New York Fashion Week (NYFW) has officially wrapped and this year the collections were colorful and the marketing was ever brighter. Brands were thinking outside of the box for their Spring/Summer 2017 collections. Many brands took the shoppable runways approach, while others took the live stream approach. These are all the safe obvious choices. Don’t get me wrong, I was totally living vicariously through the Tom Ford live stream, but it’s a little bit of a no brainer.
Nordstrom took over the Snapchat live event with quirky lifestyle GIF-like ads. Snapchat also offered behind the scenes looks and partnered with several brands for pre-show interviews so users could get an online exclusive. All brands seemed to have hopped on the Instagram Stories train and took full advantage of it during Fashion Week.
Banana Republic also had pieces that were immediately shoppable from their presentation. Banana created a shoppable video in tandem with their presentation. This falls perfectly in line with their current campaign “See Now, Buy Now.” The video shows behind the scenes looks and has tagged items in the video that when clicked, pop up with the item details, price and product image. To add to their shoppable campaign, Banana partnered with influencer Olivia Palmero as their NYFW Style Ambassador. Olivia personally curated a selection of ready to buy pieces that were featured in the presentation.
From a marketing standpoint, Tommy Hilfiger was the ultimate showstopper. Similar to Banana, Tommy also focused on influencer marketing, but on a much bigger scale. The brand partnered with celebrity Gigi Hadid for an exclusive collaboration. Along with the release of the collaboration, everything in the runway was immediately shoppable online following the runway and the show was live streamed so people at home could follow along. Partnering with a mega-influencer like Gigi, who had support from Mother and Real Housewife of Beverly Hills, Yolanda Hadid, as well as bestie Taylor Swift, who were both front row cheering and snapping Gigi was a total win.
Another Marketing win for Tommy was turning their show at Battery Park into a total carnival atmosphere. Along with a marquee saying “Tommy Pier” the event included carnival games and rides as well as extravagant food like lobster. This guerilla marketing strategy got a lot of attention, as well as shares and mentions on social media. It made everyone have total FOMO.