storytelling is to deliver a message that elicits a personal connection that motivates and persuades the audience
- The process of sharing a story with a targeted audience can stimulate the process of understanding the brand's message
- With the use of persuasive power words and images, the narrative helps the reader learn the importance of the symbolic potential of language (example? Nike)
- When shared appropriately, stories have the power to resonate with consumers, leaving a lasting impression of the emotional connection
- While there are many ways to share and deliver a story, the primary function is to provide context for audiences in order to stimulate engagement and conversations that generate an experience for the consumer
- Digital storytelling is a relatively new phenomenon thanks to social media
- A brand that operates in social marketing must create a narrative to continuously drive social conversations and integrate the brand's story
- The story can filter through a non-linear social media passage on multi-screens and mediums to share "one story"
- The same story is shared in social media but through different media
Chanel
- Runway photos and influencers taking photos from the front-row seats
- Images are then sent across social media channels through live stories, photos and videos
- Shared with influencer's respective social media communities
- Brands use this to increase awareness, generate interest and potentially incite action from consumers
- Image shared have potential to reach millions with just one post
- Top fashion brands now depend on the real-time distribution of branded story content to support each season's collection
- Chanel's ready-to-wear collections show in Paris is a perfect example of this
- Their story is released through a careful distribution of accessible content to 'gatekeepers' who then provide real-time content distribution through social media communities
- Chanel have become one of the most anticipated shows of the season
- Consumers can now gain front-row and behind the scenes access of the brand's collections from live-streams or social media posts
- Gatekeeper distribution allows Chanel to remain in control of any content and timing to the public
The Story
- Spark curiosity by telling different, compelling stories
- Shares interesting, memorable quotes and images in the story to boost interest
- Karl Lagerfeld, head designer and creative director, spearheaded the birth of a new popular feminist movement during 2015 at Paris Fashion Week
- Models armed with placards took to a street-themed runway to create a faux-feminist protest demanding society to raise the bar on women's equality
- Feminism and women's equality are topics of high interest, effectively making the show a social story with high impression potential across social media spaces
Reaction
- The act of participation from consumers raises brand awareness while driving engagement and social confirmation of acceptance
- FOMO influences consumption
- Viewer engagement was amplified by peer to peer influences sharing user-generated content relating to the message of womens equality showcased at the show
- Images, videos and graphics were quickly spread through word of mouth across social media
- This captivating story coupled with the powerful visual content of models marching down the street scene drove consumers to next stage of 'action'
Result
- The story enables consumers to reach the next stage of purchase or intent to purchase
- The power of social stories lies in its potential to become personal to audiences
- Readers can quickly identify with a story's context, influencing them to share, purchase, or support the brand
- The show was ranked #1 on Style.com with Chanel receiving 3,959,241 page views
- While the shared content is geared more towards brand loyalists, the authenticity of the story allows it to reach larger audiences
Providing - with a strong story, consumer behaviour is greatly effected/ increased. Not dependent on the clothes themselves, but the message/story behind the brand.
Thursday 7 December 2017
Wednesday 6 December 2017
OUGD601 - Research - Nike
Nike
Case Study
- Nike advertising is one of the most effective emotional branding examples in the marketing world today
> all thanks to the Nike brand strategy and masterful application of emotional branding
- Nike's marketing is not just about selling shoes or athletic apparel - its pitching a lifestyle
- A lifestyle that everyone feels they need to have
- Nike uses social media to create a lifestyle and sense of community amongst fans
- This is an intentional goal of theirs
- Iconic slogan for the past 29 years, 'Just Do It' resonates with just about everyone
- It connects with individuals universally, allowing anyone and everyone to come up with their interpretation
- It creates a relationship between the brand and its fans
- Speaks to audience on a personal level
- Catchphrase spread from the fitness world to everyday life
- Just do it is able to create a relationship with their clients by allowing anyone and everyone to come up with their own interpretation of the phrase (Pride, 2014)
- Slogan acts as an emotional marketing story of the hero and turns it inward
- Producing fewer commercials, balanced out by heavily focusing on digital marketing
- Nike's social media is marketing done right
- Without a doubt ahead of its competitors
- Has the most followers and subscribers on all social channels
- Nike brand strategy is to build a brand powerful enough to inspire customer loyalty from all over the world
- Nike advertising uses emotional branding techniques of archetype in its advertising - The story of the Hero
- Nike take the common hero story and turn it on its head
> instead of singling out an external enemy, it focuses on an internal foe - our laziness
- This is how Nike marketing uses emotional marketing to inspire customer loyalty
- They know that all people identify with an internal foe
- Nike presents itself in a way that provokes their clients
- These types of Nike commercials are meant to innovate consumers to get up, to keep going
- Nike advertisements celebrate hard work and victory, specifically that of the consumer over their 'lazy side' and they target their consumers' desire for greatness
- Nike has learned the benefits of an expansive social media presence
- Use it to connect directly with their customers
- Twitter - Nike use twitter for the purpose of communicating directly with customers, allowing consumers to connect with them, something that was once not possible
- Instagram - most popular brand account on the site
- Using both videos and artfully-taken photographs, Nike presents a favourable image of its brand
- Each ad is carefully rafted to evoke particular feelings and needs in the consumer that can only be satisfied by Nike products
- Each ad is designed to inspire, to tell us we can do anything, if we just try.
Case Study
- Nike advertising is one of the most effective emotional branding examples in the marketing world today
> all thanks to the Nike brand strategy and masterful application of emotional branding
- Nike's marketing is not just about selling shoes or athletic apparel - its pitching a lifestyle
- A lifestyle that everyone feels they need to have
- Nike uses social media to create a lifestyle and sense of community amongst fans
- This is an intentional goal of theirs
- Iconic slogan for the past 29 years, 'Just Do It' resonates with just about everyone
- It connects with individuals universally, allowing anyone and everyone to come up with their interpretation
- It creates a relationship between the brand and its fans
- Speaks to audience on a personal level
- Catchphrase spread from the fitness world to everyday life
- Just do it is able to create a relationship with their clients by allowing anyone and everyone to come up with their own interpretation of the phrase (Pride, 2014)
- Slogan acts as an emotional marketing story of the hero and turns it inward
- Producing fewer commercials, balanced out by heavily focusing on digital marketing
- Nike's social media is marketing done right
- Without a doubt ahead of its competitors
- Has the most followers and subscribers on all social channels
- Nike brand strategy is to build a brand powerful enough to inspire customer loyalty from all over the world
- Nike advertising uses emotional branding techniques of archetype in its advertising - The story of the Hero
- Nike take the common hero story and turn it on its head
> instead of singling out an external enemy, it focuses on an internal foe - our laziness
- This is how Nike marketing uses emotional marketing to inspire customer loyalty
- They know that all people identify with an internal foe
- Nike presents itself in a way that provokes their clients
- These types of Nike commercials are meant to innovate consumers to get up, to keep going
- Nike advertisements celebrate hard work and victory, specifically that of the consumer over their 'lazy side' and they target their consumers' desire for greatness
- Nike has learned the benefits of an expansive social media presence
- Use it to connect directly with their customers
- Twitter - Nike use twitter for the purpose of communicating directly with customers, allowing consumers to connect with them, something that was once not possible
- Instagram - most popular brand account on the site
- Using both videos and artfully-taken photographs, Nike presents a favourable image of its brand
- Each ad is carefully rafted to evoke particular feelings and needs in the consumer that can only be satisfied by Nike products
- Each ad is designed to inspire, to tell us we can do anything, if we just try.
Tuesday 5 December 2017
OUGD601 - Practical - Lookbook Inspo
Examples of Lookbooks
to Inform my Own
to Inform my Own
BlackEyePatch
Printed Lookbook
Instagram
OFF WHITE
Editorials
Instagram
BBC Ice Cream
'Zine
Instagram
OUGD601 - Practical - Refining Idea
Idea Notes
- Produce a lookbook for an existing brand
> one that may not yet have a lookbook/lifestyle brand in general
- Produce lookbook that flips on its head?
> create a totally different lifestyle to its original
- Take lifestyle branding to an extreme through lookbook design
> hypereality
> inspiration from BBC Ice Cream Insta?
- Lookbook of lifestyle Branding?
> Around Leeds
- Digital or printed?
- Lookbooks can be extremely ambiguous
> often, the clothes are hardly visible/advertised
> e.g. Rick Owens collage style
- Take this to the extreme? see how far this can be pushed?
> artist Gregory Thielker paints hyperealistically
> life and weather
- Essay question asks whether the clothes are secondary
> Lookbook that advertises a lifestyle
> cut out actual clothes/ don't use images of clothes themselves
> but is sold as a lookbook for a fashion brand
- Answering the question "can a fashion brand advertise itself without actually advertising their clothes"
- Can use existing imagery/ photography
> edit out clothes
> use collage technique?
- Every aspect of lookbook is linked to lifestyle advertised
Purpose
- Keep existing customers loyal
> demonstrates loyalty
- Leaves consumers wanting to learn more
- Like an invitation into the brand/lifestyle
> when existing customers pick it up, they'll feel part of a group/lifestyle etc
> New customers made to feel like they want to be part of it
- Lookbook advertising a brand
> showcasing brand as a 'lifestyle'
> without actually advertising the clothes themselves
Need
- Theme/lifestyle
- Target Audience
- Choose brand/colab
- BAPE lookbook
> combining M/Fs as its focusing on the lifestyle as opposed to clothing
- Use definition of A Bathing Ape in Luke Warm Water
> ease of youth culture nowadays
- Look into Japanese youth culture
?maybe make it digital?
> Online version
Look at Blackeyepatch
- Produce a lookbook for an existing brand
> one that may not yet have a lookbook/lifestyle brand in general
- Produce lookbook that flips on its head?
> create a totally different lifestyle to its original
- Take lifestyle branding to an extreme through lookbook design
> hypereality
> inspiration from BBC Ice Cream Insta?
- Lookbook of lifestyle Branding?
> Around Leeds
- Digital or printed?
- Lookbooks can be extremely ambiguous
> often, the clothes are hardly visible/advertised
> e.g. Rick Owens collage style
- Take this to the extreme? see how far this can be pushed?
> artist Gregory Thielker paints hyperealistically
> life and weather
- Essay question asks whether the clothes are secondary
> Lookbook that advertises a lifestyle
> cut out actual clothes/ don't use images of clothes themselves
> but is sold as a lookbook for a fashion brand
- Answering the question "can a fashion brand advertise itself without actually advertising their clothes"
- Can use existing imagery/ photography
> edit out clothes
> use collage technique?
- Every aspect of lookbook is linked to lifestyle advertised
Purpose
- Keep existing customers loyal
> demonstrates loyalty
- Leaves consumers wanting to learn more
- Like an invitation into the brand/lifestyle
> when existing customers pick it up, they'll feel part of a group/lifestyle etc
> New customers made to feel like they want to be part of it
- Lookbook advertising a brand
> showcasing brand as a 'lifestyle'
> without actually advertising the clothes themselves
Need
- Theme/lifestyle
- Target Audience
- Choose brand/colab
- BAPE lookbook
> combining M/Fs as its focusing on the lifestyle as opposed to clothing
- Use definition of A Bathing Ape in Luke Warm Water
> ease of youth culture nowadays
- Look into Japanese youth culture
?maybe make it digital?
> Online version
Look at Blackeyepatch
Monday 4 December 2017
OUGD601 - Practical - Lifestyle Examples
Examples of Lifestyle
Branding within Fashion
Lifestyle branding is used throughout the fashion industry, however some brands use this technique in a very different way to others. Brand such as Nike and Adidas use lifestyle branding and their adverts clearly advertise the clothes and trainers they sell without any ambiguity or unnecessary imagery. Other, more trendy brands, use lifestyle branding in a much more ambiguous and over the top way. This blog will demonstrate some of these fashion houses and their differing uses of lifestyle branding.
Branding within Fashion
Lifestyle branding is used throughout the fashion industry, however some brands use this technique in a very different way to others. Brand such as Nike and Adidas use lifestyle branding and their adverts clearly advertise the clothes and trainers they sell without any ambiguity or unnecessary imagery. Other, more trendy brands, use lifestyle branding in a much more ambiguous and over the top way. This blog will demonstrate some of these fashion houses and their differing uses of lifestyle branding.
OUR LEGACY
Self Titled (Lookbook)
Imagery shared on Instagram. These images in no way advertise the clothes themselves, they also do not advertise a desirable lifestyle. The meaning behind the images is extremely ambiguous and to most viewers won't make any sense at all. The images are however enjoyed by the target audience and the reasons for this will probably be varied amongst them.
Images of the Lookbook itself. A number if aspects
Supreme
Lookbook
Instagram
OUGD601 - Practical - Initial Research
Looking at Examples of
Successful Lifestyle Branding
- Marketers need to create the perfect experience for their consumers
- Lifestyle bands have a deep understanding of their target consumer's way of life
- They understand the type of experiences that they crave as well as the people, places and things that motivate and inspire them
Nike +
- Fitness tracker app
- Focused on the lifestyle of the consumer, in this case running
- Smart part was bringing in the community
- Once someone 'liked' a running route, the user would hear cheers and applause in their headphones
- What Nike did here was remove itself from the experience while also incorporating the encouragement of user's friends and optimising their run
Sour Patch Kids
- Candy became social currency for fans of indie musicians in Brooklyn and Austin
- Through creation of The Patch
- The Patch is a brownstone building in Brooklyn built so that traveling musicians could stay free of charge for as long as they want
- Instead of marketing the brand as a lifestyle a person could assimilate into, they reversed it and structured their brand to assimilate into an already existing lifestyle their audience thought was 'cool'
GoPro
- Optimising the experience that their consumers are already partaking in - taking amazing pictures and videos
- GoPro Awards - handing up to $5 million for the best photo/videos shot with a gopro
- A way to invest in the talented people who are using their products
Digital Lookbooks
What is a Lookbook
- Digital or printed document which features your collection
- Can have a mix of editorial style images and also your e-commerce style product images which shows off each product in its entirety
- There are two types of lookbooks - consumer lookbooks for the general public and wholesale lookbooks for buyers, agents and distributors
The Purpose of a Lookbook
- A communication and sales piece for your collection
- These help buyers decide if they want to pick you up
- A buyer will ask the designer for a lookbook, including previous collections
- Buyers have been known to not pick up a label or designer because of a shitty lookbook
- Once collection is put into a store, you then have the option to place a retail version of the lookbook in store
Examples of Lookbooks below...
Successful Lifestyle Branding
- Marketers need to create the perfect experience for their consumers
- Lifestyle bands have a deep understanding of their target consumer's way of life
- They understand the type of experiences that they crave as well as the people, places and things that motivate and inspire them
Nike +
- Fitness tracker app
- Focused on the lifestyle of the consumer, in this case running
- Smart part was bringing in the community
- Once someone 'liked' a running route, the user would hear cheers and applause in their headphones
- What Nike did here was remove itself from the experience while also incorporating the encouragement of user's friends and optimising their run
Sour Patch Kids
- Candy became social currency for fans of indie musicians in Brooklyn and Austin
- Through creation of The Patch
- The Patch is a brownstone building in Brooklyn built so that traveling musicians could stay free of charge for as long as they want
- Instead of marketing the brand as a lifestyle a person could assimilate into, they reversed it and structured their brand to assimilate into an already existing lifestyle their audience thought was 'cool'
GoPro
- Optimising the experience that their consumers are already partaking in - taking amazing pictures and videos
- GoPro Awards - handing up to $5 million for the best photo/videos shot with a gopro
- A way to invest in the talented people who are using their products
Digital Lookbooks
What is a Lookbook
- Digital or printed document which features your collection
- Can have a mix of editorial style images and also your e-commerce style product images which shows off each product in its entirety
- There are two types of lookbooks - consumer lookbooks for the general public and wholesale lookbooks for buyers, agents and distributors
The Purpose of a Lookbook
- A communication and sales piece for your collection
- These help buyers decide if they want to pick you up
- A buyer will ask the designer for a lookbook, including previous collections
- Buyers have been known to not pick up a label or designer because of a shitty lookbook
- Once collection is put into a store, you then have the option to place a retail version of the lookbook in store
Examples of Lookbooks below...
Lookbook Website
Uniqlo
2017 Men's Lookbook
Reiss
2017 Men's Lookbook
Rick Owens
F/W Lookbook
collages used within the editorial style, imagery doesn't show a lot about each item of clothing as the images are layered and partly hidden. This style isn't always adopted as seen above where the clothes are being advertised in a more obvious way. Rick Owens is a more high end brand compared with Uniqlo and Reiss, this is obvious in the styling of the lookbook itself.
Lookbook Posters
Corporate Design C.Ruch
This designer has produced a series of posters as an alternative layout for a lookbook. The posters are laid out similar to many lookbook styles using collages of scenic imagery as well as images of the clothes.
Lorick Spring 09
This lookbook has made use of the stock and shape of book to further the intended aesthetic and overall message. The lookbook is printed on newsprint and is tall and narrow.
Nike
London Olympics
Not typical of Nike, this lookbook uses golden ink and a sleeve that give the lookbook a luxury finish. The editorial design itself is also not typical of Nike but demonstrates the collection
Tuesday 21 November 2017
OUGD601 - Research - Lifestyle Brands
Lifestyle Brands by
S. Saviolo & A. Marazza
Saviolo, S. and Marazza, A. (2013). Lifestyle brands. Basingstoke [u.a.]: Palgrave Macmillan.
Social Identities
- Individuals do not make purchasing choices using a rational logic of economic convenience; men and women, as social beings, share values, symbols and a common language that ratify their belonging
- Consumption is a social phenomenon in which goods are the instruments that promote self-recognition and the ties with those who share the same values
- 'The Distinction' by Pierre Bourdieu sheds light on the fact that consumes buy and use products following distinctive and demonstrative logics
> products are symbols of status, signalling and possibly helping to improve an individual's social status
- Anthropologist Ted Polhemus suggests brands, being signalling systems with a great communicative and symbolic power, allow an individual who adopts them to share a belief, to communicate a point of view in respect to society
Lifestyle & Lifestyle Brands
- 'Lifestyle' is a term often misused
- It's an analytical construct and originates from the famous text by Thornstein Veblen's 'The Theory of the Leisure Class' (1994)
- Diffused by Alred Adler, an Austrian physician
- According to Adler, each individual has his or her own unique and inimitable lifestyle with which he/she approaches the world and interprets with originality
- According to other scholars, the term 'lifestyle' refers to aspects of cultural trends as well as aspects of value that are strongly associated with consumption
How Lifestyle Brands Work
- Lifestyles, and therefore styles of consumption, reflect a person's attitudes, interests and opinions
- By adopting this meaning, the concept has been increasingly used as a basis for explaining postmodern consumption
- Lifestyle brands describe who we are. They communicate our status and our aspirations
- They indicate the way we deal with our life
- In truth, a 'lifestyle brand' status is achieved by the type of benefit and symbolic value that the customer associates with brand
- Consumers are increasingly adopting brands to express their identities = consumer self-expression
- A brand becomes a lifestyle brand when it promotes social benefits through a point of view on the world that a significant number of people adhere to by becoming customers, because they are represented in terms of attitudes, opinions and interests
Lifestyle Brands
- The world lifestyle suggests a way of life to which people associate patterns or relationships, behaviour and especially of consumption
- Lifestyle brands are able to generate a social benefit (when I buy this brand, the type of people I relate to are...)
- These are the brands that are the bearers of an ideology, which dictates the rules, or that indicates a way of life
- Patagonia promotes an environmentally friendly way of life. With Nike, one enters the community of those who want to push their limits
- A lifestyle brand almost always takes energy from the world of youngsters to assert and enforce the change
An Interpretative Model
- The core mechanism of Lifestyle Brands is based on a simple premise: in order to represent the attitudes, opinions and interests of a group of individuals the brand must first and foremost have a clear, original and coherent point of view
- This has to; be based on socially relevant values, expressed through an interesting and authentic storytelling; be explained through a distinctive and distinguishing manifesto that goes beyond the classical brand positioning and a simple value proposition; be expressed in a recognisable and consistent manner across all consumer/brand touch points
- What the brand believes in, how the brand states it, and the way it expresses it are the three cornerstones of a successful Lifestyle Brand
- Cornerstones are the Background > the Manifesto > the Expression
- Lifestyle brands have these cornerstones working in harmony
The Background
- The background of a Lifestyle Brand includes both its Credo and series of stories capable of involving its 'followers', fuelling the desirability and the brand mythology
- The Credo is represented by a few simple, fundamental attributes that describe the unique and original perspective the brands has of the world
- More specifically, it identifies the pillars on which the brand's ideal world should be based
- E.g. adidas Originals Credo consists of Originality, Authenticity and Creativity, while for Gucci it's about seduction, power and self-realisation
The other key component of the background are the stories that can be told about the company, its products, its customers/users, its founder etc
The stories can be seen as a practical and concrete reflection of the Credo
All successful Lifestyle brands are a treasure trove of anecdotes, starting from the biography of the founder up to his/ her memorable undertakings
- E.g. the life of Mademoiselle Coco remembered for the empowerment of women, from haircuts to the introduction of trousers to womenswear
The Manifesto
- If a Lifestyle Brand wants to represent an individual or a group of individuals, it needs to propose a distinctive and original perspective on the world and make immediately recognisable through some codes that represent it
- This is the manifesto or Lifestyle Proposition
- A set of intentions and topics
- Volcom, a sporting brand, has a manifesto declaring that the company was founded on liberation, innovation and experimentation while remaining dedicated to the breakdown of established traditions
- Their lifestyle proposition promotes the free and creative spirit of youth culture, addressing kids who share the same passion for art, music, movies skateboarding, , surfing, snowboarding and motorcross
- Lifestyle brands are not made to please everyone, but to be adored only by those who recognise themselves in the Proposition and intended to join
- Adidas Originals - 'we have become part of hip-hop, skateboarding, and high-fashion simply by being adopted by these communities'
- Typically, Lifestyle brands are instantly recognisable. 'If you say something is "very Ralph Lauren", you're immediately understood' said Audrey Hepburn in 1992
- L Brands acquire Lifestyle Codes that become permanent signs communicating a particular point of view on the world
- These signs may include logos, shapes, patterns, materials, colours etc
- E.g. Prada's 'dignified' nylon has established itself as an unmistakable symbol of innovative and sophisticated functionality on top of representing Prada's take on fashion
- Burberry's tartan design symbolises the Brit chic spirit or the brand
- Lifestyle codes influence the expression of the brand
- The culture of origin of Lifestyle Brands is the basis of their system of values
- E.g. in its first collection, Victoria's Secret purposefully evoked the English upper-class style whilst Uniqlo recalls Japanese Zen and manga cartoons
The Expression
- The three components of expression are communication activities, direct interaction with the consumer and through its products or services
- The expression has moved towards a holistic expression across all touch points and relationship with the customer
- A brand like Ralph Lauren has built stores that reproduce the environment of an American upper-class home, communicated with campaigns showing beautiful young and elegant people
- The critical success factors for Lifestyle Brands are consistency and authenticity, since the acceptance of a proposed way of life is based on a critical evaluation of real-life experiences, at all levels
Patagonia
- In 1993, after finding out that industrial cotton fibre had the highest environmental impact, Patagonia decided to convert all its production to organic cotton in less that 2 years
- In 2008, the company won the Eco Brand of the year
- The strong relationship with the community of users/customers rapidly transformed Patagonia into a cult brand
- All the sports that Patagonia promote are all 'silent' sports; lacking an audience, engines and environmental impact
- Customers are defined as Patagoniacs, they are evangelists of nature as well as of the brand itself
Background
- Credo can be summed up with the values of Simplicity, Freedom, Integrity and Love for Nature
- Patagonia is rich in stories that have built and continue to nourish the legend
- The logo is the skyline of Cerro Fitzroy looking West in Patagonia during the epic journey made by the founder
S. Saviolo & A. Marazza
Saviolo, S. and Marazza, A. (2013). Lifestyle brands. Basingstoke [u.a.]: Palgrave Macmillan.
Social Identities
- Individuals do not make purchasing choices using a rational logic of economic convenience; men and women, as social beings, share values, symbols and a common language that ratify their belonging
- Consumption is a social phenomenon in which goods are the instruments that promote self-recognition and the ties with those who share the same values
- 'The Distinction' by Pierre Bourdieu sheds light on the fact that consumes buy and use products following distinctive and demonstrative logics
> products are symbols of status, signalling and possibly helping to improve an individual's social status
- Anthropologist Ted Polhemus suggests brands, being signalling systems with a great communicative and symbolic power, allow an individual who adopts them to share a belief, to communicate a point of view in respect to society
Lifestyle & Lifestyle Brands
- 'Lifestyle' is a term often misused
- It's an analytical construct and originates from the famous text by Thornstein Veblen's 'The Theory of the Leisure Class' (1994)
- Diffused by Alred Adler, an Austrian physician
- According to Adler, each individual has his or her own unique and inimitable lifestyle with which he/she approaches the world and interprets with originality
- According to other scholars, the term 'lifestyle' refers to aspects of cultural trends as well as aspects of value that are strongly associated with consumption
How Lifestyle Brands Work
- Lifestyles, and therefore styles of consumption, reflect a person's attitudes, interests and opinions
- By adopting this meaning, the concept has been increasingly used as a basis for explaining postmodern consumption
- Lifestyle brands describe who we are. They communicate our status and our aspirations
- They indicate the way we deal with our life
- In truth, a 'lifestyle brand' status is achieved by the type of benefit and symbolic value that the customer associates with brand
- Consumers are increasingly adopting brands to express their identities = consumer self-expression
- A brand becomes a lifestyle brand when it promotes social benefits through a point of view on the world that a significant number of people adhere to by becoming customers, because they are represented in terms of attitudes, opinions and interests
Lifestyle Brands
- The world lifestyle suggests a way of life to which people associate patterns or relationships, behaviour and especially of consumption
- Lifestyle brands are able to generate a social benefit (when I buy this brand, the type of people I relate to are...)
- These are the brands that are the bearers of an ideology, which dictates the rules, or that indicates a way of life
- Patagonia promotes an environmentally friendly way of life. With Nike, one enters the community of those who want to push their limits
- A lifestyle brand almost always takes energy from the world of youngsters to assert and enforce the change
An Interpretative Model
- The core mechanism of Lifestyle Brands is based on a simple premise: in order to represent the attitudes, opinions and interests of a group of individuals the brand must first and foremost have a clear, original and coherent point of view
- This has to; be based on socially relevant values, expressed through an interesting and authentic storytelling; be explained through a distinctive and distinguishing manifesto that goes beyond the classical brand positioning and a simple value proposition; be expressed in a recognisable and consistent manner across all consumer/brand touch points
- What the brand believes in, how the brand states it, and the way it expresses it are the three cornerstones of a successful Lifestyle Brand
- Cornerstones are the Background > the Manifesto > the Expression
- Lifestyle brands have these cornerstones working in harmony
The Background
- The background of a Lifestyle Brand includes both its Credo and series of stories capable of involving its 'followers', fuelling the desirability and the brand mythology
- The Credo is represented by a few simple, fundamental attributes that describe the unique and original perspective the brands has of the world
- More specifically, it identifies the pillars on which the brand's ideal world should be based
- E.g. adidas Originals Credo consists of Originality, Authenticity and Creativity, while for Gucci it's about seduction, power and self-realisation
The other key component of the background are the stories that can be told about the company, its products, its customers/users, its founder etc
The stories can be seen as a practical and concrete reflection of the Credo
All successful Lifestyle brands are a treasure trove of anecdotes, starting from the biography of the founder up to his/ her memorable undertakings
- E.g. the life of Mademoiselle Coco remembered for the empowerment of women, from haircuts to the introduction of trousers to womenswear
The Manifesto
- If a Lifestyle Brand wants to represent an individual or a group of individuals, it needs to propose a distinctive and original perspective on the world and make immediately recognisable through some codes that represent it
- This is the manifesto or Lifestyle Proposition
- A set of intentions and topics
- Volcom, a sporting brand, has a manifesto declaring that the company was founded on liberation, innovation and experimentation while remaining dedicated to the breakdown of established traditions
- Their lifestyle proposition promotes the free and creative spirit of youth culture, addressing kids who share the same passion for art, music, movies skateboarding, , surfing, snowboarding and motorcross
- Lifestyle brands are not made to please everyone, but to be adored only by those who recognise themselves in the Proposition and intended to join
- Adidas Originals - 'we have become part of hip-hop, skateboarding, and high-fashion simply by being adopted by these communities'
- Typically, Lifestyle brands are instantly recognisable. 'If you say something is "very Ralph Lauren", you're immediately understood' said Audrey Hepburn in 1992
- L Brands acquire Lifestyle Codes that become permanent signs communicating a particular point of view on the world
- These signs may include logos, shapes, patterns, materials, colours etc
- E.g. Prada's 'dignified' nylon has established itself as an unmistakable symbol of innovative and sophisticated functionality on top of representing Prada's take on fashion
- Burberry's tartan design symbolises the Brit chic spirit or the brand
- Lifestyle codes influence the expression of the brand
- The culture of origin of Lifestyle Brands is the basis of their system of values
- E.g. in its first collection, Victoria's Secret purposefully evoked the English upper-class style whilst Uniqlo recalls Japanese Zen and manga cartoons
The Expression
- The three components of expression are communication activities, direct interaction with the consumer and through its products or services
- The expression has moved towards a holistic expression across all touch points and relationship with the customer
- A brand like Ralph Lauren has built stores that reproduce the environment of an American upper-class home, communicated with campaigns showing beautiful young and elegant people
- The critical success factors for Lifestyle Brands are consistency and authenticity, since the acceptance of a proposed way of life is based on a critical evaluation of real-life experiences, at all levels
Patagonia
- In 1993, after finding out that industrial cotton fibre had the highest environmental impact, Patagonia decided to convert all its production to organic cotton in less that 2 years
- In 2008, the company won the Eco Brand of the year
- The strong relationship with the community of users/customers rapidly transformed Patagonia into a cult brand
- All the sports that Patagonia promote are all 'silent' sports; lacking an audience, engines and environmental impact
- Customers are defined as Patagoniacs, they are evangelists of nature as well as of the brand itself
Background
- Credo can be summed up with the values of Simplicity, Freedom, Integrity and Love for Nature
- Patagonia is rich in stories that have built and continue to nourish the legend
- The logo is the skyline of Cerro Fitzroy looking West in Patagonia during the epic journey made by the founder
Sunday 12 November 2017
OUGD601 - Research - Brand Society
Brand Story by
Martin Kornberger
Kornberger, M. (2009). Brand society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Inventing Lifestyle
- Early studies suggest that the relationship between consumers and products was more important than either two
- This juncture where the individual relates to objects and uses this relationship to make sense of and give meaning to life is the birthplace of lifestyle
- It marks the moment when life could be given form and styled through consuming brands
- The Inner and Outer Joneses were intellectual parents of the lifestyle idea
> Given their emphasis on the social and the psychological realties of consumption, individuals could shape their psychological environment through buying into a certain lifestyle
- Inner Joneses : inner satisfaction
> uniqueness and personal happiness of the Inner Joneses would triumph over competition for status with the Joneses from next door - Dr Ernest Dichter in the Harvard Business Review
- 1959 - L. Rainwater et al. published 'Workingman's Wife: Her Personality, World and Lifestyle' (L. Rainwater, 1959)
> the first study that used the concept of lifestyle to understand consumption
> It interviews 420 working-class women from across America and an additional 120 middle-class women to cross-reference data
- Rainwater et al. were interested in the 'normal' Joneses - or better, their wives
> they surveyed and interviews them, they let them tell their stories
> they gathered data on their socioeconomic status, daily routines etc
> "we need to know some of the basic facts about the working class housewife's personality and lifestyle..."
> What they found was that the central characteristic of the working class wife was 'her underlying conviction that most significant action originates from the world external to herself rather than from within herself'
- This new lifestyle focus was soon critiqued as blunt manipulation
- Vance Packard's 'The Hidden Persuaders'
- According to Packard, the old technique of 'nose counting' that divided the population into large segments did not work anymore
- These large demographic segments did not reveal enough info about the individual
- Packard criticised the 'depth approach' to motivation research that used mass psychoanalysis and other methods to manipulate the masses
- The depth approach capitalised on the idea that people did not buy a functional commodity but an emotional, cultural and social brand with meaning
. "people do not buy a car but prestige, and oranges but vitality"
- An experiment with smokers found that more than 98% of 300 brand-loyal smokers proved to be incapable of identifying their favourite brand
- For Packard, these manipulations were regressive "for man's long struggle to become a rational and self-guided being"
> What Packard ultimately tried to protect was the 'privacy of our own minds'
Branding Life, Governing People
- Despite the critique of people such as Packard, the notion of lifestyle became one of the master concepts in marketing
- The building blocks for lifestyle would be individual brands, consumed en masse, would form a stylish assemblage
- Rather than persuading consumers that products fit into their lives, the concept of lifestyle turns this on its head and by the consumers waiting to fit into a lifestyle created/ advertised by the product
- Sidney Levy explains why the lifestyle concept expanded
- According to Levy, symbolising is natural to humans
- Most of the time we are not conscious of it, we constantly use symbols to express who we are
- Lifestyle is "a large complex in motion" and
- "to explore this large, complex symbol in motion that is a man's grand life style is to seek to define his self-concept, to describe the central set of beliefs about himself and what he aspires to, that provide consistency to what he does" - (Levy, 1964)
- Levy sees products as 'sub-symbols'
> People then put together their lifestyles, and by extension their lives, through sub-symbolic products
> Hence a 'consumers personality can be seen as the peculiar total of the products he consumes'
- Marketing would no longer try to sell products by creating an image around them
- Today, in the privileged parts of the world, we are driven by lifestyle more than anything else
- The questions we ask is whether one or the other lifestyle would be better, healthier
Martin Kornberger
Kornberger, M. (2009). Brand society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Inventing Lifestyle
- Early studies suggest that the relationship between consumers and products was more important than either two
- This juncture where the individual relates to objects and uses this relationship to make sense of and give meaning to life is the birthplace of lifestyle
- It marks the moment when life could be given form and styled through consuming brands
- The Inner and Outer Joneses were intellectual parents of the lifestyle idea
> Given their emphasis on the social and the psychological realties of consumption, individuals could shape their psychological environment through buying into a certain lifestyle
- Inner Joneses : inner satisfaction
> uniqueness and personal happiness of the Inner Joneses would triumph over competition for status with the Joneses from next door - Dr Ernest Dichter in the Harvard Business Review
- 1959 - L. Rainwater et al. published 'Workingman's Wife: Her Personality, World and Lifestyle' (L. Rainwater, 1959)
> the first study that used the concept of lifestyle to understand consumption
> It interviews 420 working-class women from across America and an additional 120 middle-class women to cross-reference data
- Rainwater et al. were interested in the 'normal' Joneses - or better, their wives
> they surveyed and interviews them, they let them tell their stories
> they gathered data on their socioeconomic status, daily routines etc
> "we need to know some of the basic facts about the working class housewife's personality and lifestyle..."
> What they found was that the central characteristic of the working class wife was 'her underlying conviction that most significant action originates from the world external to herself rather than from within herself'
- This new lifestyle focus was soon critiqued as blunt manipulation
- Vance Packard's 'The Hidden Persuaders'
- According to Packard, the old technique of 'nose counting' that divided the population into large segments did not work anymore
- These large demographic segments did not reveal enough info about the individual
- Packard criticised the 'depth approach' to motivation research that used mass psychoanalysis and other methods to manipulate the masses
- The depth approach capitalised on the idea that people did not buy a functional commodity but an emotional, cultural and social brand with meaning
. "people do not buy a car but prestige, and oranges but vitality"
- An experiment with smokers found that more than 98% of 300 brand-loyal smokers proved to be incapable of identifying their favourite brand
- For Packard, these manipulations were regressive "for man's long struggle to become a rational and self-guided being"
> What Packard ultimately tried to protect was the 'privacy of our own minds'
Branding Life, Governing People
- Despite the critique of people such as Packard, the notion of lifestyle became one of the master concepts in marketing
- The building blocks for lifestyle would be individual brands, consumed en masse, would form a stylish assemblage
- Rather than persuading consumers that products fit into their lives, the concept of lifestyle turns this on its head and by the consumers waiting to fit into a lifestyle created/ advertised by the product
- Sidney Levy explains why the lifestyle concept expanded
- According to Levy, symbolising is natural to humans
- Most of the time we are not conscious of it, we constantly use symbols to express who we are
- Lifestyle is "a large complex in motion" and
- "to explore this large, complex symbol in motion that is a man's grand life style is to seek to define his self-concept, to describe the central set of beliefs about himself and what he aspires to, that provide consistency to what he does" - (Levy, 1964)
- Levy sees products as 'sub-symbols'
> People then put together their lifestyles, and by extension their lives, through sub-symbolic products
> Hence a 'consumers personality can be seen as the peculiar total of the products he consumes'
- Marketing would no longer try to sell products by creating an image around them
- Today, in the privileged parts of the world, we are driven by lifestyle more than anything else
- The questions we ask is whether one or the other lifestyle would be better, healthier
Friday 10 November 2017
OUGD601 - Research - Ralph Lauren
Ralph Lauren
Redefining the Lifestyle (In Brand Story)
- In 1979, Lauren refreshed his image with a unique 20 page marketing campaign using photographs by fashion photographer Bruce Weber in national magazines
- "the ads feature little or no text, frequently using models, in which the clothes are seen as part of an overall lifestyle"
- "the results captured the public's imagination and have been frequently copied"
- With captions such as "rough wear - it was made to be worn," the ad campaign was the model for today's lifestyle branding advertising
- The 1981 Santa Fe collection generated an upscale image of Ralph Lauren as a lifestyle brand that presented a particular image of Americans to international markets
Lifestyle Merchandising
- Fashion, according to Teri Agins in her book 'The End of Fashion', is not about products, but rather about how they are marketed and sold as a 'brand image' or lifestyle merchandising
- What makes certain garments unique or special is the meaning given to them through branding campaigns
- This suggests that the actual garment has become secondary to the branding techniques used to sell it
- Klein's (CK) 1980 advertising campaign featuring a fifteen-year-old Brooke Shields
> He had created mass hysteria over denim and generated an emotion response from consumers across the nation
- Mare Gobé in ' Emotional Branding' points out that successful fashion brands can capture the emotions and personal convictions of their customers
- "Corporations clearly need to fine tune their focus on the consumer psyche and understand the importance of the constantly evolving trends in their consumers' lifestyles" - Mare Gobé
- He believes that it will not be the norm for retailers to brand according to the needs of their specific target markets
- Grant McCracken - theory suggests that through social interactions, individuals assign status through fashion branded garments as well as to types of consumer goods
Redefining the Lifestyle (In Brand Story)
- In 1979, Lauren refreshed his image with a unique 20 page marketing campaign using photographs by fashion photographer Bruce Weber in national magazines
- "the ads feature little or no text, frequently using models, in which the clothes are seen as part of an overall lifestyle"
- "the results captured the public's imagination and have been frequently copied"
- With captions such as "rough wear - it was made to be worn," the ad campaign was the model for today's lifestyle branding advertising
- The 1981 Santa Fe collection generated an upscale image of Ralph Lauren as a lifestyle brand that presented a particular image of Americans to international markets
Lifestyle Merchandising
- Fashion, according to Teri Agins in her book 'The End of Fashion', is not about products, but rather about how they are marketed and sold as a 'brand image' or lifestyle merchandising
- What makes certain garments unique or special is the meaning given to them through branding campaigns
- This suggests that the actual garment has become secondary to the branding techniques used to sell it
- Klein's (CK) 1980 advertising campaign featuring a fifteen-year-old Brooke Shields
> He had created mass hysteria over denim and generated an emotion response from consumers across the nation
- Mare Gobé in ' Emotional Branding' points out that successful fashion brands can capture the emotions and personal convictions of their customers
- "Corporations clearly need to fine tune their focus on the consumer psyche and understand the importance of the constantly evolving trends in their consumers' lifestyles" - Mare Gobé
- He believes that it will not be the norm for retailers to brand according to the needs of their specific target markets
- Grant McCracken - theory suggests that through social interactions, individuals assign status through fashion branded garments as well as to types of consumer goods
Tuesday 7 November 2017
OUGD601 - Research - What Is Branding?
What is Branding by
Matthew Healey
Healey, M. (2010). What is branding?. Mies: Rotovision.
"Human civilisation is dependent upon signs and systems of signs, and the human mind is inseparable from the functioning of signs - if needed mentality is not to be identified with such functioning" - Charles Morris
- Originally, the word 'brand' derives from the Germanic word for burn, referring to the branding of cattle
> we mean it figuratively when we talk about all the attributes of a product that make a lasting impression in a customer's mind
- A brand is a promise of satisfaction
- It is a sign, a metaphor operating as an unwritten contract between a manufacturer and a consumer, a seller and a buyer
- A consumer forms their own feelings about what a brand means - but they can be influenced by advertising and publicity of the manufacturer
- Branding is the process of continuous struggle between procedures and customers to define that promise and meaning
- Paraphrasing Karl Marx - People make their own decisions about who to be, how to live, and what to buy, but under circumstances shaped by brands' advertising, marketing and publicity
- Most buying behaviour is driven by storytelling and emotions, which are exploited by brands
Lifestyle
- One of the best ways to sell a brand is to position it as a vital part of a lifestyle that customers aspires to
- Build on attractive picture of how customers could live if they bought the products being sold
- "Every society can be broken down into segments"
> the defining characteristics of these segments can be used to build this 'picture'
- Sometimes customers nowadays reassign products to lifestyle categories not intended by their marketers
> e.g. vintage sport apparel being popular among street wear brands, consumers
- One of the things that make 'cult' brands so successful is that they seem to define a lifestyle all their own e.g. Apple defines the digital lifestyle
- Magazine brands were/are powerful definers of reader's lifestyles
- Esquire and playboy defined the lifestyle of the young man with aspirations and disposable income from the 1930s to the 1970s
- Power of mainstream magazines has decline with the growth of media
Brand Personality
- Every brand can be anthropomorphized
- At the heart of every brand is a set of characteristics, akin to a human personality, that customers can relate to
- We tend to see human atributes in things we want to have a relationship with
Matthew Healey
Healey, M. (2010). What is branding?. Mies: Rotovision.
"Human civilisation is dependent upon signs and systems of signs, and the human mind is inseparable from the functioning of signs - if needed mentality is not to be identified with such functioning" - Charles Morris
- Originally, the word 'brand' derives from the Germanic word for burn, referring to the branding of cattle
> we mean it figuratively when we talk about all the attributes of a product that make a lasting impression in a customer's mind
- A brand is a promise of satisfaction
- It is a sign, a metaphor operating as an unwritten contract between a manufacturer and a consumer, a seller and a buyer
- A consumer forms their own feelings about what a brand means - but they can be influenced by advertising and publicity of the manufacturer
- Branding is the process of continuous struggle between procedures and customers to define that promise and meaning
- Paraphrasing Karl Marx - People make their own decisions about who to be, how to live, and what to buy, but under circumstances shaped by brands' advertising, marketing and publicity
- Most buying behaviour is driven by storytelling and emotions, which are exploited by brands
Lifestyle
- One of the best ways to sell a brand is to position it as a vital part of a lifestyle that customers aspires to
- Build on attractive picture of how customers could live if they bought the products being sold
- "Every society can be broken down into segments"
> the defining characteristics of these segments can be used to build this 'picture'
- Sometimes customers nowadays reassign products to lifestyle categories not intended by their marketers
> e.g. vintage sport apparel being popular among street wear brands, consumers
- One of the things that make 'cult' brands so successful is that they seem to define a lifestyle all their own e.g. Apple defines the digital lifestyle
- Magazine brands were/are powerful definers of reader's lifestyles
- Esquire and playboy defined the lifestyle of the young man with aspirations and disposable income from the 1930s to the 1970s
- Power of mainstream magazines has decline with the growth of media
Brand Personality
- Every brand can be anthropomorphized
- At the heart of every brand is a set of characteristics, akin to a human personality, that customers can relate to
- We tend to see human atributes in things we want to have a relationship with
Tuesday 31 October 2017
OUGD601 - Research - Fashion Branding Unraveled
Fashion Branding Unraveled by
Kaled K. Hameide
Hameide, K. (2011). Fashion branding unraveled. New York: Fairchild Books.
Brand Failure
- Branding is neither easy nor cheap
- In reality, more products fail then succeed; some sources estimate that about 90% of all new products die within five years, and of those 85% fail shortly after their launch
- The branding process goes through four major steps which can be summed up as:
1. The brand decision: Customer, Company, Culture
2. The positioning Strategy
3. The communication strategy
4. The brand audit (growth, repositioning, and so on)
- In 1990, Tommy Hilfiger thought that it could compete with chic European brands like Gucci or Prada
- It decided to reduce the size and usage of the very American logo as well as opening up stores in LA hoping to bring in trendy shoppers but this didn't work
- The average shopper's age of the area was much older than the brand's clientele, the move was a big mistake
- The company also decided to introduce Red Label, the short-lived luxury line with no logo attached and for a higher price
- The fact that the line was still attached to the Hilfiger name and image, it never attracted enough new high-end customers
- This strategy was a big failure
- To sum up, the brand was positioned in the wrong markets, at wrong price points, addressing wrong competitors, and targeting wrong customers
Identity Symbols
- Identity symbols include names, logos, typeface and typography, colour, packaging and personality
Names
- Brand name is the first point of contact between product and customer, this makes it an important choice made by the producers
- Need to be memorable and play a role in evoking associations
- Successful branding transforms a name into a trigger by which consumers can recall a brand identity
- Despite this importance, the name alone does not tell us much about a brand, unless it is backed up by a clear personality and meaning
- Criteria for an effective name can be:
> easy to remember
> easy to pronounce
> appropriately significant
> anticipating potential growth
> works well with various media options such as prints, TV, and billboards
> Available to be trademarked and legally protected
Logos and Initials
- Logos come in different shapes and forms that include:
> monograms (LV and YSL)
> Signatures
> Names or abbreviations, such as Dior and Valentino
> Symbols and shapes such as polo figure, Lacoste crocodile, nike swoosh
- The power of the logo lies in the ability to acquire an international appeal easier than a name can
- In addition, some names may be hard to pronounce in different languages
- Logos are visual interpretations of brand that may be much easier to remember
- Logos can be pure, colourful graphics or a combination of graphic, colour and content
- Some research suggests that the brain acknowledges shape first, then colour, then content
- Effective logos follow many of the principles:
> need to be memorable
> are easy to identify and recognise
> provide an appropriate and consistent image of the brand
> communicate the brand's personality
> can be legally protected
> work well across media in terms of their scale, form, colour
Tuesday 24 October 2017
OUGD601 - Research - Brand/ Story
Brand / Story by
J H Hancock
Hancock, J. (2009) Brand/story. New York: Fairchild Books
Notes:
- Fashion Branding defined as "the cumulative image of a product or service that consumers quickly associate with a particular brand; It offers an overall experience that is unique, different, special and identifiable"
- Branding is also "a competitive strategy that targets customers with products, advertising and promotion organised around a coherent message as a way to encourage the purchase and repurchase of products from the same company"
-The advertising medium, context, and style should reflect the brand
> for luxury items, creating high-quality print advertising for a product leads to a perception of superiority in fashion and quality
- The designer name, brand image and marketing strategy make the product appear unique to various markets
- Fashion branding is the process whereby designers, creative directors and retailers etc give fashion garments a unique identity
> creating a clear vision and strategy for a company
- In their book Storytelling: branding in practice, Klaus Fog, Christian Budtz and Baris Yakaboylu describe storytelling as the means for creating a brand
- Storytelling process relies on the ability to make an emotional connection through its brand and to build target markets
- Fog et al. believe that a brand reaches full consumption potential when it makes an emotional connection with consumers
- Fog et al. also describe how advertising reflects the message, conflict, character and plot
Context, Consumers, and Meaning
- Jean Hamilton writes an article on "The Macro-Micro Interface in the Construction of Individual Fashion Forms and Meanings"
- Hamiltons theory suggests that, through storytelling, a context is created to entice consumers to repurchase mass-produced items
- Macro arbiters influence the micro-level meanings that consumers associate with their personal products
Negotiations with Self (Micro) > to Negotiations with Others > to Fashion System Arbiters > to Cultural System Arbiters (Macro)
The following list includes the cultural and fashion system arbiters (macro) who underline this process:
- Designers and product developers
- Fashion ideas created by designers and product developers
- Interaction between designers, media, producers and distributors
- Trends in the cultural systems that may influence e.g. Eastern Religions, art, films, literature
- She goes on to say that fashion garments carry no meanings, it is the arbiters who give them meaning through context and/or display
- In his article " Texture and Taboo: The Tyranny of Texture and Ease in the J. Crew Catalog," Matthew Debord discusses the relevance of J. Crew's reinvention of mail-order catalogue sales in the postmodern era.
- By creating retail catalogues that depict hyperreal lifestyles, J. Crew entices consumers to purchase basic products that they probably already own.
- According to Debord, the catalogue has become a work of art that creates an aura of exclusiveness and allows consumers to shop from the comfort and privacy of their own home.
- The catalogue has created lifestyles that are fantasised and almost surreal
- What is significant about Debord's contextual analysis is his ability to recognise a retailer's talent to create meanings and fantasy associated with mass apparel for selling consumers
- Debord takes an art critic's view when discussing J. Crew's contextual marketing techniques
> he does not admire the company's ability to generate revenue by creating a totally fantasy lifestyle advertising campaign
- Using a cultural context, the company attaches meaning to its products through the technique of brand/ story
Cultural Branding Through Fashion
- Cultural branding addresses the individuality of the consumer
- Douglas B Holt's concept of cultural branding is branding "derived from brands that have spun such compelling myths that they have become cultural icons"
- Cultural branding applies particularly to categories in which people tend to value products as a means of self-expression
- According to Holt, cultural activists and individuals study popular culture and then develop successful brands
- Brands are assembled through cultural knowledge rather than worrying about traditional consumer research
> instead of analysing numbers, they come to understand individuals in their cultural context
- This cultural knowledge is developed in the following ways:
> Examining the roles of major social categories of class, sex, gender and ethnicity in identity construction
> viewing people holistically, seeking to understand what gives their lives meaning
- To succeed, a cultural brand must reflect an appropriate market
- They must also be consistently reinvented when the market place changes as a reflection of popular culture
- Successful fashion brands become attachments to the customer's lifestyle
> as a result, the consumer does not feel like a member of mass population, but rather as unique and special
- Ralph Lauren's various divisions reach various cultural markets while reflecting a consistent Ralph Lauren brand message
- Vera Wang has used the cultural institution of marriage to turn her company into a conglomerate that demonstrates understanding of her target market as well as the needs of individuals
- These brand have become what Holt calls iconic fashion brands, which develop culturally contextual stories that consumers can understand and embrace
> this is what makes them successful.
J H Hancock
Hancock, J. (2009) Brand/story. New York: Fairchild Books
Notes:
- Fashion Branding defined as "the cumulative image of a product or service that consumers quickly associate with a particular brand; It offers an overall experience that is unique, different, special and identifiable"
- Branding is also "a competitive strategy that targets customers with products, advertising and promotion organised around a coherent message as a way to encourage the purchase and repurchase of products from the same company"
-The advertising medium, context, and style should reflect the brand
> for luxury items, creating high-quality print advertising for a product leads to a perception of superiority in fashion and quality
- The designer name, brand image and marketing strategy make the product appear unique to various markets
- Fashion branding is the process whereby designers, creative directors and retailers etc give fashion garments a unique identity
> creating a clear vision and strategy for a company
- In their book Storytelling: branding in practice, Klaus Fog, Christian Budtz and Baris Yakaboylu describe storytelling as the means for creating a brand
- Storytelling process relies on the ability to make an emotional connection through its brand and to build target markets
- Fog et al. believe that a brand reaches full consumption potential when it makes an emotional connection with consumers
- Fog et al. also describe how advertising reflects the message, conflict, character and plot
Context, Consumers, and Meaning
- Jean Hamilton writes an article on "The Macro-Micro Interface in the Construction of Individual Fashion Forms and Meanings"
- Hamiltons theory suggests that, through storytelling, a context is created to entice consumers to repurchase mass-produced items
- Macro arbiters influence the micro-level meanings that consumers associate with their personal products
Negotiations with Self (Micro) > to Negotiations with Others > to Fashion System Arbiters > to Cultural System Arbiters (Macro)
The following list includes the cultural and fashion system arbiters (macro) who underline this process:
- Designers and product developers
- Fashion ideas created by designers and product developers
- Interaction between designers, media, producers and distributors
- Trends in the cultural systems that may influence e.g. Eastern Religions, art, films, literature
- She goes on to say that fashion garments carry no meanings, it is the arbiters who give them meaning through context and/or display
- In his article " Texture and Taboo: The Tyranny of Texture and Ease in the J. Crew Catalog," Matthew Debord discusses the relevance of J. Crew's reinvention of mail-order catalogue sales in the postmodern era.
- By creating retail catalogues that depict hyperreal lifestyles, J. Crew entices consumers to purchase basic products that they probably already own.
- According to Debord, the catalogue has become a work of art that creates an aura of exclusiveness and allows consumers to shop from the comfort and privacy of their own home.
- The catalogue has created lifestyles that are fantasised and almost surreal
- What is significant about Debord's contextual analysis is his ability to recognise a retailer's talent to create meanings and fantasy associated with mass apparel for selling consumers
- Debord takes an art critic's view when discussing J. Crew's contextual marketing techniques
> he does not admire the company's ability to generate revenue by creating a totally fantasy lifestyle advertising campaign
- Using a cultural context, the company attaches meaning to its products through the technique of brand/ story
Cultural Branding Through Fashion
- Cultural branding addresses the individuality of the consumer
- Douglas B Holt's concept of cultural branding is branding "derived from brands that have spun such compelling myths that they have become cultural icons"
- Cultural branding applies particularly to categories in which people tend to value products as a means of self-expression
- According to Holt, cultural activists and individuals study popular culture and then develop successful brands
- Brands are assembled through cultural knowledge rather than worrying about traditional consumer research
> instead of analysing numbers, they come to understand individuals in their cultural context
- This cultural knowledge is developed in the following ways:
> Examining the roles of major social categories of class, sex, gender and ethnicity in identity construction
> viewing people holistically, seeking to understand what gives their lives meaning
- To succeed, a cultural brand must reflect an appropriate market
- They must also be consistently reinvented when the market place changes as a reflection of popular culture
- Successful fashion brands become attachments to the customer's lifestyle
> as a result, the consumer does not feel like a member of mass population, but rather as unique and special
- Ralph Lauren's various divisions reach various cultural markets while reflecting a consistent Ralph Lauren brand message
- Vera Wang has used the cultural institution of marriage to turn her company into a conglomerate that demonstrates understanding of her target market as well as the needs of individuals
- These brand have become what Holt calls iconic fashion brands, which develop culturally contextual stories that consumers can understand and embrace
> this is what makes them successful.
OUGD601 - Research - KAWS
KAWS by
M. Ramírez-Montagut
Ramírez-Montagut, M. (2010). KAWS. New York: Skira Rizzoli.
Notes:
- Brooklyn based designer Brian Donnelly a.k.a KAWS, has created an astute and prolific body of work
- His vast output includes grafitti writings, street art, graphic, product designs including limited to editions and streetwear fashion, drawings and sculptures
- KAWS has a solid record of collaborations with American and Japanese artists such as Pushead and Hajime Sorayama
> with US companies including Kiehl's, The Simpsons Movie, Nike, Supreme, BAPE and CDG
- KAWS first aesthetic influenced by skateboarding
- very keen graff artist from a young age
- Earned attention through graphical designs painted on trains, walls and billboards
- Grew up in Manhattan & Brooklyn
- Studied illustration at the School of Visual Arts
- "when I first started painting over billboards I was just doing letter pieces like 'KAWS', the way I would do on a wall"
> then her started to incorporate it into the advertisment
- In 1995 KAWS collaborated with lcal streetwear label Subware
- STASH, FUTURA and Gerb founded GFS: the first label to incorporate the bold graphic elements of graff into T-shirts etc
- "that is when i did my first T-shirt and it was a painting that I did in college. It was like a statue of liberty with a spray can, and after that we did a second shirt with just my skull and crossbones"
- During his years working at Disney as an illustrator, KAWS developed his signature design of a soft and somewhat inflated skull with crossed bones and crossed-out eyes
- During his 1996-99 poster interventions, KAWS has a preference for GUESS and Calvin Klein imagery
- In 1997, KAWS took his first trip to Japan by trading one of his oil paintings for a flight and somewhere to stay
- Once there, he got in contact with a friend of STASH, Yoppi (Yoshifumi Egawa) who ran the label 'realmadHECTIC'
> KAWS also met Tomoaki Nagao (Nigo) founder of BAPE and Shinsuke Takizawa, founder of Neighbourhood
- All these designers has the power to influence youth culture
Proper introduction to the Fashion World...
- In 1998 HECTIC opened a new shop which had been painted by KAWS, he also designed the invitation for the opening
- HECTIC offered to produce KAWS's first toy edition, fabricated by Bounty Hunter
> released in 1999 and featured a skinny legged Mickey Mouse body with the signature KAWS head
- In 1999, KAWS was also invited to show his work at Colette, a concept store in Paris famous for presenting new trends in fashion and culture
- That same year, he did a collection for the brand Undercover created by Jun Takahashi a.k.a Jonio
> this was his first collaboration with a couture brand
- KAWS provided them with original artwork that they then made into patterns for their new line
- The patterns appeared on children's clothes, sneakers, PJs, T shirts and jackets
- Nigo, had seen his BAPE become the most popular street fashion in Japan
- Well known for high-end, meticulous and luxurious apparel with a strong take on hip-hop aesthetics
- His clothes also feature a Japanese cartoon component and offer a unique, modern and playful lifestyle option to his younger customers.
- For the 2001 Tokyo exhibition, KAWS designed a small BAPE head pillow, and Nigo took an interestin his work from that point on.
- Nigo and KAWS collaborated on three collections in 2005 and 2006 for A Bathing Ape
- This was the first time KAWS had invested in and acknowledged the intersection of the patterns he was creating - from which the garments were made - with the fabric, the finishing details and the relevance of the venue
- His goal for the collaboration was that he wanted to reach out to people "not just on the wall, but when they're sitting on the train or just living with stuff"
- He would go on to reach out in this fashion through numerous apparel products including the Chompers baseball jacket, hoodies and sneakers.
- "Keith Harring for me was a pivotal influence, because he was somebody involved in the art world, that wasn't removed or out of reach. With his 'Pop Shop' he made patches and T-shirts and sold them as well as large-scale paintings and sculptures. I thought that it was great there was somebody doing these two things simultaneously. It almost seems like a natrual thing these days to be an artist and make products"
- "I treat T-shirts like a sketchbook. I mean, they are finished, definitely, but a lot of it is just me losing my mind in my studio, sort of. They are free sketches because sometimes they can take me an hour or a couple of days"
-"My work intertwines seamlessly from a jacket to a skateboard to a canvas... I feel it's all just one big ball"
M. Ramírez-Montagut
Ramírez-Montagut, M. (2010). KAWS. New York: Skira Rizzoli.
Notes:
- Brooklyn based designer Brian Donnelly a.k.a KAWS, has created an astute and prolific body of work
- His vast output includes grafitti writings, street art, graphic, product designs including limited to editions and streetwear fashion, drawings and sculptures
- KAWS has a solid record of collaborations with American and Japanese artists such as Pushead and Hajime Sorayama
> with US companies including Kiehl's, The Simpsons Movie, Nike, Supreme, BAPE and CDG
- KAWS first aesthetic influenced by skateboarding
- very keen graff artist from a young age
- Earned attention through graphical designs painted on trains, walls and billboards
- Grew up in Manhattan & Brooklyn
- Studied illustration at the School of Visual Arts
- "when I first started painting over billboards I was just doing letter pieces like 'KAWS', the way I would do on a wall"
> then her started to incorporate it into the advertisment
- In 1995 KAWS collaborated with lcal streetwear label Subware
- STASH, FUTURA and Gerb founded GFS: the first label to incorporate the bold graphic elements of graff into T-shirts etc
- "that is when i did my first T-shirt and it was a painting that I did in college. It was like a statue of liberty with a spray can, and after that we did a second shirt with just my skull and crossbones"
- During his years working at Disney as an illustrator, KAWS developed his signature design of a soft and somewhat inflated skull with crossed bones and crossed-out eyes
- During his 1996-99 poster interventions, KAWS has a preference for GUESS and Calvin Klein imagery
- In 1997, KAWS took his first trip to Japan by trading one of his oil paintings for a flight and somewhere to stay
- Once there, he got in contact with a friend of STASH, Yoppi (Yoshifumi Egawa) who ran the label 'realmadHECTIC'
> KAWS also met Tomoaki Nagao (Nigo) founder of BAPE and Shinsuke Takizawa, founder of Neighbourhood
- All these designers has the power to influence youth culture
Proper introduction to the Fashion World...
- In 1998 HECTIC opened a new shop which had been painted by KAWS, he also designed the invitation for the opening
- HECTIC offered to produce KAWS's first toy edition, fabricated by Bounty Hunter
> released in 1999 and featured a skinny legged Mickey Mouse body with the signature KAWS head
- In 1999, KAWS was also invited to show his work at Colette, a concept store in Paris famous for presenting new trends in fashion and culture
- That same year, he did a collection for the brand Undercover created by Jun Takahashi a.k.a Jonio
> this was his first collaboration with a couture brand
- KAWS provided them with original artwork that they then made into patterns for their new line
- The patterns appeared on children's clothes, sneakers, PJs, T shirts and jackets
- Nigo, had seen his BAPE become the most popular street fashion in Japan
- Well known for high-end, meticulous and luxurious apparel with a strong take on hip-hop aesthetics
- His clothes also feature a Japanese cartoon component and offer a unique, modern and playful lifestyle option to his younger customers.
- For the 2001 Tokyo exhibition, KAWS designed a small BAPE head pillow, and Nigo took an interestin his work from that point on.
- Nigo and KAWS collaborated on three collections in 2005 and 2006 for A Bathing Ape
- This was the first time KAWS had invested in and acknowledged the intersection of the patterns he was creating - from which the garments were made - with the fabric, the finishing details and the relevance of the venue
- His goal for the collaboration was that he wanted to reach out to people "not just on the wall, but when they're sitting on the train or just living with stuff"
- He would go on to reach out in this fashion through numerous apparel products including the Chompers baseball jacket, hoodies and sneakers.
- "Keith Harring for me was a pivotal influence, because he was somebody involved in the art world, that wasn't removed or out of reach. With his 'Pop Shop' he made patches and T-shirts and sold them as well as large-scale paintings and sculptures. I thought that it was great there was somebody doing these two things simultaneously. It almost seems like a natrual thing these days to be an artist and make products"
- "I treat T-shirts like a sketchbook. I mean, they are finished, definitely, but a lot of it is just me losing my mind in my studio, sort of. They are free sketches because sometimes they can take me an hour or a couple of days"
-"My work intertwines seamlessly from a jacket to a skateboard to a canvas... I feel it's all just one big ball"
Wednesday 11 October 2017
OUGD601 - Research - Couture Graphic
Couture Graphique by
José Teunissen, Hanka Van Der Voet & Jan Brand
Teunissen, J., Voet, H., Brand, J. (2013). Couture graphique. Houten: Terra.
José Teunissen, Hanka Van Der Voet & Jan Brand
Teunissen, J., Voet, H., Brand, J. (2013). Couture graphique. Houten: Terra.
- Tamsin Blanchard
- The label has become its own form of currency
- It is the markers mark; the reason the garment was sold in the first place
- A simple label can mean the difference between a plain, white T shirt selling for £5.99 or £59.99
- Increasingly, fashion brands rely on packaging & presentation rather than the product itself
- The graphic designer has taken on a status and power within the fashion industry that was unheard of in the early 80s
- Fashion companies have become mini publishing empires, often employing their own graphic design teams
- Lookbooks, catalogues, magazines, adverts etc
- Peter Saville - pioneer in fashion graphics - Case Study?
- An architect might be attracted to a shirt by Comme de Garçon because of the message it is communicating
- Whereas a businessman might be attracted to a shirt from Hugo Boss because the logo speaks to him; it is a confident, direct and has a clear corporate message
- Similar shirts... totally different customers
Unknown Pleasures
by Joy Division
Peter Saville
In some cases, the graphic designer or art director is also the fashion designer
- Georgio Armani - Case Study?
- He is both art director and fashion director
- "A designer label is his or her business card"
- " It not only reflects the spirit and integrity of each collection; it also expresses the philosophy and character of the line to the customer. The final product is the most important part of the package, but a label and logo secures a recognisable identity. The graphic identity is a natural extension to what my products are trying to express or reflect"
- In many cases, the graphic designer takes on a role as important, if not more, than the fashion designer themselves.
- Fabien Baron - Creative Director of Burberry - Case Study?
- Closely involved in many aspects of the British brand's relaunch at the end of the 90s
- Working alongside managing director Rose Marie Bravo, he signalled the new direction of the brand by not only modernising the logo but by creating an advertising campaign before there was any new products to advertise
- Worked with photographer Mario Testino
- Turning Burberry from a purveyor of old-fashioned raincoats to a dynamic, high-fashion, luxury label.
- Walter Van Beirendonck - W< - Case Study?
- Has always incorporated graphics into his fashion, both for his own labels and for the streetwear brand
- With help from Paul Boudens, a graphic designer who has worked with many of the new wave of Belgian designers
- Sees graphic design and fashion as so inseperable as to include graphics as part of the fashion degree for students at the prestigious Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts
W<
Wild & Lethal Trash!
by Walter Van Beirendonck
- Stella McCartney - Launched her own label under Gucci umbrella in 2002 - Case Study?
- Worked with multidisciplinary creative agency Wink Media set up in London
- Wink offers a wide range of creative services, including advertising, brand development and corporate identity.
- Stella McCartney was a unique project
- "We were creating a new brand for a very well-known designer, so it was already loaded with values and perceptions, which made it very interesting, but also much more demanding, as the expectations on Stella launching her own label were very high"
- "We would often visit Stella's studio to study the fabrics and the designs so we could get a very clear idea of the collection - and of course the designer behind it"
- For any fashion house, a well-designed, universally recognised logo is the key to commercial success.
- The logo becomes its own currency
- No one has proved this better than Yves Saint Laurent, who has one of the most famous and enduring logos in fashion history
- He was one of the first to turn to a graphics artist for help in translating the abstract idea of a new fashion house into a logo
- He had met A.M. Cassandre through his previous employer, Christian Dior, and he approached him in the late 50s to create his logo
- It is said to have taken just a few minutes
- Even someone who has never owned an item of their clothing could draw out the logo from memory
- Alice Rawsthorn - "It is exquisitely drawn in an instantly recognisable but distinctive style"
"Also, its central characteristics fuse perfectly with those of the brand and it has been reproduced more or less consistently over the years. Those are the generic characteristics of any classic logo and the YSL symbol encapsulates them perfectly."
- Fabien Baron - "I would not have changed [the logo] either. Cassandre was one of the best graphic designers in the world. He was an artist. That logo can stay forever. It's beautiful. It's the lettering, the intricacy of the logo, the way the letters are stacked up. It's very elegant and very French with a sense of history. It would be like going to Egypt and changing the pyramids"
- It was in the 80s, however, that fashion houses began to graphic design seriously. Yohji Yamamoto's creative director, Marc Ascoli, was persuaded into hiring Peter Saville by Nick Knight, a photographer who had come to his attention after a series of one hundred portaits of the 80s for i-D magazine
- Michael Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak - M/M (Paris)
- Their way of making people notice the brand was to take the Calvin Klein logo and rip it up and start again
- They re-drew it, as a school kid might make a doodle. They felt the CK brand had become schizophrenic and needed to have a single stamp to bring it all back together.
- At their best, graphic designers have brought to the fashion industry another set of eyes, a fresh perspective and an uncompromising vision
- At worst, they are simply another marketing tool, a way for the designer to create a visual peg on which to hang the sales of perfumes, face creams, scarves and T shirts.
- Towards the late 80s, along with the recession, it looked as though there was nowhere else to go for graphic design within the fashion industry, it just seemed pointless
- However, it had already had a knock-on effect as a new generation of graphic designers had been studiously collecting those Yamamoto catalogues, as well as Six
- Six - the groundbreaking magazine published by Comme de Garçon which was one of the most defining moments of the fusion between fashion and graphics
- Peter Saville - " I looked at the scene in the mid-nineties and fashion had really embraced graphics"
- BUT perhaps it has gone too far.
- The design has overtaken the content
- Although it is what he wished for, Saville confesses that he didn't really want it to turn out like this...
- "Design is the new advertising. It's the insidious influence. It was better when it was a form of rebellion, when you had to fight with business. Now it's the other way around, It's entirely superficial"
Revisiting Previous
Dissertation Examples
For inspiration, I visited the library where I had access to last years dissertations. I had a look through them to see whether anybody had answered a similar question or topic that I intend to explore.
The two relevant questions that I found were 'To what extent does branding determine the success of a clothing company' and 'The relationship between graphic design and fashion, the concept of 'Lifestyle' and their connection to it'
I had a read through the introductions and contents page of each essay to get an understanding of structure as well as content.
Stella McCartney
Advertisement
by Mert & Marcus,
Ryan McGinley
- For any fashion house, a well-designed, universally recognised logo is the key to commercial success.
- The logo becomes its own currency
- No one has proved this better than Yves Saint Laurent, who has one of the most famous and enduring logos in fashion history
- He was one of the first to turn to a graphics artist for help in translating the abstract idea of a new fashion house into a logo
- He had met A.M. Cassandre through his previous employer, Christian Dior, and he approached him in the late 50s to create his logo
- It is said to have taken just a few minutes
- Even someone who has never owned an item of their clothing could draw out the logo from memory
- Alice Rawsthorn - "It is exquisitely drawn in an instantly recognisable but distinctive style"
"Also, its central characteristics fuse perfectly with those of the brand and it has been reproduced more or less consistently over the years. Those are the generic characteristics of any classic logo and the YSL symbol encapsulates them perfectly."
- Fabien Baron - "I would not have changed [the logo] either. Cassandre was one of the best graphic designers in the world. He was an artist. That logo can stay forever. It's beautiful. It's the lettering, the intricacy of the logo, the way the letters are stacked up. It's very elegant and very French with a sense of history. It would be like going to Egypt and changing the pyramids"
- It was in the 80s, however, that fashion houses began to graphic design seriously. Yohji Yamamoto's creative director, Marc Ascoli, was persuaded into hiring Peter Saville by Nick Knight, a photographer who had come to his attention after a series of one hundred portaits of the 80s for i-D magazine
- Michael Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak - M/M (Paris)
- Their way of making people notice the brand was to take the Calvin Klein logo and rip it up and start again
- They re-drew it, as a school kid might make a doodle. They felt the CK brand had become schizophrenic and needed to have a single stamp to bring it all back together.
- At their best, graphic designers have brought to the fashion industry another set of eyes, a fresh perspective and an uncompromising vision
- At worst, they are simply another marketing tool, a way for the designer to create a visual peg on which to hang the sales of perfumes, face creams, scarves and T shirts.
- Towards the late 80s, along with the recession, it looked as though there was nowhere else to go for graphic design within the fashion industry, it just seemed pointless
- However, it had already had a knock-on effect as a new generation of graphic designers had been studiously collecting those Yamamoto catalogues, as well as Six
- Six - the groundbreaking magazine published by Comme de Garçon which was one of the most defining moments of the fusion between fashion and graphics
Six
Groundbreaking magazine
Comme de Garçon
- Peter Saville - " I looked at the scene in the mid-nineties and fashion had really embraced graphics"
- BUT perhaps it has gone too far.
- The design has overtaken the content
- Although it is what he wished for, Saville confesses that he didn't really want it to turn out like this...
- "Design is the new advertising. It's the insidious influence. It was better when it was a form of rebellion, when you had to fight with business. Now it's the other way around, It's entirely superficial"
Revisiting Previous
Dissertation Examples
For inspiration, I visited the library where I had access to last years dissertations. I had a look through them to see whether anybody had answered a similar question or topic that I intend to explore.
The two relevant questions that I found were 'To what extent does branding determine the success of a clothing company' and 'The relationship between graphic design and fashion, the concept of 'Lifestyle' and their connection to it'
I had a read through the introductions and contents page of each essay to get an understanding of structure as well as content.
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