Fashion Industry
Content
Topic: Influence of Internet media on fashion industry
Overview of fashion industry
The growth of fashion industry across the globe in recent past is considered to be relatively
unusual because till earlier twentieth century it was dominated by only a fraction of total
population comprising of kings, queens, aristocrats, and other important people. With
advancements in technology and increasing globalization, great trends have been observed in
fashion industry. The major change is that fashion marketplace is now accessible and open to
everyone providing range of products for each and every class of the society.
There are various ways of defining fashion. It can be defined as the reflection of time
or the utilitarian clothing of war times to the yuppie look of buoyant 1980s or it can be
reflection of individuals. Clothes often represent age, gender, lifestyle, and personality.
Fashion represents beauty, color and overall interest of the society. It is a means by which
people express themselves physically. The rate of change of fashion trends and style is
relatively much faster than society and cultures. Since fashion is both a reflective and creative
industry, therefore fashion marketers put continuous efforts to be aware of the factors
affecting the fashion market and to design their marketing strategies accordingly.
Technology has always played an important role in mass production methods. With
the advancement in technology, 1930 onwards people were able to buy copies of designer
clothes from high street stores within a week of the end of fashion shows. The media
explosion in 1970s influenced the fashion industry up to large extent. People became more
selective in wearing those dresses that best suits to them according to their color complexion
and overall personality. The magazines and books provided people with the ideas to create
their own style. Designer styles no longer dictated the fashion market rather designs
developed by young people in towns and cities under the name of 'Street fashion styles'
dominated fashion market.
Due to the fragmentation of consumer clothing styles, demographic changes,
availability of high level of stocks and explosion in the number of varied styles and fabrics,
mass market for clothing has undergone fragmentation and textile companies are adopting the
concept of short-run manufacturing. The UK textile industry in early years was blamed for
being dictatorial and short of choice. Retailing market for clothes was monopolized by only a
few large groups who were supposed to be market leaders in the wholesale market of
garments and fabrics. Retailers in those times, focused only on basic styles with less fashion
content and companies like Marks and Spencer were known for making quality clothes with
high-specifications of fabrics used. Manufacturers such as Courtaulds and Carrington Viyella
produced fabrics for only a specific group of people. Such a scheme of manufacturing in
textile industry proved to be uneconomical in case of small orders in those cases where much
design details were required. Since then, many small retailers such as Benetton, George, Zara,
H&M, Matalan, Primark, and TK Maxx came into being, thus flooding the textile market with
varied designs and range, and cheap garments.
As reported by Glyn Barlow (2010), the director of UK based on-line fashion store,
UK fashion industry is estimated to be of worth £44.5 billion. Dating back to 1960s, about
10% of total household expenditure was constituted by expenses on clothing and footwear.
But the scenario has been completely changed by now; due to the prevailing discounted prices
and flooding of market with Chinese imports of fashion products, only 6% of household
expenditure is spent on purchasing fashion related products. Moreover, during the period
2001-05, the average price of clothing and footwear fell by 14.4% while the cost of living was
risen by 12.6%. Since early years, Marks and Spencer has been the market leader in sale of
high street fashion but recently faced strong competition from fashion specialists such as
Primark and TK Maxx who sells clothes at discounted prices. Only wealthy customers go for
shopping in exclusive high-fashion brands such as Prada (Italy), Chole (France), Hugo Boss
(Germany), Burberry (UK), and Donna Karan (U.S)but majority of the population buy
clothes and footwear from discounted stores. The rise in imports has led to the shut down of
UK apparel manufacturing. Now, the clothes manufacturing companies in UK mainly
concentrate on producing specialist fashion clothing and luxury products for wealthy
consumer. Integration of manufacturers and retailers is the continuous trend that is being
observed since last few years in UK. The top fashion retailers of UK such as Next, Marks and
Spencer, and Arcadia (Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, BHS etc.) are all involved in manufacturing
and retailing business of their own fashion brands. However few brands such as Nike, Adidas,
and Reebok prefer specialist retailers instead of undergoing vertical integration. Barlow
(2010) concluded that UK fashion market nowadays are driven by full-price retailers and
discounters instead of manufacturers. Full-price retailers often capitalize on the demands of
young generation such as couture-house designs, quality fabrics, and individual styles known
as 'fast fashion' by providing costumes for limited duration before new styles are released in
the market .
Evolution of social media in fashion industry
Fashion industry has leaped from traditional fashion spectrum to digital world in last
few years. Gone are the days when people used to look at fashion magazines to know about
latest fashion trends or to fix new styles. The introduction of various social networking
platforms have enabled communication between brands and fellow fans. Top nine fashion
social media sites that are widely used across the world are (Ceri, 2009) :
Twitter: It is the social networking site that is gaining popularity at rapid rate in UK
with 4.43 million unique users (as reported in year 2008, December). It offers a
platform to companies to interact with potential customers, make friends and to post
blogs. Every time a message is posted, it is send to all your friends via Twitterfeed.
Facebook: It is the most popular social networking website. It allows users to make
friends, share photos, and information.
Flickr: It provides platform for displaying pictures of clothing. Most of the brands use
this site to display apparel designs and other fashion related products tagged with their
brand name. It also features some great clothing, fashion and jewellery related
communities that customers can join.
Second Life: It is a virtual world that has been from the software based on 3-D
modeling and provide platform to users to socialize with each other. It also features
client program' that enables users to interact with each other through avatars. They
can also connect with each other through free voice and text chat. Fashion industry
uses this virtual world to market clothing by selling virtual version of apparel designs.
Technorati: It allows users to collect, highlight, and distribute blog posts. Fashion
industries use this site to post blogs regarding their new products.
Blog her: This community is basically for women and mostly ladies fashion
companies use it to promote sales of their products. This site features fashion section
in which all the information about latest fashion trends are updated at regular basis
and offers a great platform for many fashion brands to get noticed by women bloggers.
Kirtsy: This site again features bookmarking your blog posts. Moreover, it has
separate fashion and style section.
Sugar Loving: It is yet another social bookmarking site. It also features a separate
section for fashion and beauty that attracts people to join it who love fashion.
With the evolution of above mentioned and many more social networking
communities, the sales of fashion products has increased drastically. The data collected by
IMRG (Internet Measurement Research Group) in May 2010 indicated that the on-line sales
of clothes increased by 32% in 2010 as compared to previous year. The report also concluded
that Facebook and Twitter users are 1.5 times more active in doing on-line shopping as
compared to other average users. This has created race among fashion retailers to be aware
and updated with the fast paced digital revolution emerging over Internet. A good interaction
between customers and fashion brands requires immense planning and preparation. Therefore
it is essential for companies planning to go for social media marketing, to define objectives
and expected outcomes.
Facebook offers various features that can be utilized by fashion retailers to promote
sales. It is a great visual stimulation forming a creative context for users including uploading
of images, behind the scenes photo shoots, and snapshots of celebrities spotted in their attire.
It also contains customized tabs for specific brands so that large content can be organized.
Along with being appealing and incentivising, Facebook boxes are used by fans for signing
up to emails and quick links. Facebook also features user generated content that encourages
people to express themselves and exchange their opinions regarding goods and services.
Fashion industry utilize this tool to get reviews of users on its products. For example, Lipsy
makes use of this feature to encourage women to upload their photos in some stylish dresses
and then selects winner among them on a monthly basis and publishes them on their wall of
fame.
Twitter is popular among fashion retailers because it is a good platform for getting
general updates and initiating conversation. It also features competitions and contests
launched by various fashion brands that attract more number of customers. For example,
River Island launched a contest for winning free clothing and accessories and to grab the
attention of customers, posted on its wall “don't forget to tweet #riverislandgfw before 5 pm
for your chance to win this dress from the GFW boutique”. 'Retweets' feature provided by
Twitter brings more and more user to post comments or blogs and is a great way of expanding
social network and more importantly it is totally viral. Another method of displaying fashion
clothing on Twitter is to broadcast fashion events or premiere shows by uploading pictures. It
offers great benefits to fashion retailers in promoting sales because most of the users are keen
to know about stars, their outfit, designer, where the outfit was purchased from etc rather than
focusing on updates (Brandmovers Europe, 2010).
Role of media in fashion marketing
Selling fashion apparel from designer to retailers or directly to the customers require
certain skills and strategies. Fashion marketing is therefore a skill to communicate about latest
fashion designs in different ways to different target markets to make the consumer aware of
the upcoming fashion designs. With frequently changing fashion trends, it is quiet difficult to
remain updated with the latest fashion trends. Therefore, fashion industry uses various forms
of media to communicate the latest trends to the potential customers. The objective of the
fashion marketing is to catch the attention of consumers in its ever changing world using
communication techniques such as advertising, public relations, and journalism. People
interested in getting fashion related updates often access information through different media
sources.
Amalia Agathou, the Technology Editor of Glamour Magazine in Greece reported that
with increase in the number of mobile users and integration of web technology with mobile
systems, the association of physical world with Internet seems like a natural evolution of
things. For the promotion of sales, most of the fashion brands run for those mobile
applications that combine location, real-time and social characteristics.
People say it very frequently that fashion industry or fashion brands have adopted
social media as the new marketing tool to communicate with its customers with the objective
to reignite brand passion and to win customer loyalty. Fashion brands nowadays are using
social communities such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and many more to develop digital
marketing strategies to promote on-line sales. Macala wright Lee (2009), the CEO of
FaishonablyMarketing.Me stated five ways how social media has affected fashion. These are:
Getting cozy in communities: Until recently social networks were basically used
by brands for one way communication regarding sales and promotions. However,
according to fashion brands, fashion is an experience with very specific feelings and
emotions they hope to create for the wearer. Social networking, forums, wikis, and
blogs are the tools used by these brands to create dialogues with people on line. In
beginning, majority of the industry was uncertain about the returns they will get
from adopting social networking as the marketing media but with the reporting of
positive results of social marketing by American Apparel, TopShop, and other
emerging independent designers, most of the brands and retailers from Sears and
JcPenney to Oscar De La Renta and Louis Vuitton have created several
communities over Internet, the most important of which is Facebook. This has
enabled two-way communication between brand and client and more genuine
interaction and easier discount promotions. At present, Facebook and Twitter are
among the most valuable social networking sites for fashion brands to invigilate
consumer sentiment and thus to provide real-time customer service in the fashion
industry.
Creating niche communities: Now after becoming aware of how to navigate social
media, many of the fashion brands are developing their own social networks or even
invitation-only communities. For example, luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton,
Dolce, & Gabbana, Chanel and Burberry have established their own social
networks or have added social components to their existing web sites. Although,
Facebook and Twitter are the most widely used tools for on-line marketing but more
brand specific social web sites offer more reliability to customers and maximize
user's on-line brand experience. Brand are also involving themselves in partnering
with fashion-oriented websites such as Polyvore and sponsoring branded contests
within the web site's community. These contests provide opportunities to brands to
develop brand affinity among prospective customers and to communicate with
younger generation of shoppers. Some of the examples of niche communities
include Weardrobe, Modepass, and Lookbook.Nu. The owners of these communities
have reported impressive return on investments using these communities and have
made loyal customers.
Embracing mobile applications: Fashion brands have also developed mobile
applications for promoting sales of their product. For example Chanel displays its
runway collections through iPhone applications, applications developed by Gilt
Groupe makes it feasible for users to shop sample sales and to receive alerts as to
when sales are starting. A mobile application launched by StyleCaster allow users to
access style tips, self customize news feed and fashion trends and stores a huge
database of on-line retail catalog of brand name clothing. An interactive application
launched by JustLuxe which is a digital global concierge company, utilizes GOS and
recommends participating restaurants and hotels in the user's area. However, most of
the fashion brands use iPhone applications. Presently, there are 41 fashion related
applications that can be availed by BlackBerry users, most of which deliver articles
and blog posts via RSS.
Style Blogging: The reviewers report on fashion marketing in year 2009 stated that
bloggers had an immense impact on fashion including everything from print
publishing to on-line marketing of brands. At present, one can find thousands of
style-related blogs on web that catch customers attention. People are getting more
and more involved in style blogging to become noticeable figure in the couture
world. For example, Gala Darling, Bryan Boy, Tavi, Satorialist, and Garance Dore
have got recognition from Dolce & Gabanna, Burberry, Alexander McQueen and
leading publications such as Vogue. Moreover, style blogger is an upcoming career
for someone in the fashion industry and therefore interests younger generation.
User generated content: User generated content, from blogs to Facebook photos,
makes a major contribution to the fashion industry in getting product reviews. For
instance, G-Star, a Dutch clothing company launched a social media campaign to
bring reporters to their show that was to be held in the recent New York Fashion
Week. The most significant example of the success of user-generated content is the
weekly trivia contest of the brand Charlotte Russe on Twitter that grab more and
more followers to the website or YouTube with the hope of getting some excellent
prizes. Other example include 'CR Fan of The Week' contest and 'Be The Next
Charlotte Russe Design Star'. Burberry's Art of the Trench site is an excellent
example of the integration of user-generated content and niche network in which
customers are encouraged to upload their pictures wearing Burberry's signature item.
Hitha Prabhakar (2010), the principal of the Style File Group (a retail consulting firm
based in New York City) stated that “social media is the hottest trend in fashion right now”.
She shared her experience of searching for New York Fashion Week on Twitter. She reported
that large number of people were buzzing about the shows of Alexander Wang, Marc Jacobs,
and Rodarte and within half a second she met 43 more tweets. Keeping aside the volume of
people participating in the discussion, the type of people who were actually participating in
the conversation comprised of journalists, fashion incubators, retail gurus and people who
were merely interested in fashion industry. The shocking thing is that so much of people from
varied fields are discussing on the topic that has been ended a week ago and has nothing to do
with any outsider. This gives an idea that till what extent people have got engrossed in social
networking. As an evidence, at present, Stalwarts and luminaries are capitalizing on 400
million Facebook users and 22 million Twitter users. Designer von Furstenberg has been
reported to be one of the most popular designers on Twitter with over 22,000 fans following.
The results of the survey on use of social media in Germany indicated that 60% of the top
fashion brands in Germany use social media for marketing their products. While only 5% of
them use social networking sites such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Corporate blogs
simultaneously but majority of them use Twitter (39%) followed by Youtube (37%), facebook
(28%) and Corporate blogs (12%) (Fischer, 2010).
Case study of Tom Bihn to determine the role of social media in connecting with fans
Tom Bihn is a Seattle-based bag manufacturing company with only 22 staff. The
company is known since more than twenty years for designing and manufacturing high
quality bags. However, the shocking thing is that the showroom/retail store of Tom Bihn in
Seattle is open to public only once in a month. The company do all its marketing exclusively
through website. The company has rich social networking and its social media is flooded with
the photos of bag-toting fanatics and customer experience regarding products throughout the
world. Reasons behind the success of social media of Tom Bihn company include passionate
products and regular updation of social media networks. Also, each media platform of Tom
Bhin contain content different from each other and at the same time are integrated to each
other. It uses various platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs, and Tom Bihn
forums to communicate with customers. The question is that how company designing and
manufacturing of products is influenced by social media. For example, suppose that company
is in the process of designing a new travel bag with camera insert. Now if the response of
customers on Tom Bihn forums and Facebook indicate their high interest in such kind of
design, then company may release that product first. At present, there are 1823 members on
TomBihn.com user forums which include company news, reviews, pictures, video and travel
news. The company's blogs are the main source of company's latest information. It features
everything from e-mail reviews from customers on new product launches to information
regarding products to be launched. The Flickr group of Tom Bihn has more than 115
members. It features photos of people wearing their bags, informative photos such as how
much luggage or items or weight can be fit inside the bag. User comments are other
interesting part of Flickr group. Tom Bhin's fan page on Facebook shows 500 members. It
offers two-way communication between company and members. The Facebook page contain
posts from both fans and company, photo updates of new products, reviews, and shipping
details. It also invites queries of customers or fans they would like to ask the company. Tom
Bihn also upload demo videos of bags on YouTube demonstrating bag's features such as for
what it can be used for, items it can contain, number of compartments, accessories and
material with which the bag is made. Videos are uploaded about every two weeks and most
clips have several hundred views. The Twitter account of Tom Bihn has a well-branded
profile featuring company's logo, product images, and contact information. It is a good mix
of tweets and retweets. The Twitter account of the company contains announcements
regarding new product updates and links and photos from the company's blogs (Betancourt,
2010).
Internet based tools for on-line marketing in fashion industry
Women spend money on purchasing a particular cloth because an Internet website
says that this is the must have item for the fall season or is in the latest trend or a similar
design was wore by a famous actress while walking on the red carpet at the Academy Awards.
All these strategies of marketing by fashion industries are having a great impact on the
fashion sense of women nowadays. These marketing strategies are setting trends for women.
Due to advancement in media and technology, today fashion industry is provided with
numerous resources to interact with consumers and for disposal of products. Information
regarding new trends and photographs of trendy clothes and accessories such as mobiles,
watches, foot wears, goggles, jeweleries, cosmetics, bags, belts etc reach to millions of
women across the world within a second. The eye-catching, colorful, splashy, and popular
websites displaying new fashion trends quickly grab the attention of people to find out what
to wear and what not to. Media has taken the center stage in marketing fashion products.
Watching shows on MTV and other music shows and with increase in the number of award
ceremonies, people are provided with surplus designs of clothes and accessories to select
from. In an Internet article, author Anne Paxton (2001) stated that “Everyone from Gloria
Swanson and Marilyn Monroe, to Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly have helped fashion
influence the public, but the media craze over celebrities is hotter than ever before. TV and
movies have taken center stage when it comes to both entertainment and fashion. Magazines
spend endless ink on what Madonna and Jennifer Lopez wear to award shows.” The strategy
of marketing through media has been proved to be rewarding for both fashion industry and
media as they cash on free items that various designers display.
Mintel (2005) estimated that with growing rate of Internet access in UK (86%) , the
on-line shopping for clothes is expected to rise to 4.1 billion by year 2006. Miranda Brookins
(2009) states that fashion is a popular and competitive industry. With growing competition, it
has become the need of the hour for the clothing designers, jewelery designers, shoe
designers, and boutique owners to find ways to sell their brands. Networking has came up as
the most time-tested and inexpensive means of creatively marketing of products in fashion
industry. It involves either personally interacting with the customers or communicating
through brand ambassadors who can effectively present the features of the products to the
target customers. Celebrities are generally used as the brand ambassadors because of their
publicity. These people when wear products and share positive experiences regarding it, put
great impact on the opinion of the consumers regarding the product.
A 'look book' is another means of creative marketing by fashion industry. These
books display glossy photographs of fashion products with details of potential buyers,
potential customers, contact details, and discounts if any. Social networking and fashion blogs
are the recently growing marketing means used by fashion industry. Social networks and
blogs constitute a large part of the on line community. Due to increase in the time duration
people spend on Internet surfing and its user-friendliness, they are introduced to brands by
reading reviews and blogs of other customers. Bloggers are often involved in tweeting about
the topics on which they discuss in their blogs. This allows fashion marketers to develop a
mutually beneficial and strong relationship with the websites containing blogs related to their
products. It also enables them to know the opinion of customers regarding their products and
what all possible innovations it should undergo to meet the customer's requirement. Indirectly,
these blogs also play an important role in advertising about the fashion products.
Affiliate marketing is another type of Internet-based marketing method in which
customers are drawn towards products due to affiliates' marketing efforts. The concept of
affiliate marketing has led to the emergence of affiliate networks, affiliate management
companies, in-house affiliate managers, specialized third party vendors, and affiliate
publishers who are involved in promoting and marketing of products and services of their
partners. Affiliates often use regular advertising methods such as organic search engine
optimization, e-mail marketing, paid search engine marketing, and display advertising for
marketing products. Affiliates are also known for publishing reviews of products and services
offered by the partner. As compared to search engines, e-mail, and website reference, affiliate
marketing carries a much lower profile but play significant role in e-retailers' marketing
strategies (Affiliate Program Tips for Children's Fashion Industry, 2009)
On-line advertising is another strategy used by fashion industry to market their
products. It includes various strategies such as creating on-line version of the print magazine,
banner ads that are visible first while opening a specific website, appropriately placed
photographs and articles on fashion industry. As reported by fashion industry reviewers and
marketing strategies listed in women's magazines, “Internet has become the billion-dollar
business in today's world” (Industry report). The report also stated that the frequency of
Internet usage by women for buying fashion products is higher than men (51% against 49%).
In United States, maximum women on-line readers tend to visit general interest sites such as
beauty sites, shopping sites, and health sites on the Internet. Therefore, Internet has taken
over the role of magazines in serving customers. Internet media is also used to provide
information regarding press releases, news, and special events related to fashion industry. A
newspaper article from a leading apparel industry newspaper article of Japan (Senken
Shimbun, 2005) indicated that marketing strategy in fashion industry also involves the usage
of terminologies used in modern culture to attract the attention of young women customers.
Virtual Experience based shopping
The recent trend that has been observed in marketing strategies of beauty companies is
to allow customers to purchase product on-line after trying the product virtually. Along with
this facility, these companies provide free of cost make-up education, tips, and tricks to the
customers. The objective of adopting this method is to enrich customers with on-line
shopping experience and at the same time providing them with the conditions and benefits of
in-store shopping. The advantages of virtual experience based shopping is that it capitalizes
on the ever growing on-line users and helps to maintain a better, closer relationship with the
customers. These virtual applications are featured by popular media sites such as Twitter,
Facebook, Myspace and mobile applications. For example,
Mary kay and Estee Lauder launched virtual makeover applications in year 2009. This
application allow users to upload pictures, try company products on their own images
virtually, get professional makeover virtually, and share their new looks with friends.
A campaign named 'Pretty Powerful' launched by Bobbi Brown in January 2010
featured 50 real women undergone makeovers. These women shared their experiences with
using company's products. The specific product is highlighted so that customers can find out
the person with whom they share similar features and what all transformation or style they
should go for and which suits them best so that they can try related products.
Apple Inc. launched 'Makeup & aBeautyPro' as a new iPhone application in year 2009,
which allows customers to upload their own images and try different make-up products on
themselves virtually to determine which product suits them best. It also allows different
fashion brands to launch their own version of this application.
Another example of virtual world include different YouTube videos uploaded by
several brands such as Lush, Iman, MAC and others to make the customer aware of effective
product usage. The videos demonstrate customers how to use different products on different
looks. It provides stepwise instruction for the usage of the product (Pew Internet & American
Life Project Survey, April 2009; Press releases from VatorNews, August 2009; Nielsen Wire,
September 2009; Techcrunchies, October 2009; Cossma, December 2009; WWD Beauty,
October 2009, January 2010; The Economic Times, November 2009; Wal-Mart, October
2009; Mary Kay, November 2009; Estee Lauder, comScore
, September 2008 as cited by Grail Research, 2010)
Internet commentator as the new fashion trend setter (Blogging)
Unlike early times when fashion trends (i.e to decide what is hot to wear in the coming
season) were decided by fashion designers, fashion editors, and buyers, these days public
empowered with the power and speed of Internet have become trend setters. These trends are
being noticed by fashion executives. The popularity of Internet can be realized from the fact
that some sites have 100,000 hits per day. Fashion sites such as 'glam.com',
'fashiontribes.com', 'Face Hunter' and 'Coutorture' have been authorized by many major
fashion shows. Fashion blogging is another emerging phenomenon for discussing, promoting,
and selling fashion brands. Tommye Fitzpatrick (from fashionologie.com) stated that the
benefits of blogs is that it provides quick response to new designer collections and brands
(may be a day or hour). Other benefit of blogging has been given by Kelly Cook and Tina
Craig (from bagsnob.com, a site featuring handbags) as it saves time invested in compilation
of traditional media such as fashion magazines which often came up with the trends when it
was over. Some blogging sites such as 'thesartorialist.blogspot.com' features subjective
commentary on fashion trends. This gives users an idea about how fashion trends have
affected their real life and in return they can also present their opinions on blogs. Blogging as
a medium of communication is more interactive than traditional advertising in communicating
with target audience. It also allow users to read anybody's point of view and to comment
anonymously. This two-way communication channel is widely used by fashion brands
because bloggers and their readers are the target audience for these companies. Moreover,
blogs create such specific niche customers that fashion brands obtain response on their
collections within no time and also cut short advertising for particular blogs. Online boutiques
such as 'activeendeavors.com', 'netaporter.com', 'sakfifthavenue.com' and 'shopbop.com' have
registered advertising space on bagsnob.com. However, blogs are associated with some
drawbacks such as these are being read by different audiences having different styles,
therefore there is equal probability of receiving positive or negative response from the
readers. Many fashion critics agree with the statement that fashion blogs lag behind in terms
of quality, tone, insight, and professionalism. Also, most brands are discussed in blogs
whether they like it or not. Therefore, it is required for brands to do comprehensive research
on a particular blog before advertising. Blogs are also reported to contain inaccurate and
misleading information about products. Like traditional media, there is no standard practice
for blogging, therefore questions regarding their reliability often arises. But, aboveall
drawbacks, blogging has emerged as the potential source for exposing small up-coming
fashion designers. The concept of blogging is so viral that even magazines such as Vogue
have started blogging and labels such as Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent have started using
Internet to enhance their marketing campaigns (Amed, 2007, an on-line fashion commentator
from South China Morning Post).
Usage of mobile applications in fashion industry
Mobile phones have emerged as the potential advertising media for fashion industry to
target potential customers with their messages. Various advantages of using mobile phones for
advertisement over other media types are (Jelassi and Enders, 2004
):
Ubiquitous access: Almost all the mobile phone users always carry their phone with
them which remains switched on most of the times (Balasubramanian, Peterson &
Jarvenpaa, 2002 and Magura 2003)
. Mostly, active users of mobile phone are constituted by teenagers and young users
who explore its applications and keep in contact with their friends and relatives
through SMS (Bughin& Lind 2001)
. The ubiquitous accessibility of mobile phones can be realized by the fact that it can
be accessed anywhere in places such as buses, trains, subways, airports, lounges, in
office or at home etc. The Boston Consulting Group (2000) found out that the most
rewarding time for marketing i.e advertising for a product, promoting sales, and
sending message on mobile phones is the traveling time because users are not
occupied with any other activity during this time and therefore concentrate on the
received messages or advertisements.
Detailed user information: As compared to traditional marketing campaigns, mobile
campaigns can extract more detailed information about each user such as age, sex,
usage profile etc. More information about user allow brands to design campaigns
regarding products and services keeping in mind individual preferences of the user.
Integrated response channel: It offers an interactive platform in which companies
interact directly with users. It also act as a means to turn the existing traditional media
such as TV interactive. For example, assume a case where customer sees
advertisement regarding a particular product on TV and then communicate with the
supplier using mobile phone. This feature of mobile phones also immediate feedback
of customers that is the measure of consumer satisfaction.
Mobile web is the recent trend observed in digital world. Nowadays, most of the
mobile phones are incorporated with cameras, personal computers, traditional fixed line
phones, and e-banking services. With the increase in number of mobile users across the world
and access of WAP on mobile phones, large number of fashion brands, retailers, and
magazines have adopted mobile campaigns, social, and digital media as the advertising
platform. Various mobile applications are being developed with the objective to connect users
to high fashion. These applications are programmed in a way that users can send and receive
invitations regarding fashion events, receive fashion ads, browse through fashion store
inventories of various brands, locate stores, order products and can check for availability, go
through customer reviews on different fashion products and more importantly social
networking to receive feedback on fashion items (Perez, 2010). iPhone mobile applications
are widely used by fashion industry for the purpose of marketing. Presently, iPhone has
captured the maximum of cell phone market due to its huge range of applications. The reason
behind being most popular phone in the world is that Apple's iPhone application is as easy to
access as is making a phone call (Vanchen, 2010). Major iPhone mobile applications that are
used for marketing by fashion retailers are (Indvik, 2010):
Application for Wardrobe Organizer : Like Touch Closet and Gap StyleMixer,
StyleBook application is used for organizing wardrobe and is available for the
payment of $3.99. This application allow users to take pictures of their clothes and
organize them categorically. These pictures can then be collaged to create different
outfits after matching them with respect to color and designs. It also features tool to
erase background images so that clean layered collages can be formed. It also provide
tool for resizing of cloth that is lacked by applications such as Gap StyleMixer and
Vogue Stylist. Other than this, it features calendar that retains details of outfits that the
user has planned to wear ahead of the present time. It can also be used to track what
all outfits have been worn by the user before to prevent repetition.
Application for Style Inspiration : WhoWhatWear application has been brought to
iPhone by magazine like style blog 'WhoWhatWear' and is considered as the best
application for style inspiration by the users. It provides style inspiration as are
available on runways, magazines, style blogs etc but in a editorially concise way. New
style trends report is also accompanied with styling suggestions as are present in
magazines such as Harper's Bazaar, Elle and Lucky but free of cost.
Shopping Application: Lucky at Your Service is considered as the best shopping
application. This application launched by Lucky magazine allow users to search for
best suited apparels, accessories, and beauty products. It also allow users to access
fashion stores on-line and in some cases can access nearby retail outlets using GPS.
The best part of this application is that it is completely free of cost. However, in spite
of having some extraordinary features, 'Lucky at Your Service' application suffers
from a drawback that its selection is limited to editor's recommendations. Therefore,
to access greater on-line fashion inventory, ShopStyle's application is the suitable one
and moreover is available for free. It compiles products from over hundred on-line
fashion retailers such as Neiman Marcus and Bluefly, to let users to access variety of
brands, styles, prices, and color to select the one that is suitable in every respect.
Lustr Fashion Finder is another free application for users who prefer to search for
apparels on retail stores and e-commerce sites. This application uses GPS to provide
users with the information regarding upcoming sales and promotions in nearby
location. It also allow users to search for fashion items in neighborhood and sale
timelines. This application is also programmed to send exclusive promotion messages
to its users. Gilt's iPhone application allow users to have a look at site's luxury flash
sales that are held at different times throughout the week. Ebay Fashion's application
are also used for fashion related shopping by the users. Other iPhone shopping
applications include Rugby ralph lauren make Your Own, Yoox, Net-a-Porter, and
iShoes. Rugby application allow users to self-design, share, and purchase rugby shirt,
polo shirt or sweater. Yoox and Net-a-Porter offers user to browse their extensive
catalogs and iShoes features photographs of more than 50,000 shoes but lacks
browsing options.
Application for Style Advice: The best iPhone application for getting style advice
'Glamour' magazine's Ask a Stylist application. It is very easy to use, just the user is
required to take snapshot of the item, upload it to the application and post a question.
The answer to the question with advice is send by Glamour to the user within fifteen
minutes. Other application for getting style suggestions is Fashism that allow users to
request opinions from site's on-line community.
Application for connecting with individual designers: Almost all of the
applications launched by individual designers so far have similar features. Most of
them features photographs and video footage, running season catalog in the form of
movie or slideshow, a news feed for updating customers with their latest designs, short
history about the designer and store locator. Applications launched by Gucci and
Donna Karan exhibit some novel features such as it allow users to book appointments
with personal shoppers, to read famous designer's interviews such as Susan Sarandon,
and to read Karan's answer to style questions posted by fans. Ralph Lauren's
application is strikingly different from other designer's applications. It features
unusual behind-the-scenes videos and pictures of design and casting process, archival
runway footage and interview with the designer. Other applications of individual
designers include Diane von Furstenberg, Chanel, and D&G.
Application for getting fashion news updates: The iPhone application launched by
Style.com is considered to be the best application for being updated with the latest
fashion news. It offers one of the quickest means to access videos and photos on
mobile during Fashion week. This application also features archival footage,
international party coverage, and website's style blog. Another application for fashion
updates is Fashion News that contains a pre-loaded list of fashion and beauty blogs in
which user can add, remove or can off-line read the blogs.
Conclusion
The review of recent trends in fashion industry indicated complete transformation in the way
clothes are designed, marketed, and purchased. Internet has greatly impacted the fashion
marketing strategies in last few years. Fashion retailers have shifted their marketing strategies
from brand centric to consumer centric. Social media on Internet has made instant access of
fashion advice and style possible. Internet also allows shopping of fashion clothing and
accessories anywhere anytime and also provides medium to young generation to set their own
trends sitting at home. Aggregator websites facilitate customers to go through large number of
fashion styles cataloged in on-line stores simultaneously and to compare quality and prices.
On-line fashion sites such as 'shopstyle.com', 'covet.com', 'myshape.com' etc offers cross
shoping facility by brand name and shopping of clothes according to individual's size.
Runway looks which were earlier seen by media and buyers only after six to eight months of
its launch, now can be seen on-line within a minute after designer fashion shows or snaps of
celebrities in new designer outfits. The influence of internet in fashion industry is so
penetrating that famous fashion magazines have also adopted on-line advertising as the
marketing tool. Moreover, Internet offers a interactive platform for two-way communication
between users and fashion brands. It allows users to not only to read information regarding
fashion but also to participate in it. This feasibility is credited to the emergence of social
networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, MySpace, Foursquare etc. Users can
comment or share their opinions on blogs posted by brands with the objective to get reviews
on launched products. It also enables user to create their own fashion spread, upload photos
wearing different outfits and to participate in different fashion campaigns and contests
organized by fashion brands to win exciting gifts. These social networking sites also let users
to access fashion news, fashion advice, and interviews of famous fashion designers. Facebook
and Twitter are the most popular social networking sites used by fashion industry and also
popular among users as it features numerous applications. YouTube is yet another platform
for fashion designers to display their designs and for fashion retailers to upload videos
demonstrating benefits, features and usage instructions to the users. Other Internet based tools
used by fashion industry to market its products include creating niche communities, blogging,
on-line advertising, affiliate marketing, and virtual experience-based shopping. With the
development of mobile web technology, many fashion brands, retailers, and magazines have
opted mobile campaigns, social and digital media for advertisements. Moreover, with the
development of Apple's iPhone system supporting various applications, large number of
mobile applications are increasingly being launched by various fashion brands, retailers, and
individual designers to promote their sales and to provide users with the facility to access
fashion styles, stores, and shopping through mobiles. Applications such as 'StyleBook', 'Touch
Closet', and 'Gap StyleMixer' are used for wardrobe organiation i.e to self create outfits.
Application such as 'WhoWhatWear' features style inspirations available at runways,
magazines, and style blogs. There exists huge number of shopping applications such as
'Lusky at Your Service', 'ShopStyle', 'Lustr Fashion Finder'. 'Ebay Fashion' etc. The most
popular iPhone application for getting style advice is 'Ask a Stylist' application launched by
Glamour magazine. 'Style.com' and 'Fashion News' are the applications used for accessing
fashion news updates.
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Overview of fashion industry
The growth of fashion industry across the globe in recent past is considered to be relatively
unusual because till earlier twentieth century it was dominated by only a fraction of total
population comprising of kings, queens, aristocrats, and other important people. With
advancements in technology and increasing globalization, great trends have been observed in
fashion industry. The major change is that fashion marketplace is now accessible and open to
everyone providing range of products for each and every class of the society.
There are various ways of defining fashion. It can be defined as the reflection of time
or the utilitarian clothing of war times to the yuppie look of buoyant 1980s or it can be
reflection of individuals. Clothes often represent age, gender, lifestyle, and personality.
Fashion represents beauty, color and overall interest of the society. It is a means by which
people express themselves physically. The rate of change of fashion trends and style is
relatively much faster than society and cultures. Since fashion is both a reflective and creative
industry, therefore fashion marketers put continuous efforts to be aware of the factors
affecting the fashion market and to design their marketing strategies accordingly.
Technology has always played an important role in mass production methods. With
the advancement in technology, 1930 onwards people were able to buy copies of designer
clothes from high street stores within a week of the end of fashion shows. The media
explosion in 1970s influenced the fashion industry up to large extent. People became more
selective in wearing those dresses that best suits to them according to their color complexion
and overall personality. The magazines and books provided people with the ideas to create
their own style. Designer styles no longer dictated the fashion market rather designs
developed by young people in towns and cities under the name of 'Street fashion styles'
dominated fashion market.
Due to the fragmentation of consumer clothing styles, demographic changes,
availability of high level of stocks and explosion in the number of varied styles and fabrics,
mass market for clothing has undergone fragmentation and textile companies are adopting the
concept of short-run manufacturing. The UK textile industry in early years was blamed for
being dictatorial and short of choice. Retailing market for clothes was monopolized by only a
few large groups who were supposed to be market leaders in the wholesale market of
garments and fabrics. Retailers in those times, focused only on basic styles with less fashion
content and companies like Marks and Spencer were known for making quality clothes with
high-specifications of fabrics used. Manufacturers such as Courtaulds and Carrington Viyella
produced fabrics for only a specific group of people. Such a scheme of manufacturing in
textile industry proved to be uneconomical in case of small orders in those cases where much
design details were required. Since then, many small retailers such as Benetton, George, Zara,
H&M, Matalan, Primark, and TK Maxx came into being, thus flooding the textile market with
varied designs and range, and cheap garments.
As reported by Glyn Barlow (2010), the director of UK based on-line fashion store,
UK fashion industry is estimated to be of worth £44.5 billion. Dating back to 1960s, about
10% of total household expenditure was constituted by expenses on clothing and footwear.
But the scenario has been completely changed by now; due to the prevailing discounted prices
and flooding of market with Chinese imports of fashion products, only 6% of household
expenditure is spent on purchasing fashion related products. Moreover, during the period
2001-05, the average price of clothing and footwear fell by 14.4% while the cost of living was
risen by 12.6%. Since early years, Marks and Spencer has been the market leader in sale of
high street fashion but recently faced strong competition from fashion specialists such as
Primark and TK Maxx who sells clothes at discounted prices. Only wealthy customers go for
shopping in exclusive high-fashion brands such as Prada (Italy), Chole (France), Hugo Boss
(Germany), Burberry (UK), and Donna Karan (U.S)but majority of the population buy
clothes and footwear from discounted stores. The rise in imports has led to the shut down of
UK apparel manufacturing. Now, the clothes manufacturing companies in UK mainly
concentrate on producing specialist fashion clothing and luxury products for wealthy
consumer. Integration of manufacturers and retailers is the continuous trend that is being
observed since last few years in UK. The top fashion retailers of UK such as Next, Marks and
Spencer, and Arcadia (Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, BHS etc.) are all involved in manufacturing
and retailing business of their own fashion brands. However few brands such as Nike, Adidas,
and Reebok prefer specialist retailers instead of undergoing vertical integration. Barlow
(2010) concluded that UK fashion market nowadays are driven by full-price retailers and
discounters instead of manufacturers. Full-price retailers often capitalize on the demands of
young generation such as couture-house designs, quality fabrics, and individual styles known
as 'fast fashion' by providing costumes for limited duration before new styles are released in
the market .
Evolution of social media in fashion industry
Fashion industry has leaped from traditional fashion spectrum to digital world in last
few years. Gone are the days when people used to look at fashion magazines to know about
latest fashion trends or to fix new styles. The introduction of various social networking
platforms have enabled communication between brands and fellow fans. Top nine fashion
social media sites that are widely used across the world are (Ceri, 2009) :
Twitter: It is the social networking site that is gaining popularity at rapid rate in UK
with 4.43 million unique users (as reported in year 2008, December). It offers a
platform to companies to interact with potential customers, make friends and to post
blogs. Every time a message is posted, it is send to all your friends via Twitterfeed.
Facebook: It is the most popular social networking website. It allows users to make
friends, share photos, and information.
Flickr: It provides platform for displaying pictures of clothing. Most of the brands use
this site to display apparel designs and other fashion related products tagged with their
brand name. It also features some great clothing, fashion and jewellery related
communities that customers can join.
Second Life: It is a virtual world that has been from the software based on 3-D
modeling and provide platform to users to socialize with each other. It also features
client program' that enables users to interact with each other through avatars. They
can also connect with each other through free voice and text chat. Fashion industry
uses this virtual world to market clothing by selling virtual version of apparel designs.
Technorati: It allows users to collect, highlight, and distribute blog posts. Fashion
industries use this site to post blogs regarding their new products.
Blog her: This community is basically for women and mostly ladies fashion
companies use it to promote sales of their products. This site features fashion section
in which all the information about latest fashion trends are updated at regular basis
and offers a great platform for many fashion brands to get noticed by women bloggers.
Kirtsy: This site again features bookmarking your blog posts. Moreover, it has
separate fashion and style section.
Sugar Loving: It is yet another social bookmarking site. It also features a separate
section for fashion and beauty that attracts people to join it who love fashion.
With the evolution of above mentioned and many more social networking
communities, the sales of fashion products has increased drastically. The data collected by
IMRG (Internet Measurement Research Group) in May 2010 indicated that the on-line sales
of clothes increased by 32% in 2010 as compared to previous year. The report also concluded
that Facebook and Twitter users are 1.5 times more active in doing on-line shopping as
compared to other average users. This has created race among fashion retailers to be aware
and updated with the fast paced digital revolution emerging over Internet. A good interaction
between customers and fashion brands requires immense planning and preparation. Therefore
it is essential for companies planning to go for social media marketing, to define objectives
and expected outcomes.
Facebook offers various features that can be utilized by fashion retailers to promote
sales. It is a great visual stimulation forming a creative context for users including uploading
of images, behind the scenes photo shoots, and snapshots of celebrities spotted in their attire.
It also contains customized tabs for specific brands so that large content can be organized.
Along with being appealing and incentivising, Facebook boxes are used by fans for signing
up to emails and quick links. Facebook also features user generated content that encourages
people to express themselves and exchange their opinions regarding goods and services.
Fashion industry utilize this tool to get reviews of users on its products. For example, Lipsy
makes use of this feature to encourage women to upload their photos in some stylish dresses
and then selects winner among them on a monthly basis and publishes them on their wall of
fame.
Twitter is popular among fashion retailers because it is a good platform for getting
general updates and initiating conversation. It also features competitions and contests
launched by various fashion brands that attract more number of customers. For example,
River Island launched a contest for winning free clothing and accessories and to grab the
attention of customers, posted on its wall “don't forget to tweet #riverislandgfw before 5 pm
for your chance to win this dress from the GFW boutique”. 'Retweets' feature provided by
Twitter brings more and more user to post comments or blogs and is a great way of expanding
social network and more importantly it is totally viral. Another method of displaying fashion
clothing on Twitter is to broadcast fashion events or premiere shows by uploading pictures. It
offers great benefits to fashion retailers in promoting sales because most of the users are keen
to know about stars, their outfit, designer, where the outfit was purchased from etc rather than
focusing on updates (Brandmovers Europe, 2010).
Role of media in fashion marketing
Selling fashion apparel from designer to retailers or directly to the customers require
certain skills and strategies. Fashion marketing is therefore a skill to communicate about latest
fashion designs in different ways to different target markets to make the consumer aware of
the upcoming fashion designs. With frequently changing fashion trends, it is quiet difficult to
remain updated with the latest fashion trends. Therefore, fashion industry uses various forms
of media to communicate the latest trends to the potential customers. The objective of the
fashion marketing is to catch the attention of consumers in its ever changing world using
communication techniques such as advertising, public relations, and journalism. People
interested in getting fashion related updates often access information through different media
sources.
Amalia Agathou, the Technology Editor of Glamour Magazine in Greece reported that
with increase in the number of mobile users and integration of web technology with mobile
systems, the association of physical world with Internet seems like a natural evolution of
things. For the promotion of sales, most of the fashion brands run for those mobile
applications that combine location, real-time and social characteristics.
People say it very frequently that fashion industry or fashion brands have adopted
social media as the new marketing tool to communicate with its customers with the objective
to reignite brand passion and to win customer loyalty. Fashion brands nowadays are using
social communities such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and many more to develop digital
marketing strategies to promote on-line sales. Macala wright Lee (2009), the CEO of
FaishonablyMarketing.Me stated five ways how social media has affected fashion. These are:
Getting cozy in communities: Until recently social networks were basically used
by brands for one way communication regarding sales and promotions. However,
according to fashion brands, fashion is an experience with very specific feelings and
emotions they hope to create for the wearer. Social networking, forums, wikis, and
blogs are the tools used by these brands to create dialogues with people on line. In
beginning, majority of the industry was uncertain about the returns they will get
from adopting social networking as the marketing media but with the reporting of
positive results of social marketing by American Apparel, TopShop, and other
emerging independent designers, most of the brands and retailers from Sears and
JcPenney to Oscar De La Renta and Louis Vuitton have created several
communities over Internet, the most important of which is Facebook. This has
enabled two-way communication between brand and client and more genuine
interaction and easier discount promotions. At present, Facebook and Twitter are
among the most valuable social networking sites for fashion brands to invigilate
consumer sentiment and thus to provide real-time customer service in the fashion
industry.
Creating niche communities: Now after becoming aware of how to navigate social
media, many of the fashion brands are developing their own social networks or even
invitation-only communities. For example, luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton,
Dolce, & Gabbana, Chanel and Burberry have established their own social
networks or have added social components to their existing web sites. Although,
Facebook and Twitter are the most widely used tools for on-line marketing but more
brand specific social web sites offer more reliability to customers and maximize
user's on-line brand experience. Brand are also involving themselves in partnering
with fashion-oriented websites such as Polyvore and sponsoring branded contests
within the web site's community. These contests provide opportunities to brands to
develop brand affinity among prospective customers and to communicate with
younger generation of shoppers. Some of the examples of niche communities
include Weardrobe, Modepass, and Lookbook.Nu. The owners of these communities
have reported impressive return on investments using these communities and have
made loyal customers.
Embracing mobile applications: Fashion brands have also developed mobile
applications for promoting sales of their product. For example Chanel displays its
runway collections through iPhone applications, applications developed by Gilt
Groupe makes it feasible for users to shop sample sales and to receive alerts as to
when sales are starting. A mobile application launched by StyleCaster allow users to
access style tips, self customize news feed and fashion trends and stores a huge
database of on-line retail catalog of brand name clothing. An interactive application
launched by JustLuxe which is a digital global concierge company, utilizes GOS and
recommends participating restaurants and hotels in the user's area. However, most of
the fashion brands use iPhone applications. Presently, there are 41 fashion related
applications that can be availed by BlackBerry users, most of which deliver articles
and blog posts via RSS.
Style Blogging: The reviewers report on fashion marketing in year 2009 stated that
bloggers had an immense impact on fashion including everything from print
publishing to on-line marketing of brands. At present, one can find thousands of
style-related blogs on web that catch customers attention. People are getting more
and more involved in style blogging to become noticeable figure in the couture
world. For example, Gala Darling, Bryan Boy, Tavi, Satorialist, and Garance Dore
have got recognition from Dolce & Gabanna, Burberry, Alexander McQueen and
leading publications such as Vogue. Moreover, style blogger is an upcoming career
for someone in the fashion industry and therefore interests younger generation.
User generated content: User generated content, from blogs to Facebook photos,
makes a major contribution to the fashion industry in getting product reviews. For
instance, G-Star, a Dutch clothing company launched a social media campaign to
bring reporters to their show that was to be held in the recent New York Fashion
Week. The most significant example of the success of user-generated content is the
weekly trivia contest of the brand Charlotte Russe on Twitter that grab more and
more followers to the website or YouTube with the hope of getting some excellent
prizes. Other example include 'CR Fan of The Week' contest and 'Be The Next
Charlotte Russe Design Star'. Burberry's Art of the Trench site is an excellent
example of the integration of user-generated content and niche network in which
customers are encouraged to upload their pictures wearing Burberry's signature item.
Hitha Prabhakar (2010), the principal of the Style File Group (a retail consulting firm
based in New York City) stated that “social media is the hottest trend in fashion right now”.
She shared her experience of searching for New York Fashion Week on Twitter. She reported
that large number of people were buzzing about the shows of Alexander Wang, Marc Jacobs,
and Rodarte and within half a second she met 43 more tweets. Keeping aside the volume of
people participating in the discussion, the type of people who were actually participating in
the conversation comprised of journalists, fashion incubators, retail gurus and people who
were merely interested in fashion industry. The shocking thing is that so much of people from
varied fields are discussing on the topic that has been ended a week ago and has nothing to do
with any outsider. This gives an idea that till what extent people have got engrossed in social
networking. As an evidence, at present, Stalwarts and luminaries are capitalizing on 400
million Facebook users and 22 million Twitter users. Designer von Furstenberg has been
reported to be one of the most popular designers on Twitter with over 22,000 fans following.
The results of the survey on use of social media in Germany indicated that 60% of the top
fashion brands in Germany use social media for marketing their products. While only 5% of
them use social networking sites such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Corporate blogs
simultaneously but majority of them use Twitter (39%) followed by Youtube (37%), facebook
(28%) and Corporate blogs (12%) (Fischer, 2010).
Case study of Tom Bihn to determine the role of social media in connecting with fans
Tom Bihn is a Seattle-based bag manufacturing company with only 22 staff. The
company is known since more than twenty years for designing and manufacturing high
quality bags. However, the shocking thing is that the showroom/retail store of Tom Bihn in
Seattle is open to public only once in a month. The company do all its marketing exclusively
through website. The company has rich social networking and its social media is flooded with
the photos of bag-toting fanatics and customer experience regarding products throughout the
world. Reasons behind the success of social media of Tom Bihn company include passionate
products and regular updation of social media networks. Also, each media platform of Tom
Bhin contain content different from each other and at the same time are integrated to each
other. It uses various platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs, and Tom Bihn
forums to communicate with customers. The question is that how company designing and
manufacturing of products is influenced by social media. For example, suppose that company
is in the process of designing a new travel bag with camera insert. Now if the response of
customers on Tom Bihn forums and Facebook indicate their high interest in such kind of
design, then company may release that product first. At present, there are 1823 members on
TomBihn.com user forums which include company news, reviews, pictures, video and travel
news. The company's blogs are the main source of company's latest information. It features
everything from e-mail reviews from customers on new product launches to information
regarding products to be launched. The Flickr group of Tom Bihn has more than 115
members. It features photos of people wearing their bags, informative photos such as how
much luggage or items or weight can be fit inside the bag. User comments are other
interesting part of Flickr group. Tom Bhin's fan page on Facebook shows 500 members. It
offers two-way communication between company and members. The Facebook page contain
posts from both fans and company, photo updates of new products, reviews, and shipping
details. It also invites queries of customers or fans they would like to ask the company. Tom
Bihn also upload demo videos of bags on YouTube demonstrating bag's features such as for
what it can be used for, items it can contain, number of compartments, accessories and
material with which the bag is made. Videos are uploaded about every two weeks and most
clips have several hundred views. The Twitter account of Tom Bihn has a well-branded
profile featuring company's logo, product images, and contact information. It is a good mix
of tweets and retweets. The Twitter account of the company contains announcements
regarding new product updates and links and photos from the company's blogs (Betancourt,
2010).
Internet based tools for on-line marketing in fashion industry
Women spend money on purchasing a particular cloth because an Internet website
says that this is the must have item for the fall season or is in the latest trend or a similar
design was wore by a famous actress while walking on the red carpet at the Academy Awards.
All these strategies of marketing by fashion industries are having a great impact on the
fashion sense of women nowadays. These marketing strategies are setting trends for women.
Due to advancement in media and technology, today fashion industry is provided with
numerous resources to interact with consumers and for disposal of products. Information
regarding new trends and photographs of trendy clothes and accessories such as mobiles,
watches, foot wears, goggles, jeweleries, cosmetics, bags, belts etc reach to millions of
women across the world within a second. The eye-catching, colorful, splashy, and popular
websites displaying new fashion trends quickly grab the attention of people to find out what
to wear and what not to. Media has taken the center stage in marketing fashion products.
Watching shows on MTV and other music shows and with increase in the number of award
ceremonies, people are provided with surplus designs of clothes and accessories to select
from. In an Internet article, author Anne Paxton (2001) stated that “Everyone from Gloria
Swanson and Marilyn Monroe, to Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly have helped fashion
influence the public, but the media craze over celebrities is hotter than ever before. TV and
movies have taken center stage when it comes to both entertainment and fashion. Magazines
spend endless ink on what Madonna and Jennifer Lopez wear to award shows.” The strategy
of marketing through media has been proved to be rewarding for both fashion industry and
media as they cash on free items that various designers display.
Mintel (2005) estimated that with growing rate of Internet access in UK (86%) , the
on-line shopping for clothes is expected to rise to 4.1 billion by year 2006. Miranda Brookins
(2009) states that fashion is a popular and competitive industry. With growing competition, it
has become the need of the hour for the clothing designers, jewelery designers, shoe
designers, and boutique owners to find ways to sell their brands. Networking has came up as
the most time-tested and inexpensive means of creatively marketing of products in fashion
industry. It involves either personally interacting with the customers or communicating
through brand ambassadors who can effectively present the features of the products to the
target customers. Celebrities are generally used as the brand ambassadors because of their
publicity. These people when wear products and share positive experiences regarding it, put
great impact on the opinion of the consumers regarding the product.
A 'look book' is another means of creative marketing by fashion industry. These
books display glossy photographs of fashion products with details of potential buyers,
potential customers, contact details, and discounts if any. Social networking and fashion blogs
are the recently growing marketing means used by fashion industry. Social networks and
blogs constitute a large part of the on line community. Due to increase in the time duration
people spend on Internet surfing and its user-friendliness, they are introduced to brands by
reading reviews and blogs of other customers. Bloggers are often involved in tweeting about
the topics on which they discuss in their blogs. This allows fashion marketers to develop a
mutually beneficial and strong relationship with the websites containing blogs related to their
products. It also enables them to know the opinion of customers regarding their products and
what all possible innovations it should undergo to meet the customer's requirement. Indirectly,
these blogs also play an important role in advertising about the fashion products.
Affiliate marketing is another type of Internet-based marketing method in which
customers are drawn towards products due to affiliates' marketing efforts. The concept of
affiliate marketing has led to the emergence of affiliate networks, affiliate management
companies, in-house affiliate managers, specialized third party vendors, and affiliate
publishers who are involved in promoting and marketing of products and services of their
partners. Affiliates often use regular advertising methods such as organic search engine
optimization, e-mail marketing, paid search engine marketing, and display advertising for
marketing products. Affiliates are also known for publishing reviews of products and services
offered by the partner. As compared to search engines, e-mail, and website reference, affiliate
marketing carries a much lower profile but play significant role in e-retailers' marketing
strategies (Affiliate Program Tips for Children's Fashion Industry, 2009)
On-line advertising is another strategy used by fashion industry to market their
products. It includes various strategies such as creating on-line version of the print magazine,
banner ads that are visible first while opening a specific website, appropriately placed
photographs and articles on fashion industry. As reported by fashion industry reviewers and
marketing strategies listed in women's magazines, “Internet has become the billion-dollar
business in today's world” (Industry report). The report also stated that the frequency of
Internet usage by women for buying fashion products is higher than men (51% against 49%).
In United States, maximum women on-line readers tend to visit general interest sites such as
beauty sites, shopping sites, and health sites on the Internet. Therefore, Internet has taken
over the role of magazines in serving customers. Internet media is also used to provide
information regarding press releases, news, and special events related to fashion industry. A
newspaper article from a leading apparel industry newspaper article of Japan (Senken
Shimbun, 2005) indicated that marketing strategy in fashion industry also involves the usage
of terminologies used in modern culture to attract the attention of young women customers.
Virtual Experience based shopping
The recent trend that has been observed in marketing strategies of beauty companies is
to allow customers to purchase product on-line after trying the product virtually. Along with
this facility, these companies provide free of cost make-up education, tips, and tricks to the
customers. The objective of adopting this method is to enrich customers with on-line
shopping experience and at the same time providing them with the conditions and benefits of
in-store shopping. The advantages of virtual experience based shopping is that it capitalizes
on the ever growing on-line users and helps to maintain a better, closer relationship with the
customers. These virtual applications are featured by popular media sites such as Twitter,
Facebook, Myspace and mobile applications. For example,
Mary kay and Estee Lauder launched virtual makeover applications in year 2009. This
application allow users to upload pictures, try company products on their own images
virtually, get professional makeover virtually, and share their new looks with friends.
A campaign named 'Pretty Powerful' launched by Bobbi Brown in January 2010
featured 50 real women undergone makeovers. These women shared their experiences with
using company's products. The specific product is highlighted so that customers can find out
the person with whom they share similar features and what all transformation or style they
should go for and which suits them best so that they can try related products.
Apple Inc. launched 'Makeup & aBeautyPro' as a new iPhone application in year 2009,
which allows customers to upload their own images and try different make-up products on
themselves virtually to determine which product suits them best. It also allows different
fashion brands to launch their own version of this application.
Another example of virtual world include different YouTube videos uploaded by
several brands such as Lush, Iman, MAC and others to make the customer aware of effective
product usage. The videos demonstrate customers how to use different products on different
looks. It provides stepwise instruction for the usage of the product (Pew Internet & American
Life Project Survey, April 2009; Press releases from VatorNews, August 2009; Nielsen Wire,
September 2009; Techcrunchies, October 2009; Cossma, December 2009; WWD Beauty,
October 2009, January 2010; The Economic Times, November 2009; Wal-Mart, October
2009; Mary Kay, November 2009; Estee Lauder, comScore
, September 2008 as cited by Grail Research, 2010)
Internet commentator as the new fashion trend setter (Blogging)
Unlike early times when fashion trends (i.e to decide what is hot to wear in the coming
season) were decided by fashion designers, fashion editors, and buyers, these days public
empowered with the power and speed of Internet have become trend setters. These trends are
being noticed by fashion executives. The popularity of Internet can be realized from the fact
that some sites have 100,000 hits per day. Fashion sites such as 'glam.com',
'fashiontribes.com', 'Face Hunter' and 'Coutorture' have been authorized by many major
fashion shows. Fashion blogging is another emerging phenomenon for discussing, promoting,
and selling fashion brands. Tommye Fitzpatrick (from fashionologie.com) stated that the
benefits of blogs is that it provides quick response to new designer collections and brands
(may be a day or hour). Other benefit of blogging has been given by Kelly Cook and Tina
Craig (from bagsnob.com, a site featuring handbags) as it saves time invested in compilation
of traditional media such as fashion magazines which often came up with the trends when it
was over. Some blogging sites such as 'thesartorialist.blogspot.com' features subjective
commentary on fashion trends. This gives users an idea about how fashion trends have
affected their real life and in return they can also present their opinions on blogs. Blogging as
a medium of communication is more interactive than traditional advertising in communicating
with target audience. It also allow users to read anybody's point of view and to comment
anonymously. This two-way communication channel is widely used by fashion brands
because bloggers and their readers are the target audience for these companies. Moreover,
blogs create such specific niche customers that fashion brands obtain response on their
collections within no time and also cut short advertising for particular blogs. Online boutiques
such as 'activeendeavors.com', 'netaporter.com', 'sakfifthavenue.com' and 'shopbop.com' have
registered advertising space on bagsnob.com. However, blogs are associated with some
drawbacks such as these are being read by different audiences having different styles,
therefore there is equal probability of receiving positive or negative response from the
readers. Many fashion critics agree with the statement that fashion blogs lag behind in terms
of quality, tone, insight, and professionalism. Also, most brands are discussed in blogs
whether they like it or not. Therefore, it is required for brands to do comprehensive research
on a particular blog before advertising. Blogs are also reported to contain inaccurate and
misleading information about products. Like traditional media, there is no standard practice
for blogging, therefore questions regarding their reliability often arises. But, aboveall
drawbacks, blogging has emerged as the potential source for exposing small up-coming
fashion designers. The concept of blogging is so viral that even magazines such as Vogue
have started blogging and labels such as Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent have started using
Internet to enhance their marketing campaigns (Amed, 2007, an on-line fashion commentator
from South China Morning Post).
Usage of mobile applications in fashion industry
Mobile phones have emerged as the potential advertising media for fashion industry to
target potential customers with their messages. Various advantages of using mobile phones for
advertisement over other media types are (Jelassi and Enders, 2004
):
Ubiquitous access: Almost all the mobile phone users always carry their phone with
them which remains switched on most of the times (Balasubramanian, Peterson &
Jarvenpaa, 2002 and Magura 2003)
. Mostly, active users of mobile phone are constituted by teenagers and young users
who explore its applications and keep in contact with their friends and relatives
through SMS (Bughin& Lind 2001)
. The ubiquitous accessibility of mobile phones can be realized by the fact that it can
be accessed anywhere in places such as buses, trains, subways, airports, lounges, in
office or at home etc. The Boston Consulting Group (2000) found out that the most
rewarding time for marketing i.e advertising for a product, promoting sales, and
sending message on mobile phones is the traveling time because users are not
occupied with any other activity during this time and therefore concentrate on the
received messages or advertisements.
Detailed user information: As compared to traditional marketing campaigns, mobile
campaigns can extract more detailed information about each user such as age, sex,
usage profile etc. More information about user allow brands to design campaigns
regarding products and services keeping in mind individual preferences of the user.
Integrated response channel: It offers an interactive platform in which companies
interact directly with users. It also act as a means to turn the existing traditional media
such as TV interactive. For example, assume a case where customer sees
advertisement regarding a particular product on TV and then communicate with the
supplier using mobile phone. This feature of mobile phones also immediate feedback
of customers that is the measure of consumer satisfaction.
Mobile web is the recent trend observed in digital world. Nowadays, most of the
mobile phones are incorporated with cameras, personal computers, traditional fixed line
phones, and e-banking services. With the increase in number of mobile users across the world
and access of WAP on mobile phones, large number of fashion brands, retailers, and
magazines have adopted mobile campaigns, social, and digital media as the advertising
platform. Various mobile applications are being developed with the objective to connect users
to high fashion. These applications are programmed in a way that users can send and receive
invitations regarding fashion events, receive fashion ads, browse through fashion store
inventories of various brands, locate stores, order products and can check for availability, go
through customer reviews on different fashion products and more importantly social
networking to receive feedback on fashion items (Perez, 2010). iPhone mobile applications
are widely used by fashion industry for the purpose of marketing. Presently, iPhone has
captured the maximum of cell phone market due to its huge range of applications. The reason
behind being most popular phone in the world is that Apple's iPhone application is as easy to
access as is making a phone call (Vanchen, 2010). Major iPhone mobile applications that are
used for marketing by fashion retailers are (Indvik, 2010):
Application for Wardrobe Organizer : Like Touch Closet and Gap StyleMixer,
StyleBook application is used for organizing wardrobe and is available for the
payment of $3.99. This application allow users to take pictures of their clothes and
organize them categorically. These pictures can then be collaged to create different
outfits after matching them with respect to color and designs. It also features tool to
erase background images so that clean layered collages can be formed. It also provide
tool for resizing of cloth that is lacked by applications such as Gap StyleMixer and
Vogue Stylist. Other than this, it features calendar that retains details of outfits that the
user has planned to wear ahead of the present time. It can also be used to track what
all outfits have been worn by the user before to prevent repetition.
Application for Style Inspiration : WhoWhatWear application has been brought to
iPhone by magazine like style blog 'WhoWhatWear' and is considered as the best
application for style inspiration by the users. It provides style inspiration as are
available on runways, magazines, style blogs etc but in a editorially concise way. New
style trends report is also accompanied with styling suggestions as are present in
magazines such as Harper's Bazaar, Elle and Lucky but free of cost.
Shopping Application: Lucky at Your Service is considered as the best shopping
application. This application launched by Lucky magazine allow users to search for
best suited apparels, accessories, and beauty products. It also allow users to access
fashion stores on-line and in some cases can access nearby retail outlets using GPS.
The best part of this application is that it is completely free of cost. However, in spite
of having some extraordinary features, 'Lucky at Your Service' application suffers
from a drawback that its selection is limited to editor's recommendations. Therefore,
to access greater on-line fashion inventory, ShopStyle's application is the suitable one
and moreover is available for free. It compiles products from over hundred on-line
fashion retailers such as Neiman Marcus and Bluefly, to let users to access variety of
brands, styles, prices, and color to select the one that is suitable in every respect.
Lustr Fashion Finder is another free application for users who prefer to search for
apparels on retail stores and e-commerce sites. This application uses GPS to provide
users with the information regarding upcoming sales and promotions in nearby
location. It also allow users to search for fashion items in neighborhood and sale
timelines. This application is also programmed to send exclusive promotion messages
to its users. Gilt's iPhone application allow users to have a look at site's luxury flash
sales that are held at different times throughout the week. Ebay Fashion's application
are also used for fashion related shopping by the users. Other iPhone shopping
applications include Rugby ralph lauren make Your Own, Yoox, Net-a-Porter, and
iShoes. Rugby application allow users to self-design, share, and purchase rugby shirt,
polo shirt or sweater. Yoox and Net-a-Porter offers user to browse their extensive
catalogs and iShoes features photographs of more than 50,000 shoes but lacks
browsing options.
Application for Style Advice: The best iPhone application for getting style advice
'Glamour' magazine's Ask a Stylist application. It is very easy to use, just the user is
required to take snapshot of the item, upload it to the application and post a question.
The answer to the question with advice is send by Glamour to the user within fifteen
minutes. Other application for getting style suggestions is Fashism that allow users to
request opinions from site's on-line community.
Application for connecting with individual designers: Almost all of the
applications launched by individual designers so far have similar features. Most of
them features photographs and video footage, running season catalog in the form of
movie or slideshow, a news feed for updating customers with their latest designs, short
history about the designer and store locator. Applications launched by Gucci and
Donna Karan exhibit some novel features such as it allow users to book appointments
with personal shoppers, to read famous designer's interviews such as Susan Sarandon,
and to read Karan's answer to style questions posted by fans. Ralph Lauren's
application is strikingly different from other designer's applications. It features
unusual behind-the-scenes videos and pictures of design and casting process, archival
runway footage and interview with the designer. Other applications of individual
designers include Diane von Furstenberg, Chanel, and D&G.
Application for getting fashion news updates: The iPhone application launched by
Style.com is considered to be the best application for being updated with the latest
fashion news. It offers one of the quickest means to access videos and photos on
mobile during Fashion week. This application also features archival footage,
international party coverage, and website's style blog. Another application for fashion
updates is Fashion News that contains a pre-loaded list of fashion and beauty blogs in
which user can add, remove or can off-line read the blogs.
Conclusion
The review of recent trends in fashion industry indicated complete transformation in the way
clothes are designed, marketed, and purchased. Internet has greatly impacted the fashion
marketing strategies in last few years. Fashion retailers have shifted their marketing strategies
from brand centric to consumer centric. Social media on Internet has made instant access of
fashion advice and style possible. Internet also allows shopping of fashion clothing and
accessories anywhere anytime and also provides medium to young generation to set their own
trends sitting at home. Aggregator websites facilitate customers to go through large number of
fashion styles cataloged in on-line stores simultaneously and to compare quality and prices.
On-line fashion sites such as 'shopstyle.com', 'covet.com', 'myshape.com' etc offers cross
shoping facility by brand name and shopping of clothes according to individual's size.
Runway looks which were earlier seen by media and buyers only after six to eight months of
its launch, now can be seen on-line within a minute after designer fashion shows or snaps of
celebrities in new designer outfits. The influence of internet in fashion industry is so
penetrating that famous fashion magazines have also adopted on-line advertising as the
marketing tool. Moreover, Internet offers a interactive platform for two-way communication
between users and fashion brands. It allows users to not only to read information regarding
fashion but also to participate in it. This feasibility is credited to the emergence of social
networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, MySpace, Foursquare etc. Users can
comment or share their opinions on blogs posted by brands with the objective to get reviews
on launched products. It also enables user to create their own fashion spread, upload photos
wearing different outfits and to participate in different fashion campaigns and contests
organized by fashion brands to win exciting gifts. These social networking sites also let users
to access fashion news, fashion advice, and interviews of famous fashion designers. Facebook
and Twitter are the most popular social networking sites used by fashion industry and also
popular among users as it features numerous applications. YouTube is yet another platform
for fashion designers to display their designs and for fashion retailers to upload videos
demonstrating benefits, features and usage instructions to the users. Other Internet based tools
used by fashion industry to market its products include creating niche communities, blogging,
on-line advertising, affiliate marketing, and virtual experience-based shopping. With the
development of mobile web technology, many fashion brands, retailers, and magazines have
opted mobile campaigns, social and digital media for advertisements. Moreover, with the
development of Apple's iPhone system supporting various applications, large number of
mobile applications are increasingly being launched by various fashion brands, retailers, and
individual designers to promote their sales and to provide users with the facility to access
fashion styles, stores, and shopping through mobiles. Applications such as 'StyleBook', 'Touch
Closet', and 'Gap StyleMixer' are used for wardrobe organiation i.e to self create outfits.
Application such as 'WhoWhatWear' features style inspirations available at runways,
magazines, and style blogs. There exists huge number of shopping applications such as
'Lusky at Your Service', 'ShopStyle', 'Lustr Fashion Finder'. 'Ebay Fashion' etc. The most
popular iPhone application for getting style advice is 'Ask a Stylist' application launched by
Glamour magazine. 'Style.com' and 'Fashion News' are the applications used for accessing
fashion news updates.
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