There is a new dynamic emerging between fashion brands and the consumer – and it’s an important one. Now, brands are interacting with their fans, an interaction once regarded as mainly for the insiders, magazines and retailers. Fashion brands are able to place themselves in the same spaces as their consumers, and stay visible by appearing on their Facebook walls and Twitter feeds. And consumers want this interaction. Luxury consumers enjoy engaging with and talking about brands online, and fashion brands fall right into this category.

This new, unmediated access to fashion is increasing our exposure to new designers and labels which is increasing our purchasing options beyond what we’d see in a monthly magazine. Fashion is an inherently social topic – people are constantly talking (and writing) about it online. For example, we see our friends ‘liking’ Celine Rita or Twenty Seven Names on Facebook so perhaps we ‘like’ them too. Now they’re appearing in our feeds, and we can comment and interact, which inches those brands closer to the tops of our minds. Lesser known brands can gain traction at a faster pace through this increased visibility, and their connecting with individuals on social media makes them far more relevant at a much faster pace.

This interaction is great for the brands, but what carries even more weight is the power of user-generated content. That is people writing about the designers and their collections, writing reviews and posting photographs of them wearing the product. Fashion brands stand to gain a lot from supporting bloggers in particular. The influence of fashion blogs, and their significance as a media channel, is increasing as major blogs can have over 10,000 hits per day. That’s a huge number of people seeking out inspiration and advice on their search for the next big thing.

Iconic Kiwi label Stolen Girlfriends Club, for example, reported receiving around 50,000 hits after being mentioned on popular fashion blog Fashion Toast and they’ve backed bloggers ever since. NZ jewellery designer, Meadowlark, used this to their advantage, asking four of their favourite fashion bloggers (influential bloggers with a large reach) to design an exclusive ring for Meadowlark. The collaboration collectively obtained hundreds of comments and thousands of views for the brand, and put them in front of a global audience from the blogs of some very influential people.

Consumers have so much choice when it comes to fashion, and those items that receive a lot of attention do sell. Ruby’s Wednesday dress has sold out since appearing on Fashion Toast. Interacting and encouraging user generated content stimulate this process, and so brands need to start interacting and finding ways to encourage this content in order to get that sell-out word-of-mouth.

Fashion brands stand to gain a lot from interacting and being social. They have an audience with an inexhaustible desire to know more about their products, and ignoring the power of social media to make use of this sounds almost crazy. While aesthetic may win in fashion every time, brands that interact, encourage user-generated content and keep themselves in the forefront of the consumer’s minds and eyes are the ones that are going to stick.

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | BLOGLOVIN' | PINTEREST

Starting in August, New Zealand’s best of the high street, Glassons, will launch the first of its new capsule-style salon concept ‘Pony Xpress’ within its new Newmarket flagship store. This miniature salon-within-a-store has been set up in partnership with BLAZE salon (which is stocked with internationally recognized stylists) and offers in-between-haircuts blow-drys and styling. This is a quick and easy way of supplementing ones hairdresser routine, and at $35 a pop it’s an affordable way to do so.

Retailers are trying harder to entertain us, and Pony Xpress is a great concept in response to this need to entertain beyond being just retail. The styles aren’t so bad either, with the Pony Xpress styling team comprised of internationally recognized stylists.

This is one cool idea that I’m sure is going to be immensely popular. What do you think? Would you make use of a capsule salon in a high street store?

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | BLOGLOVIN' | PINTEREST

Another bloody water..via

Part 1: It starts with good strategy – and yes, this matters!

Have you ever wondered how you can make yourself, your services or your products stand out in a cluttered world? Positioning yourself in a way that distinguishes yourself (and what you do) is a necessity. People are spoilt for choice when it comes to graphic/web design, creative strategy, self-help, jewelery, clothes – whatever you’re doing you’re likely to be competing against someone else (if not more than just one someone else).

So how do you position yourself in a way that is distinct, and that stands out amongst the clutter? It begins with good strategy – good marketing strategy.

Yes, I said it begins with marketing strategy! Marketing shouldn’t be the cherry on top, you need to build marketing in from the start, and I’m going to give you an overview of how to accomplish that.

Marketing isn’t just about branding, pricing and promoting. It’s about building yourself/services/products with good strategy from the start.

Good marketing strategy establishes a way for you to position yourself that will enable you to  stand out from the crowd.

What is ‘good strategy’?

Good strategy supposedly is the ‘art of creating value‘.

Value for you, value for your readers, clients and customers.

There are 3 main components to this ‘art.’

The 3 Components

1. Focus on your market (industry/area), and learn everything that you can about it. This means identifying two major factors:

• Who are the other competitors/players in my market, and what are they good at/bad at?
• What do my potential readers/clients/customers want – that they aren’t getting at present?

2. Identifying what you can do well, and better than anybody else (and importantly, enjoy doing)

3. Matching 1+2! This means that you take what you do well and love, and match it with customers unmet wants, and gaps in the market, where competitors haven’t yet entered. This creates value. For you, because you’re doing what you love and for everyone else because you’re giving them what they want in a way that hasn’t been done before.

Why Bother?

The end result is that you are doing something that your good at, and something that you love – and something that your ‘market’ wants.

If this doesn’t make sense in itself, then consider this scenario: When I started blogging I thought it should be writing about catwalk shows…because a lot of fashion blogs do this, right? If I’d perused this strategy I’d be wrong on all accounts. Generically writing about catwalk shows is saturated with writers and readers already have their favorite sources. I’m also not very good at writing about catwalk shows, nor do I particularly enjoy it.

If you can put a big ‘tick’ against each of the 3 components, then your on your way to establishing your own position in the market where you distinguish yourself and stand out from the sea of clutter.

I hope you find this useful – if not for blogging, for any other endeavorers you may peruse.

Here’s a question: Have you ever thought about what you’re doing from this perspective? How does your blog or business measure up?

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | BLOGLOVIN' | PINTEREST

via the Skinny (Forever21 blog)

Rumi Neely of Fashion Toast started in Forever21′s latest campaign – and it was a refreshing surprise! I think that the use of fashion bloggers in editorial and campaign shoots injects extra personality and appeal into the end result (which can be a pretty important thing when you consider the number of followers Fashion Toast has).

I think it’s great that Forever21 collaborates and works with bloggers on all types of projects. The Times Square campaign had Rumi’s personal style injected into it and for some makes her style a little more accessible. I bet the pieces she’s wearing will sell out.

This is just a few looks from the campaign set, and these images are not only on billboards but on buses and taxi caps all over New York City.

Behind the Scenes

The use of bloggers, such as Rumi Neely here, is so much more personal than the use of a celebrity or model – because of the connection we have with them through their blogs. We’re genuinely interested in bloggers too because we like them for their style, not because they’re constantly being pushed in front of us. And that is making this campaign a success.

What do you think of the campaign & the use of bloggers such as Rumi for Forever21?

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | BLOGLOVIN' | PINTEREST

Do you know how Tommy Hilfiger went from nowhere to somewhere? He did something remarkable.

He told everyone that he was one of the best.

Then, he delivered.

He made an impact by placing a billboard in Times Square placing himself amongst top designers.

Then a few months later blitz TV and magazine ads declared, “First there was Geoffrey Beene, Bill Blass and Stanley Blacker. Then Calvin Klein, Perry Ellis and Ralph Lauren. Today, it’s Tommy….”

Hilfiger became a top designer though self promotion.

By comparing himself to other well known brands he made it easy for everyone know exactly where he stood so that they would remember his brand comparatively.

Of course, people loved his clothes too.

The Hilfiger model makes me wonder: What effect would such a campaign have today? Would it be that much greater? Would it have that much faster? The power of word of mouth is incredible without the internet. With the internet, we just have a whole lot more to be vocal about.

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | BLOGLOVIN' | PINTEREST

Shoes of Prey has been around for awhile, but now the company is starting to gain momentum and their incredible success in the recent week can be traced back to a 16 year old video blogger, YouTuber Juicystar07 aka Blair Fowler.

In the video, which has had over 490,000 views and more than 94,000 comments, Blair asks viewers to visit the site, design a pair of shoes and then write about the shoes they’ve designed and the event they’d wear them to. That is an incredible traffic driver, considering each visitor had the intention to design a shoe and engage with the brand. Their experience is far more likely to have a lasting impact because of the time spent interacting with the website.

According to Michael Fox (director and operations founder for Shoes of Prey) the video was the 5th most viewed and the most commented video worldwide last Wednesday. It was the 58th most viewed and 2nd mot discussed worldwide for the whole of last week.

The provided screen shot of their traffic provided by Google Analytics speaks for itself:

Unfortunately, as I initially suspected, conversion rates were low. Shoes of Prey is not a cheap option for shoes and particularly inherent in buying shoes online is the risk that they won’t fit comfortably (if at all). Juicystar07′s audience primarily consists of girls aged 13 – 17 who are unlikely to have the cash to burn on expensive custom made shoes. Although in my view that’s not to say that strong engagement with the Shoes of Prey now won’t pay off in the future.

A little closer to home, Tee Twyford of NZGirl and TVNZ Breakfast’s Gadget Girl did a piece on Shoes of Prey. Shoes of Prey attribute more of their recent sales to the Breakfast segment stating that “traditional media is far from dead.”

NZ Girl is also running a competition asking their readers to design a shoe, and upload it to the NZ Girl Facebook page, offering the user-designed shoe as a prize to one lucky entrant. The competition is very much the same as Juicystar07′s and it would be interesting to find out if the competition run with NZ Girl achieved a greater conversion rate than that ran with Juicystar07.

YouTube has granted almost anyone the ability to grab a hold of an audience and drive them to engage with their personal brands, and other brands and products. In this case one YouTuber drove more traffic than 5 months of traditional media coverage – and that’s saying something!

Well done to Shoes of Prey for experimenting!

Story facts and images credited to 22 Michaels.

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | BLOGLOVIN' | PINTEREST

When I heard about the debacle between Simple shoes and a group of fashion bloggers, I had to write about it. The tale is one so ridiculous, and an example of how the blogging community can be so completely misunderstood.

In November, Michelle from Kingdom of Style posted ‘A Simple Tale’ on her blog, telling the story of Michelle and Marie’s confusing experience with Simple shoes. Simple had offered to send the girls some shoes, presumably for review, but they found themselves pulled into something far more complicated.

I recommend reading the full post here, but the gist is that Simple sent the girls one of the shoes they thought they were getting, and another completely random shoe that belonged to someone else. Simple’s idea was that the girls could Tweet about the missing shoes, find one another, and meet up to have coffee and exchange shoes.

The Problems

• The girls don’t Tweet, and had zero interest in starting.
• Geographical limitations prevented them from taking part, should they have been interested.

It’s an example of a marketing initiative that, while cool and creative at first, is executed poorly due to a lack of understanding of its target.

The girls, most importantly, wanted it to be simple. When they were offered the shoes, they weren’t signing up to be involved in such a stunt.

Here’s how we expected it to play out: Simple send shoes, Queen Marie takes photos of herself wearing shoes frolicking in the woods, Queen Marie posts about shoes and you read post. Simple, right?

Not everyone has time to fluff around for free stuff, and in the realm of product reviews simple is almost always better.

It is so important for companies to know who they are dealing with, and surely a little research would have shown relevant locations and who was using Twitter. Perhaps a shoe-swapping tweet up would have been feasible in an area with a high tweeting-blogger population, although I might recommend asking for those who would like to be involved first.

What do you think? How would you react if you were sent a pair of mismatched shoes to your current location?

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | BLOGLOVIN' | PINTEREST

Summer 09/10 Lookbook from Wild Pair

I have noticed a rise in the number of fashion brands and fashion retailers distributing branded magazines. Their popularity is no secret, we love them for their editorial eye candy and the instant gratification of knowing where we can purchase something.

Many stores now carry editorial-style brochures (often referred to ask their look books) for customers. New Zealand retailers Wild Pair and Lippy do a fabulous job of this (Wild Pair is pictured above). This is good fashion advertising, shoppers can see the clothes looking good and buy them almost immediate.

Pictured: The Acne Paper, Issue 7 from Acne Paper.com, Forever21 and ASOS Magazine

Larger brands are able to publish full fledged fashion magazines. Acne publishes a magazine bi-annually (The Acne Paper), with a fashion focus.  Forever21 and ASOS publish magazines extending its focus away from fashion, to beauty, lifestyle and entertainment. ASOS’s branded magazine is in fact the second most popular women’s fashion magazine in the UK.

Branded magazines, I would go so far as to say, are the holy grail of fashion brand and fashion retail advertising. To quote the Financial Times, “the investment makes sense: it gives depth to a brand in an environment they can control. It pushes product without the obvious “sell”, and in many instances may be cheaper than advertising.”

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | BLOGLOVIN' | PINTEREST

Lady GaGa at CES 2010. Look at that hair.

I have been following the happenings of CES (consumer electronics show) 2010 in Las Vagas over the past week where Lady GaGa made a completely unexpected apperance & of all things announced a new partnership with Polaroid.

More specifically, she has been named creative director for a specialty line for Polaroid.

In an interview with CNBC, Lady GaGa talks more about the role, explaining:

“My job has nothing to do with me being a pop star. It’s not an endorsement deal or campaign… it is 100% a partnership with me as the creative director of new products and branding nothing more than my artistic vision.”

& to boot, she posted a picture of herself on Twitter holding her new Polaroid business card.

According to Polaroid, the GaGa specialty line will be available in late 2010. Unfortunately there’s no indication of what they might look like, but I am hoping for some seriously awesome eye candy.

Lady GaGa has an unmistakably powerful influence, and something tells me it might just be enough to pull Polaroid off the rocks.

I saw a critic asking, ‘why would a a company hire a pop singer to do anything but star in a commercial for them?‘ Lady GaGa has the smarts, passion, and not to mention an entire empire of support, to inject success into almost any venture she embarked on. Pursedlips was absolutely correct when they said Lady GaGa may be the single most powerful editorial machine for fashion designers & I think that translates very easily into other industries.

What do you think of Lady GaGa’s partnership with Polaroid? I want to know now how this is going to turn out, because right now I am saying yes & yes to a GaGaroid camera!

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | BLOGLOVIN' | PINTEREST

via vi.sualize

It’s good to be  Miuccia Prada, founder of a fashion house with enough bite to inspire the film title The Devil Wears Prada, and enough influence to order non-model types off the cast list of extras for Metropolitan Opera‘s production of Giuseppe Verdi‘s Attila.

Originally reported by Papermag, the designer recently met with women who were cast as extras months ago for fittings.  Miuccia wasn’t pleased with their figures, groaning “I cannot clothe them! I need models.”

In a disheartening end, the designers influence was strong enough to dismiss the women from their roles and the Met is now conducing a model search in place of an Opera casting call. The Opera company told NY Post:

“Casting is at the discretion of the creative team. Due to a change in concept, the Met is in the process of recasting.”

- via NY Post

The claim that she cannot design for non-model figures is ridiculous, almost as ridiculous as conducting a model search in place of an Opera casting. The issue is Miuccia’s hesitance to have her designs endorsed by non-model types. The collaboration between Prada and Met Opera is a PR move, and high end brand Prada will still want to be associated with high end standards of beauty.

Miuccia’s demands not out of character, but the actions of the Met are a surprise. The Prada designed costumes might be amazing, but is holding Opera extras to a particular standard of beauty worth it? Extras or not, there is something fundamentally wrong about enforcing a standard of size for a role that dosen’t require it.

Prada’s influence on the Opera house has left the impression that is really does not matter who you are, or how you perform, all that matters is what you are wearing.

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | BLOGLOVIN' | PINTEREST