With over 3 million followers, Michael Kors is doing quite
well in the digital marketing / social media space within the crowded
contemporary fashion marketplace. In a disruptive move to further capitalize
upon the holiday season and its loyal fan base, Kors is investing in commerce by
launching a new initiative to generate a shoppable feature on the Instagram account.
Using the hashtag #InstaKors, Kors is connecting user generated likes to subscribed
profiles, allowing the followers to shop directly over 60 products over 20
shoppable instragrams.
While this shoppable component is a small fraction of the
total number of product skus, Kors is joining other trendy brands like Marc
Jacobs in tapping into social media shopping. Far from a one-time holiday
stunt, Kors aims to develop a long term view and (one can imagine, substantial digital
marketing investment) to deploy ‘always on’ service.
As a public company with demanding quarter expectations, Kors
needs to find new initiatives to drive growth and connect with the ever
changing consumer shopping behavior. Trying to break away from standard retail holiday
promotions is a smart move, as such new social media initiatives is pushing for
topline adoption rather than margin killing short term markdown moves.
This social media connection also allows the brand to
capture valuable, instant user data to better understand holiday shopping
behavior that it can use toward future product and brand communications. One can
expect more brands to join in this highly effective marketing strategy. While it
will take some time for brands to adopt such methods and to see a positive ROI,
it is the direction that the industry is headed. Kors is doing the right thing
to tap into this still new marketplace initiative. Getting in early means capturing
data faster than competitors, which may prove to the ultimate determining
factor of survival of the fittest. Or, in this case, survival of the most
digitally savvy.
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