This Week in Social Media & Style | Week 4/52
Published in
4 min readJan 27, 2017
Style and Design Trends
- Millenials are turning to mysticism and fantasy in a quest for personalization, ,meaning, and escapism. This consumer trend is showing up most evidently in the beauty industry. — Via Glossy
- Pierpaolo Piccioli’s 2017 spring couture line for Maison Valentino, the designer’s first solo show, was a celebration of diaphanous gowns in muted, monochromatic neutrals. At first glance, the floating, sot-drape gowns may look simple, but upon further inspection, one realizes that these truly are exquisite studies in luxurious minimalism, where artful and expert-level craftsmanship result in inventive, cerebral, and other-worldly creations of contemporary evening wear. — WWD
- In a joyful and unlikely move, Coach and Rodarte are set to collaborate on a capsule collection, launching in April of 2017. The fifteen piece collection will include one handbag, and will otherwise focus solely on inventive apparel pieces. The collaboration is another of the recent mashups the American leathergoods brand has started to pursue. In addition to this recent news shared by Rodarte, the Coach brand has also announced an upcoming partnership with Generation-Z pop star Selena Gomez. The campaign will run across print, stores, and social, and will also include a Coach capsule collection designed in partnership with Gomez and Stuart Vevers, Coach’s creative director. These inventive moves are a string of many initiatives that will attempt to add elan, creative appeal, and a joyful sense of quiet disruption to a brand that has previously boasted a classic; if not somewhat trend-averse, image. — WWD
Social Media + Marketing News & Trends
- Despite the hype, an average of 30% of all brand accounts on Snapchat remain inactive on this most ephemeral of platforms, according to industry research firm L2. Many believe this may have to do with the trepidation of brands to share real-time, un-polished content, and the assumption that creating content will stretch slim social media management teams too thin. However, experts continue to remain apostles of the emerging platform, if only for the reason that the video-based app helps brands to become more comfortable with shooting vertical video and more adroit with communicating multi-dimensional stories. Subscription-based cosmetic company Birchbox has found much success on the platform with developing content that feels playful and casual, while offering an engaging look at the brand and a more dynamic, rich consumer experience with the Birchbox product, culture, and brand initiatives. — Digiday
- Fashion brands are now using Messaging service ‘What’sApp’ as a strategic, cheap, and direct way to reach consumers where they already are — talking online with their friends. According to a recent article published by Glossy, “ Brands like Diesel, Burberry, Clarks, Agent Provocateur and Kenneth Cole have begun testing the space, which attracts global users to data-free messaging groups, for new marketing and customer service initiatives. It’s still early days for brands on WhatsApp — most are approaching it as an experimental platform — but with retailer mobile app traction on the decline and Facebook Messenger still building out its offering to be more brand-friendly, quick adapters of the chat-driven technology could find themselves at an advantage. […] WhatsApp’s one-on-one conversations can also funnel important customer insight back to the retailers. Clarks, an American shoe brand, launched a WhatsApp campaign back in 2015, “From Rats to Rudeboys.” The campaign was anchored around three characters telling the product design story of the Clarks desert boot, and WhatsApp users could start a chat conversation with one of the three characters to ask questions and receive updates from the brand. Clarks’ goal was to learn more about the people who were interested in the campaign, and the boot: Each conversation came with a disclaimer telling the person on the other end that their responses would be stored and used by Clarks.” — Via Glossy
- Here’s how five brands connected Facebook Messenger chatbots to their larger social initiatives. — Via Digiday
- Five underrated social media tasks to accomplish each day that will grow your community size and engagement level. — Via Social Media Today
- Eight hashtag mistakes to avoid. — Via Social Media Today
- “In NewStore’s “State of Mobile Retail” report, researchers at the firm used five measures to gauge how companies are performing in the mobile retail market. After crunching 500 datapoints for each of the 112 brands reviewed, the overall “mobile achievement grade” for the retail industry came in with a lackluster C-minus. (NewStore is a mobile retail platform provider that was established by Stephan Schambach, founder of Intershop and Demandware and who is considered by the industry as a pioneer in e-commerce.) The five areas measured were the key touchpoints along the customer’s journey: mobile experience; search and share; personalization and engagement; path to purchase, and fulfillment. The researchers discovered that while 78 percent of brands don’t offer a “shoppable” mobile app, there are several retailers and brands that are “top of class” in how they use apps. These included Under Armour, Barneys New York, Lush and Zara. Overall, though, the market has a lot of catching up to do. The report noted that the main takeaway “from our research is that while consumers are living in a mobile-first world, the retail industry clings perilously to the past.” — WWD
