Mercedes-Benz Fashion WeekTake advantage of highly qualified traffic.

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FROM INTEREST TO TRAFFIC

From season to season, digital is proving to be fashion’s most dependable trend. Live streaming, tweeting, and ‘gramming are the new normal around Lincoln Center. Designers now understand that lacking a compelling digital and social presence puts them at risk of losing out on extensive word of mouth branding, and subsequently, new demographics. Additionally, non-fashion retailers are also beginning to leverage the extensive influence of fashion week and the designers and influencers associated with it. Through partnerships, social media and placements on high-traffic fashion week sites, retailers are able to align their own brand and products with high fashion to secure engagement with online audiences interested in all things fashion.

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“Fashion Week” has been included in 344,000 tweets over the past month and reached 26,000 per day on February 6- opening day of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week F/W 2014.

FASHION WEEK BY THE NUMBERS

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“NYFW” has generated 45,000 tweets in the past month, peaking at 7,000 per day on February 9.

FASHION WEEK BY THE NUMBERS

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REAL-TIME FASHION WEEK

Since the real-time media trend took off in 2013, brands have realized that it’s not just timing and luck, but also preparation that can make the difference between those RTM that succeed and those that flop.

As fashion week garners so much media attention across channels, brands have been actively “listening” to audiences commenting on the happenings around New York City in the hopes of inserting themselves into relevant conversations.

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SAMSUNG

As a brand sponsor of MBFW, Samsung has promoted the presence of their Samsung Galaxy Note 3 on and off the runway across their social channels.

The brand even teamed up with Swarovksi to promote crystal covers for their product to further integrate their tech product into the design-focused event.

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TRESEMMÉ

Tresemmé, a longtime partner of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, and this season’s official hair care sponsor optimized their physical branded presence across digital channels.

Tresemmé strategically bought display placements on entertainment lifestyle websites that they knew would be running fashion week stories

In addition to full-page background display on E!, another MBFW sponsor, the hair care brand also ran runway inspired ads on Glamour and Access Hollywood

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TRESEMMÉ

In addition to paid media ads on lifestyle sites, Tresemmé further strengthened their Fashion Week presence by actively posting Fashion Week content to their own social channels, most notably Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Tresemmé brand also implemented their own fashion week hashtag #TRESmbfw to ignite fashion week engagement among the brand’s followers.

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DIET COKE

Diet Coke aligned their brand with MBFW by running a social media contest that offered Fashion Week invites for Spring 2015.

The brand created the hashtag #YoureOn and encouraged followers to share their fashion moments across Twitter and Instagram.

The campaign has generated 304 Tweets 629 Instagram responses from fashion hopefuls.

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RENT THE RUNWAY

Knowing that “fashion week” would be a popular search query, the brand leverage fashion week keywords on Google AdWords to ensure their ads would run on the SERP

Rent The Runway has maintained their Twitter presence throughout Fashion Week to give their followers up-to-date news on the latest trends and encourage cross-channel social media engagement.

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For the past several seasons, Target has asked one prominent designer to participate in a fashion collaboration to be marketed and sold around NYFW.

British design duo, Peter Pilotto, is the latest brand to participate in the semi-annual event, and Target has taken advantage of his collection’s popularity to generate interest for their launch on 2/09/14.

Through on and offline marketing (Target hosted a Philip Lim party to kick off fashion week), paid search ads and social campaigns, Target’ has been able to market themselves as a NYFW mainstay.

From Jan. 11th through Feb. 10th -one day into sales, the fashion collaboration has inspired 12850 tweets.

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Through both social and paid advertising, Target has generated buzz for Peter Pilotto that not only cements their status at Fashion Week, but also amplifies the British brand’s visibility.

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SPONSORSHIP

Several brands, including American Express, sponsored Fashion Week. Although it might not be feasible to sponsor such an event from a budget

standpoint, it is valuable to look at what brands like American Express and Tresemmé have done to leverage their sponsorship.

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AMERICAN EXPRESS

AMEX is a long time supporter of NYFW and this season chose to concentrate its Unstaged sponsorship around Diane Von Furstenberg’s collection. Amex created American Express Unstaged, and combining DVF’s AW14 collection with musician St. Vincent’s setlist, American Express was able to leverage searches related to both DVF and St. Vincent.

The Amex Unstaged campaign ran across paid, mobile and social channels.

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AMERICAN EXPRESS

Amex heavily promoted their collaboration with DVF across Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

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PARTICIPATION

Finally, let’s take at look at what some of the biggest names in fashion did to generate brand buzz over the course of A/W 2014 Fashion week.

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REBECCA MINKOFF

Minkoff understands the power of engaging with her audiences via social media. She made a splash last season as the irst designer to experiment with Snapchat during her show, and continues to drive bold social marketing through her latest series of Keek posts.

Rather than simply displaying snaps of her collection, Minkoff uses tools like Instagram, Keek, Snapchat and Facebook to offer her fans behind the scenes glimpses of what it takes to present at fashion week.

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MARC JACOBS

Marc Jacobs, has arguably generated the most designer buzz. Jacobs launched a two day pop-up shop on Feb. 7 to support his Daisy perfume line. However, they only accepted form of currency for the shop’s products was social media. Patrons had to tweet or instagram #MJDaisyChain to walk away with Jacobs’ scent.

Despite only being open for two days, the pop up shop generated 12,870 tweets and 4307 Instagram mentions.

Although Jacobs’s brand is experimenting with social currency for one of his lower end products, this venture shows the brand’s commitment to engagement and the value they place in Word of Mouth buzz.

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Although brands inside and outside of the tent are pushing marketing efforts centered on Fashion Week, there is not yet an example of a brand running an integrated campaign. Social outshines paid and display as fashion week is now as much about engaging with audiences as it is about the designs. Although brands like Target and Amex have creatively inserted themselves into the Fashion Week mix, they’re likely missing out on potential engagement opportunities by not running paid, display and social campaigns in tandem.

WHAT'S NEXT

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Topsy.com

Judann, P. (2014, Febr 10). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/news/samsung-tresemme-subway-macy-s-stage-fashion-week/291587/

Kelly, S. M. (2014, Febr 07). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2014/02/06/marc-jacobs-tweet-store/

REFERENCES