The role of fashion influencers in the luxury business

“If you’re looking for an ironclad way to seize the attention of your ideal audience, you should look no further than someone who already has their ear.”

Luxury brands have conventionally relied upon advertising strategies that revel in exclusivity, bask in the brand heritage and rely on a loyal group of clientele. With the purchasing power transferred to Millennials and Gen Z, luxury brands have started actively seeking ways to engage and involve this newer audience falling in the aspiring segment. For these digital natives, social media and its citizens are deeply relevant, almost essential.

Social media influencers are the new authority for luxury branding. A recent study shows that 92% of consumers trust an influencer’s opinion more than a traditional celebrity endorsement. Only 1% of millennials trust advertisements. However, 33% of them trust blog reviews for their purchases. Around 40% of people reported that they purchased a product online after seeing it used by an influencer on YouTube, Instagram, or Twitter. According to a study by Tomoson, influencer marketing yields a $6.50 return on investment for every dollar spent.

Since influencers are perceived to be more genuine, they form sincere personal bonds with their followers. In turn, the followers truly have faith in the influencer because they have witnessed the journey of the person. This unique relationship provides an opportunity for the luxury brands to connect with their target audience globally in a more authentic and trustworthy manner. Although luxury brands have been slow in the adoption of influencer marketing, they are now increasingly devoting larger proportions of their marketing budgets to it.

There are a few broad principles to keep in mind while investing in influencers. Let’s take a look at them.

1.  Its not about the numbers but the philosophy

The most important is to realise that a top-tier Instagram celebrity with a greater number of followers is not necessarily the best person to approach. It is more valuable to partner with an influencer who shares the same brand ethos and spirit as the image of the luxury brand. Influencers have forged effective relationships with their audiences. This aids in a seamless narration of the brand story. The fundamental wavelengths between the brand’s identity and the influencer’s personality should match. Otherwise, it’ll lead to a new meaning because of flawed messaging that could damage communication and character of both the parties involved.

It is also important to understand their niche and the demographic of their followers. After all, it is them that the brand is targeting for communication. A thorough research in the influencer’s background must be conducted to understand the icon. It is essential to know whether s/he has worked with the brand’s competitors in the past.

Natasha Noel is an influencer yogi with 250k followers on Instagram and 486k subscribers on YouTube. An advocate of healing and self-love, Natasha is a fearless woman trying to spread positivity and kindness via her creations of yoga and fitness videos. Puma, a bridge-to-luxury brand, appointed Natasha as their Puma Fitness Influencer. Both the brands complemented each others’ characters and the partnership worked.

2. Mindful blend of influencers

As discussed above, higher numbers does not guarantee optimal results. In fact, influencer marketing experts at mOOnshot digital recommend their luxury clients to work with mid-tier influencer — followers in the 6 digits — over top-tier influencers. Mid-tier influencers are more passionate about their content and deeply connected with their social media family. Their posts are perceived to be more reliable and credible by the customers. Collaborating with ten mid-term influencers with a combined reach of 1,000,000 followers will develop better brand communication because of more traction, engagement, conversions, clicks and a more authentic narrative, rather than only one popular influencer with 1,000,000 followers.

The advent of influencer marketing pioneered bot-enabled marketing tools that help gain followers and likes. Although luxury brands would not fall for such phoney tactics, it sometimes gets difficult to pinpoint influencers whose reach is organic and not inflated. Especially while interacting with mid-tier or micro influencers who may have engaged in this to launch themselves.

3.   Original content creation is the new luxury branding 101

Influencers are real people with whom audiences can connect with. Each person looks at the world in their own unique way. Influencers showcase their ideas and emotions through their interesting and quirky creations that some others may also vibe with. Influencers are essentially thought leaders who drive conversations through their endeavours. It’s original work they put forward that helps bond with more people leading to an increase in their followers numbers. The incorporation of the luxury brand in their communication naturally delivers brand messages in an innovative and advantageous manner.

Although brands cannot have full control over the conversation delivered through influencer marketing, they guide the visual and tonal sense of the communication according to brand values and aesthetics. The brands also have to take a call on the kind of relationship they want to build with an influencer. If they want long-term brand ambassadors or influencers who will publish single posts. “Capsule” collections with influencers or co-branded products within the framework of long-term partnerships are also launched by some brands.

Pari Dust, a blog by the former architect and interior designer Pari Ehsaan, is a blog that uniquely showcases fashion-meets-art aesthetic. Her approach creates dialogue to heighten the surrounding art installation context. Her fluid, experimental and architectural style has garnered a huge Instagram following. She has established a long-term relationship with Chanel and explains, “The opportunity to dream up an editorial with Chanel Couture every season” is a career highlight.

Image Source : instagram.com/paridust/

4. Choose Instagram

At the mention of social media influencers, the first network that pops up in minds is Instagram. As a visual medium focusing on beautiful and aesthetic visuals, it is the most popular platforms. With 800 million active users, it drives desires and establishes aspirations. Within the world of luxury, Instagram is by far the dominant channel -  72% of users said they have made fashion, beauty or style-related purchases after seeing something on the app, proving its power in the digital marketing landscape of 2020. Instagram influencer marketing is now an almost $2 billion dollar industry and is estimated to grow to a $5-10 billion industry by 2021.

With easy-to-measure metrics and Instagram Analytics in the vague world of calculating ROI for influencer marketing, Instagram presents some sort of absolute, quantifiable results. When Instagram introduced the “paid sponsorship” tag, the average Instagram-users started feeling safe and started relying more upon the “true recommendations.” The use of hashtags that drives user-generated content is another reason for its popularity.

Chanel’s New Chanel 5 Campaign leveraged the useful tool of hashtags. Chanel invited a carefully selected mix of influencers to their South of France production facility. To document their journey, these privileged guests used two brand-created hashtags, #newchanel5 and #chanelgrasse. This exclusive (and yet accessible) trip journeying on the Instagram landscape garnered high engagement from the influencers’ followers. They were in turn inspired to create their own content around the new perfume using the branded hashtag, #newchanel5. The result was over 1,600 pieces of influencer and user-generated content. The two hashtags in total received almost one million likes in the first month of the campaign.

Influencer marketing overcomes many challenges that are faced by luxury brands while advertising online such as ad blocking technologies. Consumers today are very skeptical of advertising blasted in their faces and prefer to engage in two-way communication that adds values to their life! As the industry grows, the competition gets tougher. Brands and influencers will be kept on their toes and will need to take an avant garde approach for fruitful creations with high engagement rates. To maintain the exclusivity, sense of luxury and esteem even on the highly accessible social media is a challenge for the extravagant brands. However, it can be overcome quite effectively if the brands choose the fitting mix of partnerships that create original, intriguing and germane content.