DIGITAL

Luxury Social Media Fatigue?

by

Rony Zeidan

|

This is the featured image caption
Credit: This is the featured image credit

Rony Zeidan, founder & chief creative officer of RO New York Inc, wonders if social media actually increases sales, or is it merely a mechanism to generate traffic?

Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.

PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.

In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”

The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris

Rony Zeidan, founder & chief creative officer of RO New York Inc, wonders if social media actually increases sales, or is it merely a mechanism to generate traffic?

Tom Ford on Facebook

Rony Zeidan, founder & chief creative officer of RO New York Inc, wonders if social media actually increases sales, or is it merely a mechanism to generate traffic?

The past 5 to 6 years have seen a boom in Luxury brands adopting social media as a valid communication platform to communicate directly with their consumers. An approach that took some time to take place, but has become the norm in a lot of company practices, from Louis Vuitton, Chopard, Tom Ford, Wally, Girard-Perregaux to Tory Burch and J.Crew.

There comes a time when any trend, fab, or hype turns into disinterest, over exposure, and plain simply what’s become known as a fatigue; when social media takes on the task to further promote this trend, how long before we encounter social media fatigue, and does social media actually increase sales, or is it merely a mechanism to generate traffic?

The content hereafter is based on observation taken from 4 social media platforms: Facebook (800 million active users), Urban Daddy (average 200,000 visitors), the cool hunter (average 45,000 visitors), and Thrillist (average 300,000 visitors).

“ Social media implants the luxury brand/product in the minds of consumers before they even know that they desire it ”

The last 3 mentioned are trend editorial sites, who capture the coolest, most interesting new finds across several categories… usually the less the amount of visitors, the more luxury and design oriented the content is. They all hit a broad audience and do generate a lot of traffic to the mentioned online sites, but how effective are they when it comes to sales? Word of mouth, absolutely viable, but actual dollar returns, that can sometimes prove to be a little underwhelming.

Social media seems to implant the luxury brand/product in the minds of the consumer before they even know that they desire it. It generates awareness, and builds a level of confidence with the consumer in knowing about the product. It might not directly send consumers out to the store to buy luxury goods instantly but it influences their final decision.

As Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S, it makes sense that people are turning to Facebook for their luxury advice. While luxury brands may feel that less traditional forms of media, such as fan pages and blogs, cheapens their image, utilizing these resources helps them to reach the next generation.

Tory Burch’s website, combining all brand news, collections, Tory’s personal blog, a Twitter feed and e-Commerce

The next generation is heavily motivated by social media, and is the upcoming target audience for big brands. While having 583,279 “likes” on a Facebook Page may not directly generate sales, it helps create desire – that feeling of “when I can afford that”. By encouraging this, brands are already lining up their future customers. Moreover, they are maintaining the “desire” that surrounds all luxury brands, ensuring that those who currently can afford these goods feel envied and luxurious.

What it comes down to is that people trust people. The very fact that makes us sceptical of the Internet – that “just anyone” can write a review – is in reality what makes us rely on it. Enough “just anyone’s” agreeing on the same thing becomes adequate validation, and so the reach and plethora of information that the Internet has, makes it a valuable tool for marketers everywhere.

Marketing doesn’t always correlate easily to direct sales. We have become too dependent on measuring ROI from Internet Marketing. Marketers need to understand and respect the long-term value of building a brand through the web and just because you don’t see instant revenue from a marketing campaign doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t be effective.

“ A consequence of this raised awareness, constant traffic and opinionated chatter is that sales are indeed inevitably affected… in the longterm ”

Advertising has been traditionally about making products desirable, about infiltrating the minds of people to create needs and fuel desire from one particular source. It communicates with consumers, promotes products, creates brand identity, and generates brand awareness.

Social media, blogs and email blasts achieve this and more. By infiltrating the various close-nit networks of consumers. They do what advertisements do but furthermore are platforms for consumers to communicate it amongst themselves, creating a self-generated form of advertising denuded of formality or imposition.

And so, in answer to the question of the hour: a consequence of this raised awareness, constant traffic and opinionated chatter is that sales are indeed inevitably affected… in the longterm.

Whether it be because our brains have been filled with brands we might otherwise have never heard of in our lifetime; because what someone said about a brand in a blog is suddenly triggered when we see that brand logo, product or store; or because a need is created when we constantly read good reviews about products we had never even imagined; we suddenly find ourselves possessed by the burning desire to buy, buy, buy, justifying it because we think we have made a well-researched, educated and independently-formed decision.

Rony Zeidan
Rony Zeidan

Founder / Chief Creative Officer

I am a creative director and brand developer specializing in the fields of Fashion, Beauty, Hospitality, and Luxury. Driven by desire to bridge my past client experience (Ralph Lauren, L’Oreal, LVMH) of nurturing and protecting a brand’s core equities, with the agency proficiency of communicating those core attributes, I established RO NEW YORK; As a boutique full service agency, we limit our client base to a select group that allows us to personalize each experience

DIGITAL

Luxury Social Media Fatigue?

by

Rony Zeidan

|

This is the featured image caption
Credit : This is the featured image credit

Rony Zeidan, founder & chief creative officer of RO New York Inc, wonders if social media actually increases sales, or is it merely a mechanism to generate traffic?

Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.

PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.

In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”

The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris

Rony Zeidan, founder & chief creative officer of RO New York Inc, wonders if social media actually increases sales, or is it merely a mechanism to generate traffic?

Tom Ford on Facebook

Rony Zeidan, founder & chief creative officer of RO New York Inc, wonders if social media actually increases sales, or is it merely a mechanism to generate traffic?

The past 5 to 6 years have seen a boom in Luxury brands adopting social media as a valid communication platform to communicate directly with their consumers. An approach that took some time to take place, but has become the norm in a lot of company practices, from Louis Vuitton, Chopard, Tom Ford, Wally, Girard-Perregaux to Tory Burch and J.Crew.

There comes a time when any trend, fab, or hype turns into disinterest, over exposure, and plain simply what’s become known as a fatigue; when social media takes on the task to further promote this trend, how long before we encounter social media fatigue, and does social media actually increase sales, or is it merely a mechanism to generate traffic?

The content hereafter is based on observation taken from 4 social media platforms: Facebook (800 million active users), Urban Daddy (average 200,000 visitors), the cool hunter (average 45,000 visitors), and Thrillist (average 300,000 visitors).

“ Social media implants the luxury brand/product in the minds of consumers before they even know that they desire it ”

The last 3 mentioned are trend editorial sites, who capture the coolest, most interesting new finds across several categories… usually the less the amount of visitors, the more luxury and design oriented the content is. They all hit a broad audience and do generate a lot of traffic to the mentioned online sites, but how effective are they when it comes to sales? Word of mouth, absolutely viable, but actual dollar returns, that can sometimes prove to be a little underwhelming.

Social media seems to implant the luxury brand/product in the minds of the consumer before they even know that they desire it. It generates awareness, and builds a level of confidence with the consumer in knowing about the product. It might not directly send consumers out to the store to buy luxury goods instantly but it influences their final decision.

As Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S, it makes sense that people are turning to Facebook for their luxury advice. While luxury brands may feel that less traditional forms of media, such as fan pages and blogs, cheapens their image, utilizing these resources helps them to reach the next generation.

Tory Burch’s website, combining all brand news, collections, Tory’s personal blog, a Twitter feed and e-Commerce

The next generation is heavily motivated by social media, and is the upcoming target audience for big brands. While having 583,279 “likes” on a Facebook Page may not directly generate sales, it helps create desire – that feeling of “when I can afford that”. By encouraging this, brands are already lining up their future customers. Moreover, they are maintaining the “desire” that surrounds all luxury brands, ensuring that those who currently can afford these goods feel envied and luxurious.

What it comes down to is that people trust people. The very fact that makes us sceptical of the Internet – that “just anyone” can write a review – is in reality what makes us rely on it. Enough “just anyone’s” agreeing on the same thing becomes adequate validation, and so the reach and plethora of information that the Internet has, makes it a valuable tool for marketers everywhere.

Marketing doesn’t always correlate easily to direct sales. We have become too dependent on measuring ROI from Internet Marketing. Marketers need to understand and respect the long-term value of building a brand through the web and just because you don’t see instant revenue from a marketing campaign doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t be effective.

“ A consequence of this raised awareness, constant traffic and opinionated chatter is that sales are indeed inevitably affected… in the longterm ”

Advertising has been traditionally about making products desirable, about infiltrating the minds of people to create needs and fuel desire from one particular source. It communicates with consumers, promotes products, creates brand identity, and generates brand awareness.

Social media, blogs and email blasts achieve this and more. By infiltrating the various close-nit networks of consumers. They do what advertisements do but furthermore are platforms for consumers to communicate it amongst themselves, creating a self-generated form of advertising denuded of formality or imposition.

And so, in answer to the question of the hour: a consequence of this raised awareness, constant traffic and opinionated chatter is that sales are indeed inevitably affected… in the longterm.

Whether it be because our brains have been filled with brands we might otherwise have never heard of in our lifetime; because what someone said about a brand in a blog is suddenly triggered when we see that brand logo, product or store; or because a need is created when we constantly read good reviews about products we had never even imagined; we suddenly find ourselves possessed by the burning desire to buy, buy, buy, justifying it because we think we have made a well-researched, educated and independently-formed decision.

Rony Zeidan
Rony Zeidan

Founder / Chief Creative Officer

I am a creative director and brand developer specializing in the fields of Fashion, Beauty, Hospitality, and Luxury. Driven by desire to bridge my past client experience (Ralph Lauren, L’Oreal, LVMH) of nurturing and protecting a brand’s core equities, with the agency proficiency of communicating those core attributes, I established RO NEW YORK; As a boutique full service agency, we limit our client base to a select group that allows us to personalize each experience

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