OUGD601 - Research - Social Media

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.

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.

OUGD601 - Practical - Lookbook Inspo

Examples of Lookbooks
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

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.

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...

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