Chloé, a hymn to romance
Create in 1952 by Gaby Aghion, Chloé is one of the first luxury ready-to-wear houses. The brand-style is both bohemian and romantic reflecting the image of its creator. For more than sixty years, the artistic direction of Chloé was led by a number of important figures in fashion such as Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Hanna McGibbon and actually Clare Waight Keller. The brand is exclusively dedicated for women and proposes lines of ready-to-wear, accessories and fragrances. Chloé also has a more accessible brand “See by Chloé” and recently the brand created a childrenswear line for girls. Since Clare Waight Keller became the artistic director of Chloé the “#ChloeGIRLS” was launched. The aim of this hashtag is to gather the Chloé community which is represented by freedom, lightness and femininity. As Clare said “Chloé speaks to me on so many levels. I love the free-spirited, effortless attitude of the Chloé girl”. For sure, we can feel this spirit through the creation of the brand but also in its social media communication.
Chloé is present on the majority of social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. On Instagram, the brand brings in the most of its followers, more than 2.9 million. The brand posts at least one photo per day on this platform. The content varies (e.g. products, model, influencers, videos) but they are all about the same topic so that they remain coherent. For Facebook, the brand has also a large community with almost 1.9 million followers. For this network descriptions of pictures are the most detailed. It is often the same content as Instagram, but the brand creates albums to post pictures about the same topic together. Publications are less often.
Also, on Facebook, the brand created several sections for its community like “Events”, “Locations” to find stores or “Chloé Fragrances”. On twitter, the brand has 393 000 followers, the community is a lot less important than Facebook and Twitter, as is often the case for a fashion luxury brand. On this network, Chloé posts exactly the same pictures than Instagram with the same text. The only things that varies is the direct link for e-shop to buy the products that appear.
Moreover, the “#ChloeGIRLS” is written for each post in all social media. It is an easy way to find the brand posts, but not only that. Indeed, it is important to notice that “Chloé” is a French first name which may make the research of content about the brand more difficult. So, with this hashtag you can easily find the posts done by the brand’s followers.
Let’s discuss the engagement and response of the brand. Even if, Instagram represents the majority of its followers, it seems that Chloé is more engaged with Facebook. On this channel Chloé creates special content with the different sections, the brand proposes contests and also has a direct link to communicate with the Chloé consumer service. Moreover, in Facebook, the brand posts several videos such as campaigns and fashions show. We do not see this content on Instagram or Twitter. So this not the priority of the brand. Most of the question regarding engagement remains unanswered.
The audience engagement is not really high. In effect, for the three social medias studied the total of engagement is 0,54% thanks to Instagram with a rate of 0,90%. Follow the number of followers on each social media, Facebook is the second with a rate of 0,10% and Twitter the last one with 0,03% of engagement. Even if the rate this low, it is not an exception for the luxury industry and Chloé is not the worst. In this category, the audience engagement is 1% on average for Instagram so Chloé is not far away. Moreover, it is important to notice the fact that it is more difficult to have a good audience engagement if you have a lot of followers. For Facebook, the average rate is 0,1% such as Chloé and for Twitter it’s 0,04%.
Vanessa Bruno and Isabel Marant are two competitors of Chloé especially due to their bohemian and romantic style. Like you can see in the table above I have decided to compare the social media audience of Chloé with those brands. Surprisingly, for google returns, the first brand is Vanessa Bruno with almost 59 million results. 12 million more results than Chloé. It is a very different if you compare this to the number of followers that those brands have. Even in their audience engagement, Vanessa Bruno has a higher rate than Chloé. Indeed, the total audience engagement is 0,70% for Vanessa Bruno vs. 0,54%. Except the fact that Vanessa Bruno has less followers than Chloé so it is easier to have a better rate, Vanessa seems to have a good strategy for social media communication. The first thing that Vanessa did that Chloé did not is to answer the questions of their followers. For each question, in each post, Vanessa responds to its audience and this is a good way to engage followers. Moreover, the brand often posts interactive and special events contents (e.g. for Mother Day, Summer Holiday).
For Isabel Marant the social media communication seems more difficult. Number of followers and google returns are really less important than Chloé and Vanessa Bruno. Only 10% of proxy digital share of voice. Even if the number of Isabel Marants’ followers is low compared to its competitors, the audience engagement is only 0,46%. One of the first explanations for this is the fact that Isabel Marant has a Twitter account but never posts on it. In addition, on Instagram the brand only uses hashtags and on Facebook the text is kept short. We also notice a lake of coherence in their publications.
Even if Chloé seems to know its audience well, the brand could still increase its audience engagement for example by answering the questions of their followers, organizing more contests and posting daily content. The advantage of Chloé social media communication, and I hope it will stay like this forever, is the fact that when you see a publication by the brand you can feel its bohemian and romantic spirit.
By Agathe Le Couteulx
This post was created as part of the Global Luxury Management Program at the NC State Poole School of Management. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
