Fashion branding and marketing for H&M, Topshop, Nike

H&M

This year’s H&M collaboration was almost everywhere on social. The image below demonstrates just how wide its reach was. so What was H&M’s technique?

Upon analysing social data, those mention and looking at how this year’s Balmain collaboration differs from last year’s Alexander Wang collection, we noticed that H&M have switched it up somewhat by relying heavily on influencer marketing. H&M identified their target audience and picked up on the key influencers in the fashion world, and by incorporating them within the Balmain x H&M campaign have created this massive global presence.

Instead of focusing on bloggers and social media influencers (whose impact on a campaign can be massive), Balmain x H&M have chosen to utilise Olivier Rousteing’s A-list phonebook to include some really famous faces in their marketing campaign. Top model/reality TV star/ all-round A-lister Kendall Jenner, popular supermodel Gigi Hadid and Victoria’s Secret Angel Jourdan Dunn were specifically chosen to be the main faces of the campaign

So. . .what impact have these famous faces this had on the campaign?

Looking at volume metrics, we can see just how much of a buzz each of these celebrities created on Twitter and Facebook alone, to assess whether or not the inclusion of such celebrities has been relevant for the campaign.

Overall number of posts referring to H&M and Balmain: 553,130

that mention Kendall Jenner: 116,450 posts

How many of that mention Gigi Hadid: 87,632 posts

How many of that mention Jourdan Dunn: 51,836 posts

As shown, each celebrity generates a huge amount of social buzz which increases massively by the day, demonstrating that H&M have in fact targeted the correct audience by choosing to include them in the campaign.

Audience Demographics

To break this down further again, we can look at the demographics of the audience speaking about the campaign on social. This allows us to really analyse how successful the Balmain campaign has been in engaging an audience. The first volume chart depicts the general H&M audience, and the second represents those who have aligned themselves with the Balmain collection.

The Balmain campaign was effective in appealing to a wider audience. It allowed for H&M to attract more of the older generation, without losing touch with its younger fans. Thus, we can suggest that H&M’s influencers targeted the correct audience.

MORE H&M CAMPAIGNS:

https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/h-m-a-magical-holiday-forsman-bodenfors/1451470
H&M's new holiday ad is a modern-day fairy tale starring Nicki Minaj, Jesse Williams and John Turturro. But rather than a magical forest, the story is set in the suburbs with contemporary interpretations of fairy tale creatures. The campaign will air in 67 markets worldwide. It was created by Karin Frisell, Anna Qvennerstedt and Johan Holmström at Forsman & Bodenfors and directed by Johan Renck through Rockson. H&M’s 2016 Christmas ad was directed by Wes Anderson and created by Adam & Eve/DDB, the agency that was also behind the brand’s karaoke spot starring Naomi Campbell earlier this year. 

https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/h-m-the-secret-life-flowers-bazmark/1448303
The director Baz Luhrmann has created a fantastical world of eternal spring to launch H&M's collection with fashion designer Erdem Moralioglu. In the lavish short film, two young men arrive at a mysterious manor house, meet a host of colourful characters and find themselves embroiled in a love triangle. Luhrmann, known for Moulin Rouge! and Romeo + Juliet, said he wanted the H&M film "to be like a whole movie". It is the latest high-profile film collaboration from H&M after projects featuring Naomi Campbell, Wes Anderson and David Beckham.

Topshop

 

The UK’s Topshop has unveiled its spring/summer 2017 campaign images with 17-year-old Brit model Lily Jean Harvey fronting the campaign.

The use of Harvey is a change of direction for the fashion retail giant with the model being a relative unknown, despite being listed as one to watch by Vogue last autumn. She goes against the current trend for using celebrity offspring or models with massive social media reach (she has fewer than 2,000 Instagram followers).

But Topshop creative director Kate Phelan said: “Finding an unknown girl to call our own is so exciting. [She] has star quality; she’s a real, natural beauty and a completely new face for a new season.”

Harvey, who has has previously been used by Miss Vogue, has an on-trend look with Brooke Shields-style heavy eyebrows. She was used by Topshop for its Unique catwalk show during London Fashion Week last September.

The new campaign was shot by Clara Balzary and Stef Mitchell in both Los Angeles and London and features a selection of new-in casualwear pieces in LA and dressier daywear on London’s streets. There is also a campaign video in 30- and 60-second versions.

Topshop has transformed drastically over the decade into a cool, affordable high street brand that not only teenagers follow, but also famous fashion bloggers, models, and celebrities. It has become “the” place to go for clothes with individuality and glamour.

During the 2015 London Fashion Week, Topsh2op collaborated with Twitter and launched the #LIVETRENDS real-time campaign where billboards were set up in major UK cities, each near a Topshop store. From front row fashion Tweets, Topshop determines which styles are most in-trend, and recommends collections available in stores that customers could purchase right away. For the first time in history, customers were inspired to shop by real-time data collected by the brand.

“Topshop is proud of the award-winning, innovative partnerships that have driven the democratisation of London Fashion Week over the last three years, and this season is no different.” – Sheena Sauvaire, Global Marketing & Communications Director, Topshop

RESULTS:

• 3.8 + million customers engaged using #LIVETRENDS
• 75% sales uplift on featured products
• 11:1 return on its investment
• awarded the Out of Home and Integrated Campaign at the 2015 CLIO Image Awards
• awarded Digital Marketing Campaign of the Year at the 2015 B&T Retail Week Tech & eComm Awards

NIKE

The Chance
Another of Nike’s recurring campaigns is The Chance, which gives youngsters around the world the chance to win a place in The Nike Academy for a year.

The campaign first ran for six months in 2010 through Nikefootball.com, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.Participants created more than 17,000 Facebook pages which reached an additional 5.5 million fans. Furthermore, 2,000 user-generated videos and 28,000 player posts were created and the brand received 3.4 million YouTube views.

Free Running

In order to promote its new Free Running shoes Nike launched a social campaign that challenged runners to clock their fastest time over two miles using Nike+. To add a sense of fun to the competition the company tied it into an original karaoke song, with the idea being that a strong runner should be able to sing while running. The song, ‘I would run to you,’ could be downloaded by using the Shazam mobile app on a two-minute short film that was released as part of the campaign.It’s safe to say Nike’s at the top of its game right now. Not only does it own 48% of the American athletic footwear market, but its share of the basketball footwear market is at a staggering 96%!

What sort of marketing strategy has Nike used to achieve and maintain this level of market dominance?

Sure, the high-profile celebrity endorsements probably play a role, but for the most part, Nike’s dominance comes from far more than just throwing money at athletes, actors, and artists.
1. Meaningful story – They’re selling more than a product; they’re selling aspiration. Nike didn’t build its loyal fan base by harping on its iconic waffle shoes.In fact, Nike’s ads rarely, if ever, mention their products at all. What their ads do, and do well, is induce emotion in the consumer through ‘emotional branding’. Each ad is carefully crafted to evoke particular feelings and needs in the consumer that can only be satisfied by Nike products.

It does this by playing up the traditional narrative of a hero who works hard to overcome adversity, ultimately emerging victorious against a terrible foe.

But it isn’t a literal enemy being fought in this case. Nike takes the analogy to a level far more relatable: the ‘terrible foe’ is the voice in your head that tells you, “You can’t”. To that, the organization says: “Just do it.”

https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/nike-marketing-strategy/