What Happened To Luxury Goods This Year?

The status of fashion magazine's 9 monthly magazine is beyond doubt. Spring and summer fashion week The new season releases of the major brands will be released first. Fashion shows and thematic contents reflect the highest standard of production. The choice of the cover characters will become one of the criteria to judge the status of the stars. More importantly, advertising is sold six months in advance, and magazine advertising revenue from 1/6 all comes from this year. ELLE publisher Kevin O Malley said: "September opened a new season of shopping. If you perform well in September, the fourth quarter will also be good.

This is the special position of fashion magazines in the media industry. Although Kangtai and Amazon have already worked together to share the core reader database with people, it seems that the fashion industry has to use technology to expand its readership. It makes people wonder if this is a harbinger of new media eroding traditional media. But we can't ignore another identity of fashion media: they are more closely integrated with their industry than any other media. It is not only a consumer oriented mass media terminal, but also a producer oriented information channel.

From this perspective, the analysis of the 9 monthly magazine has become a reliable way to see the annual performance of the fashion industry. We chose ELLE, Haper 's Bazzar, VOGUE, GQ and Esquire 5 American magazines, the British version, the mainland China, and the Hongkong edition of China. There are 18 9 monthly publications. By comparing the similarities and differences of 9 monthly magazines in different places, and comparing the performance of the 2012 and 2013 Edition of the 9 monthly edition of China, we can draw a conclusion that the performance of China's luxury market has declined further in 2013 compared with 2012, but compared with the unprecedented prosperity of the US market. The former may be the continuation effect of luxury contraction in 2012, coupled with China's economic slowdown this year, and the stability of the US market at this time highlights the value.

On the other hand, Designer And lifestyle brands are still in the market incubation phase in the mainland of China. They still prefer Hongkong as their main position in testing the Chinese market. This trend is also reflected in luxury brands. Although their products are abundant, they still put the most insurance and market appealing products in the Chinese mainland market.

Another trend is worthy of warning to all fashion media practitioners: many mainstream and niche brands are increasingly paying attention to advertising with content. This means that these brands directly increase the advertising budget of new media, and tend to publish customized content jointly with online magazines. This is not good news for the magazine industry. It means that the "media" attribute of fashion magazines is decreasing, while the "guide to shopping" is a producer oriented property.

01 the US market is still the most important in the world.

The American version of VOGUE, Happer 's Bazzar and ELLE in 2013 is known as the most heavyweight magazine in history.

Compared with 18 magazines, the number of pages in the US version of the magazine accounts for more than half of the magazine and even 2/3, and the absolute number of advertisements is the highest in all parts of the world. In contrast, China's 5 edition of the 9 monthly magazine accounts for about half of all advertisements in the US. The Chinese version of ELLE is divided into two volumes, totaling 784 pages. The total number of pages is 126 pages more than that of the 658 page of the ELLE American edition. However, the two page of the former is 281 pages, while the latter is 442 pages.

Apart from the fact that Chinese readers have low tolerance to advertising (so they need to fill more homemade content), the number of advertising pages can be attributed to the difference in the number of brands advertised. In the case of VOGUE, there are 218 brands in the US version, while the number of ad brands in the Chinese version is only 113. This means that in the last quarter of 2013 and early 2014, many brands chose to focus on the US market.

Many brands are looking for opportunities to expand overseas markets outside the mainland. Luxury goods The mature and stable consumer market is still their first choice. France shoes Alexis Mourot, chief operating officer of brand designer Christian Louboutin, told WWD in July 2013 that the United States is now the largest market for Christian Louboutin. If a European brand can not perform well in the US, it will be difficult to achieve success worldwide. Analysts believe that the US market is favored by Europe's economic slump, and China's growth in the Asian market is limited.

Some of the niche brands founded in the US and are well developed locally also appeared in this year's 9 issue. For example, the designer brand Rag & Bone, founded in New York in 2002, published 2 pages of advertisements on GQ. The trend of US manufacturing reflux also affects. clothing In the manufacturing industry, the advertising copy of some brands emphasizes "made in the United States".

　 02 China market: the best days for growth are over.

By comparing mainland China versions of 5 magazines in 2012 and 2013, in addition to GQ, the other 4 fashion magazines' advertising share this year has declined to varying degrees compared with last year. The absolute number of advertisements for VOGUE and ELLE has decreased. In 2012, VOGUE's advertising page was 257 pages, and this year it was 239 pages; ELLE's two volumes last year had 344 pages of advertising, and only 281 pages this year. The French ELLE group's sales in the first half of this year increased by 0.5% over the previous year, of which the revenue of French magazines dropped by 5.6%, and the print ads fell by 8.8% compared with the same period last year, while the circulation decreased by 7.6%. But sales of Lagard re Active, a multi-media department, grew by 4.7% over the same period last year. Mei Hua net, which provides advertising monitoring data, released a report in August this year, which showed that the advertising cost of Chinese fashion beauty clothing magazines decreased by 9.2% in the first half of 2013, the first half year negative growth since 2009.

At the same time, despite the fact that the advertising position of core brands has not changed, the amount of advertising they put in has decreased. Take Clinique as an example. Last year, Clinique launched 2 pages of ads on the top two volumes of ELLE, but only 2 pages were put in the following year. Cartire's performance in GQ is also similar. Last year, Cartire made a 4 page cover page ad, but this year it only bought a back cover advertisement.

The decline in brand advertising is directly related to the slowdown in China's economic growth last year. Last year, China's 7.8% growth was the lowest in 13 years. This slowdown is the most obvious blow to the clock industry. According to the Swiss watch export data released by the Swiss watch Federation monthly, the output value of Swiss watches exported to mainland China fell 4.7% in August compared with 9.7% in July. Except for a brief rebound in June, the rest of the first half of the year was in negative growth.

However, it is worth noting that there are new local brands in the 9 monthly magazine. For example, recently, LVMH, who was the second largest shareholder of the L fund under the name of LVMH, appeared in the 9 issue of the VOGUE mainland edition of China this year. 4 pages of advertisements were published, and 4 pages and 3 pages of advertisements were also published in the fashion bazaar and the mainland China version respectively.

03 designer brand: the Chinese market may be the future opportunity.

We classify all brands that do not belong to LVMH, Kering, and other large luxury goods groups, such as Li Feng and others, to be classified as designer brands. According to our statistics, the proportion of designer's brand in the 5 edition of the 9 monthly magazine in the US version is 5%, the British version is 2.3%, the Hongkong edition and the Chinese version are 0.67% and 0.61% respectively.

The designer brand of the 9 month fashion absent from mainland China has 3.1 Phillip Lim, Proenza Schouler, Zadig&Voltaire, Helmut Lang, Sonia Rykiel, Ralph Rucci, and Rykiel. They are not only the designer brand but also the fastest growing brand in the fashion industry, of which 3.1 Phillip Lim has opened 6 stores in New York, Tokyo, Losangeles and Seoul in the past few years. Although these brands have few or even no stores in China, they are already a hot brand on Taobao website. Consumers may have heard of the brand name before, but have never met the formal consumption channels, and lack of a complete concept of brand names. This is the current situation of designer brand in Chinese market.

The reason why designers favor American magazines is not only the reason of the market itself, but also because the latter is more mature and influential in excavating and assisting designers. Anna Wintour, editor in chief of VOGUE in the fashion world, has brought many designers.

Tan Wei, director of marketing at GQ, told the first financial weekly that the reason why designers' brand advertisements are rarely seen in domestic fashion magazines is that many designer brands still do not have independent stores in China, and even if they do business in Hongkong or mainland through agents, they can not generate advertising demand.

In a report released by Bain consulting in 2012, Chinese consumers have become the world's number one luxury consumer group. However, the main players in China's luxury market are still Louis Weedon, GUCCI, Burberry and Prada. The degree of diversification of luxury brands is much lower than that of the United States. Moreover, the sale of designer brand buyer shops such as Lian Crawford and 10 Corso commo is still short in China, and consumers are still in the breeding stage.

　 04 emerging brands: rising setbacks or gloomy departure

The advertising brand that was launched in last year's China 9 monthly magazine has not been released this year. Disappearing advertisements usually come from smaller designer brands or non luxury fashion brands. Take VOGUE as an example, the 9 monthly magazine disappeared in 2013, such as Jiangnan Buyi and IgE and other smaller brands such as Gia and Frey Wille. The original advertising location of these brands is in the latter half of the overall advertisement.

The United States and the British version also have a brand loss. One of the reasons is that some designer brands increasingly value their own magazines and online content. For example, the Swedish designer brand ACNE stopped advertising in 2006, and began to shift the marketing budget to its own Bi monthly lifestyle newspaper, Acne Paper, which is edited and published. Each newspaper sells for 10 pounds, with a sales volume of 25 thousand copies. Meanwhile, MR. Porter, an online menswear sales website, also launched a print magazine Mr. Porter Post. Both companies hope to influence people's lifestyle and influence the choice of clothing.

The advertising and content section of fashion magazines is more integrated than ever. OLAY CC cream has been running 5 pages of advertisements in the VOGUE American edition. The main character is a pair of jewelry designer sisters. They are content with their activities in different scenes one day, and the two sisters have changed differently. clothes And jewelry, photography and layout design are in accordance with the contents of the magazine. In addition to the word "Advertisement" of header and footer and OLAY Logo, OLAY CC cream is mentioned in many references, and it is highlighted in bold.

Other brands have shifted some of their advertising resources to new media. This trend has been evident since last year, and the proportion of new media advertising will continue to increase. For example, MontBlanc did not advertise in the 9 monthly magazine this year and last year. Its global CEO Jerome Lambert said that MontBlanc will invest more in digital marketing next year and continue to shift some traditional print media budget to new media, which will account for 30% of the total media expenditure. The light luxury brands also cut the budget of 9 monthly in Coach2013. In 2012, the total volume of 18 publications was only 6 pages plus a small volume in the Hongkong edition. The US brand has always been willing to try new media, and now puts more budget into its own online stores and WeChat, micro-blog and other social platforms. In the early 2013, when the lifestyle brand was transformed from luggage brand to brand name, the content of WeChat's account about life attitude and Coach attitude increased significantly.

05 luxury life coverage: the mainland is very monotonous.

GQ China and Esquire China accounted for 26.4% and 22.8% of the total advertising volume respectively. The same advertising category is below 10% in the US, UK and Hongkong editions.

Further analysis of the differences between China and other regions in automobile advertisements shows that in addition to the absolute number of automobile advertisements, the Chinese version is 2 to 3 times the British and American versions, and there are differences in automobile grades. In the mainland China Edition, there are both advertisements of Cadillac, Jaguar and Porsche, as well as Volkswagen Skoda and Mazda. But in the British and American edition and the Hongkong edition of the men's magazine, most of the advertisements on automobiles are mainly luxury cars, and there are few middle and low grade car brands.

The reason is that cars are still high-end consumer goods in China, and it is generally believed that readers of fashion magazines are more likely to belong to high-end groups. In addition, China's automobile consumption market is still in the stage of buying the first car, and the understanding of the automobile brand is far less than that of the UK and the US.

On the other hand, the American version of VOGUE and ELLE has a richer variety of advertisements, not only with clothing softeners, women's hair removal devices and condom advertisements, but also personal care and life service brands such as US postal service, baby trolley and Geico insurance company, but the mainland China Version of September has a small number of life advertisements and has a wide range of hunting, but only people's livelihood private banks and tableware advertisements.

06 Chanel: contribute the most advertising.

Chanel is the 4 most popular brand in the 18 monthly magazine of 9 this year. It has published 99 pages of advertising, followed by 58 pages by Armani. Their products span clothing, makeup, skin care, watch and jewellery to handbags. In addition, Chanel is more willing to advertise its rich and colorful cosmetics and skin care products than other luxury brands. Taking the performance of the brand in the VOGUE version of the US as an example, 6 pages of fashion bag ads were published, and 2 pages of make-up advertisements and 2 pages of perfume advertisements were also published. Looking at the three luxury goods groups LVMH, Kering (original PPR) and mount Feng, their advertisements tend to focus on a category of a brand, such as Bvlgari's LVMH with handbag based FENDI and watch jewellery. Advertising needs will not be concentrated on a single brand.

L'OREAL ranked first in 47 ads in the single skin care brand, followed by OLAY, Clinique and CLARINS. The three brands belong to the public price skin care brand, and customers purchase more frequently, so the influence of advertisements on purchase decisions will be more obvious. Most buyers of skin care and cosmetics brands show a dynamic "leaky bucket" feature. In order to maintain growth, brands need to attract a large number of new buyers every year, partly to supplement the loss of buyers, and partly to achieve a net increase in the total number of buyers. Because most consumers have lower purchase frequency and repeat purchase rate. brand We need to seize every opportunity that consumers buy.