A lot of people don’t even realise there is such a thing as
fashion promotion, even though they’re confronted with it every day pretty much
everywhere they look, it is an extremely important element of the industry.
Without fashion promotion, we’d still have the garments but no one would know
about them. The forms of visual promotional material has increased massively
during the last 10 years thanks to the world of technology and social media.
Advertising campaigns are the oldest form of promotional
materials. We see them everywhere from magazines to billboards to pop ups on
our computer screens. Fashion Films are the latest craze in the advertising
world. They’re pretty self-explanatory, although they’re usually less than 5
minutes long but this is much longer than standard adverts. Fashion films also
will have more of a story to them since there is more time to fill so it’s more
engaging for the fashion loving viewer. Karl Lagerfeld is a master of fashion
films, having created a number of lengthy ones for Chanel starring muses
including Cara Delevingne and Pharrell Williams. Shock tactics is what
companies need in order to get the most amount of attention. In 2012, Harvey
Nichols ran a particularly controversial ad featuring models wetting
themselves, with the line “Try to contain your excitement” to promote a sale. A
lot of people slammed this for being “in bad taste” however I like it because
it’s tongue-in-cheek and very original.
Blogging is a very new yet hugely popular hobby/career not
only in the fashion industry but in every aspect of life. Fashion brands will
give products to well-known bloggers because they know they will promote them
by writing about them on their blog. It’s basically free advertising. Perhaps
the best known fashion bloggers at the moment are Susie Lau, of stylebubble.co.uk,
and Bryanboy, of bryanboy.com. Brands will also send their products to the
stylists of popular TV shows/movies, for example, Gossip Girl featured many
luxury brands including Chanel, Vera Wang, Tiffany &co. and Elie Saab. This
is known as product placement.
Social media is extremely important to reach the younger
customers. Young people now go on their phones more than they read magazines,
so it’s essential that brands have an engaging social media presence. ASOS have
their own stylists that style ASOS pieces on themselves and post their ‘outfit
of the day’ to their personal Instagram accounts. They also make vlogs (video
blogs) about featured ASOS products which go up on the labels’ YouTube channel.
Designers will often post moodboards or sketches to give their social media audience
behind the scenes access to their atelier. Zac Posen regularly posts Instagram
photos of his NYC studio. TV shows like House
of DVF and Liberty of London make
that insight even more intimate, by revealing everything from the employees to the
struggles of keeping the sales flowing.
All successful fashion labels know that it’s important to know
your customer. Branding plays a massive role in this as everything needs to be
appealing for your customer. It covers the layout/décor of the store, window
displays, music, ad campaigns and packaging. For example, Next’s target market
is mainly women & men over the age of 30 so they play easy listening songs
that they are likely to have on their IPod. Topshop’s customer is 16-25 year
old girls so they play a mix of alternative/indie and dance music. Window displays
are the first thing a customer notices about a store so they need to be
interesting to draw the customer into the store. Harrods and Bergdorf Goodman
are famous for having iconic Christmas windows that attract customers from all
over the world.
Direct mail by post is not as popular as it used to be thanks
to the invention of the internet however companies like Next still send out
catalogues to their loyal customers. Another form of direct mail is Email which
is much more favoured as it’s fast and free. Lots of brands have the option on
their website of signing up to their newsletter. This is an informal way of
telling customers about latest product drops and sales.
Sales promotions will ALWAYS attract more customers because
everyone wants to save a bit of money. Topshop and Urban Outfitters always have
student discount as their average customer is of student age. Next is well
known for its end of season sales that offer half price on all products.
