Saturday 6 August 2011

Luxury Brands in today's Digital Era

I twittered it last week: Stella McCartney launched the new version
 of her website http://bit.ly/rfG61r with lots of new options, 
 and it looks quite good.  Especially its home page with Nathalia Vodianova 
 starring in the FW2011 ad campaign. Amazing pics by Mert & Marcus...
 I mean, regardless your body type,  don't you just want that chunky knit,
 and that see-through body hugging dress? I do!



STELLA MC CARTNEY FW2011 by Mert & Marcus

Anyway, back to that website; what I don't understand, is that they launch this super duper  website, but there is no space for interaction with STELLA MC CARTNEY fans and enthusiasts, no blog  (don't count the Photo and Flicker area), no tweet updates, no Facebook fan page link, no like  buttons, nothing. 

It amazes me, that brand's like Stella's, which belongs to the Gucci Group, a subsidiary of PPR,  still don't get today's digital channels and the changing marketing environment which goes with  it. Marketing a brand today isn't a one-way traffic system anymore like it used to be. It's about  creating a true relationship with (potential) customers, giving them a voice, a platform.

 The other day I had an interesting discussion, with Roman Hänsler, one of the co-founders of
 aka-aki.com and he showed me an amazing example of a blog of a German food brand, where over 30
 employees, blog about the brand and the food industry in general. Employees blogging about the  brand they work for, giving honest opinions.
 
 This is what tomorrow's marketing landscape will look like, and if you don't get that as a brand,  you will be missing out on major opportunities in the near future.

 Internet with all the information it provides and the many social network platforms gave people a  voice. Today's customers are less faithful, and it's harder to create long term relationships with  them because of the extensive variety of choice. As a brand you need to truly engage with your  customers. It's not just opening a fan page on Facebook, and blurting out tweets without triggering  any interaction. It's not solely about showing the customers what you want to show them, but about  listening to what your customers think of your brand (*that*'s where the cheap factor of using  social network platforms comes in: exit over-expensive marketing research).

 All those social media workshops where they teach companies how to open a Facebook page and how to  Twitter, but where they always seem to forget to teach the most important thing: how to interact  with (potential) customers.

 What do you think of most of the luxury fashion brand websites? Do you think they are welcoming  and giving you enough space to interact? Which websites do you think, truly stand out?


TATAFORNOW

3 comments:

  1. point de vue très intéressant.
    sevy

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Sev :-)) So, any luxury websites you highly recommend for their interactivity???

    ReplyDelete
  3. interesting. I can't really name any brand that really interacts with their consumers. I am a big fan of Chanel News http://chanel-news.chanel.com/en/ , but come to think of it, this is more contentwise. It's not interactive at all. Maybe Louis Vuitton is a good example?

    ReplyDelete