Is It So Controversial That Luxury Promo Is So Popular?

"This is not a bag, this is Baguette."

A line of heroine Carrie Bradshaw in the American drama "sex and the city", which made FENDI's law bag Baguette popular at the end of last century.

Twenty years later, Baguette returned, and this classic line appeared in the promotional film taken by FENDI in Shanghai. But this time, many people have found new concerns.

In the movie, the actors Tam Zhuo and Qiao Xin, fashion bloggers Yuyu and yoyo paint fine makeup, share the booty bought in FENDI before overlooking the panoramic panorama of Shanghai, then step on stiletto shoes, hand in arm, and carry several Baguette to sing in the night in Club.

Netizens contrast this promotional film with the "little time", and others say, "like sweeping the new year."

Many people think that this movie is not the same as the FENDI they imagined.

Over the past two years, luxury brands have produced many publicity films that some people feel "dare not identify".

In January 21st, Prada launched an online advertising campaign for the new spring series. However, it was concerned about some "weird" elements because of its lack of festive elements and styles, but some netizens said the advertisement was "very advanced".

Earlier, Dior released a saddle bag Promo in July 2018, which is an example of "disillusionment" for more netizens. It is also a rare luxury official micro video that has forwarded tens of thousands of people. The comment area has become the joy sea of netizens Tucao.

Even though the promotional film was tuckled, Dior's saddle bags still sell well.

Although Dior did not announce the specific performance of the saddle bag, Dior group LVMH group, in its third quarter report of fiscal year 2018, said that Dior has greatly promoted the growth of the group's revenue, and Ma Bao has played an important role in it.

LVMH group's sales of clothing and leather goods sector increased by 15% to 18 billion 455 million euros in fiscal year 2018, and Dior is one of the main driving forces.

It can be seen that the controversial publicity package of the saddle bag has not had a great impact on its performance.

In the face of the different styles of publicity, the industry also has voice claims that this is the brand doing reverse marketing.

After all, in the age of social media, "some scolding is traffic", "back-propagation, cattle"... And most of these videos have higher volume and more discussion than other moderately regulated videos.

If the network heat is used as a KPI assessment index, the team producing these promotional films will be able to complete the task in a more complete way.

What is reverse marketing?

Generally speaking, this means that the brand adopts the unconventional means in marketing strategy, which brings certain violation to the public's cognition, or creates some unexpected surprises to let the brand touch users.

But the question is, is luxury brand really doing reverse marketing?

In other words, luxury brands are really willing to use controversy evaluation as an introduction to ignite the public's concern for themselves?

For luxury brands, it is never the best way to get attention by damaging the brand image.

MediaCom Jin Li, general manager of luxury media brand, introduces the fashion of the interface. The biggest asset of luxury brands is the brand itself.

From what perspective does the public look at themselves, whether they are top-quality or highly skilled in handicraft or design, or rich in cultural heritage, these are the reasons why luxury goods are "luxurious" enough to sell the brand products at a high price.

The decline of brand image is fatal to luxury brands.

In addition to luxury brands, Nike, sports brand Gillette and men's care brand have also been suspected of "reverse operation".

In the 30th anniversary commemorative advertisement of September 2018, Nike launched the NFL player, Colin Capet Nick as spokesperson. He had been on his knees when he played the national anthem before the National Games.

Nike's advertising caused a great stir. Some people began to discard or even burn their Nike shoes, claiming to boycott the brand, but these negative comments promoted Nike's sales growth by 31% in three days.

Similarly, in January, Gillette released an advertisement that can be summed up as "teaching men how to behave", which made many male consumers angry. Jon Moeller, chief financial officer of Procter & Gamble, later said that brand sales and advertising were the same before, and media exposure and consumer participation were even more than usual.

However, both Nike and Gillette have touched relatively sensitive social issues in advertising. Whether they are patriotic or patriarchal, these two topics are easy to stir up two party wars with different views.

And the luxury advertisement of ground gas is only close to life in image and lower in posture.

But even so, the way of "reverse operation" triggering discussion does not apply to luxury brands.

"Luxury goods are not the same as consumer goods," Kim said. "For example, burger king likes to play the black humor of reverse operation, but that is because it has a relaxed and humorous brand image.

It is too risky for luxury brands to do marketing in a controversial way. "

Jin Ru Lan said that even for the luxury brand, even the so-called reverse marketing attracted great attention at that time, and the effect created was only in the current time point. It is more difficult to create a long-term positive effect in the future. At that time, people who were concerned about the brand were not likely to become loyal customers of the brand.

That is to say, for luxury brands, a lot of negative feedback from advertisements or promotional films is not intentional.

In the view of Tencent's sales director of the Internet media fast selling center, Shi Fei Fei, any brand does not want its works to be considered negative by the public, so is the luxury brand.

In any case, although not from the original, but many fragmented factors are pressed together, resulting in controversial brand marketing results.

First of all, it is clear that many controversial photos or videos are not luxury brand advertisements, but rather part of social marketing. A way of marketing and maintaining customer relationships by social media such as social networking micro-blog and WeChat is a marketing tool integrating advertising, public relations and promotion.

It is easy to see that the controversial video promotion is often in the field of social marketing.

In the past, many people's impressions of luxury brands often came from large advertising billboards or magazine page ads at airports. These advertisements did not show the most high-end and beautiful aspects of the brand, gave consumers a good first impression, and luxury brands preferred advertisements with large layout. This is more imposing and more conducive to the presentation of products.

Prada advertising video source at the airport: YCD Multimedia

With the rapid development of the Internet, marketing methods are beginning to bring forth new ideas. Especially when many advertisements of luxury brands are made abroad and lack of local elements, social marketing gives brands more room to communicate with local consumers.

Social marketing generally has two purposes: first, to interact with consumers and to narrow the distance between consumers, so many luxury brands will take some photos or videos to micro-blog, WeChat and other platforms.

These photos and videos are not official advertisements, but propaganda videos. Many of them are produced by local teams rather than brand headquarters.

Dior the video of the saddle bag that is tucking up belongs to this category.

The main character of the video is miss Li Wenxuan, who is a member of hundreds of fashion designers from Dior headquarters for the return of the saddle bag. This video is a record of her purchase process. Although it was released in the official micro-blog brand, it was not an official publicity blockbuster.

However, most netizens can't tell the difference between them. They probably only think that this video is too different from the Dior's official blockbuster.

The second purpose of social marketing is to bring sales to the brand by attracting more consumers. This is the reason why many brands cooperate with KOL bloggers, and why brands value the carrying capacity of KOL bloggers so much.

According to the consumer digital behavior report of China's luxury goods market released by Boston consulting and Tencent Inc in 2018, 11% of the fans of Gogoboi are luxury goods consumers. The proportion of luxury buyers of Rebecca's world and Mr. Bao is 10%.

Many luxury brands now carry out digital marketing in WeChat, because WeChat is a platform that can be socialized and meet multiple needs of brands.

Shi said that the WeChat public number is the same position as the brand official website for the luxury brand. The official website is too heavy. The information of the public number is more accessible to consumers.

At the same time, luxury brands can advertise in WeChat's circle of friends, including product oriented advertising and holiday oriented advertising, and consumers can buy directly through WeChat's small program mall.

In the eyes of Kim Hoo LAN, socialized marketing can really have a great impact on consumer behavior. The number of marketing and marketing methods are linked. Two of them are the most important. First, the new idea, and the two is the topic. For example, in 2017, Vacheron Constantin put a series of ads on WeChat's circle of friends for the WeChat series of limited watches, which included the services of subsequent online booking and offline delivery. At that time, a large number of new users were recruited for the brand.

In the Spring Festival, Tanabata, and even the "520" May 20th season, when the social marketing and the limited products match, become a collective advertising campaign, will produce better results.

A series of Tanabata marketing conducted by WeChat, Dior, Valentino and other brands during the Tanabata Festival in 2018, has a good response. The Tanabata limited products will soon be sold out.

Lonchamp also collaborated with Mr. fashion blogger to design 2019 pig year limited series, which sold out all the time before the Spring Festival.

Mr. Bao and Longchamp launched a limited series of pictures: Mr. Bao

Through these cases, we can see that the impact of social marketing on luxury brand image and sales volume is constantly strengthening, and the brand also attaches great importance to social marketing. The appearance of photos or videos with "wrong style" is likely to be a loss of balance when the brand is trying to catch up with the consumers and close the distance.

For luxury brands, the goal of social marketing is still its core audience.

"Usually people who want brands to connect are targeted customers," Kim explains, explaining that "even though brands want to reach a wider audience, it is more important to keep their core audience."

Jin Ru Lan also encountered luxury brand customers just launched a new series, but also did not clear their core customer groups, and hope that through some publicity and interaction with consumers to know what kind of customer groups have deeper links, in the process of learning and adjustment.

Take WeChat's circle of friends advertising based on big data analysis as an example. Although it is seen that most of the luxury brand friends' circle is the target group of luxury brands, there are also some users who may not be able to afford luxuries.

"For brands, when choosing the target audience, they are not always looking for people who can afford the brand," Shi said. "Some brands may care more about the cultivation of potential customers, or they want to connect to the people who are in harmony with their spiritual and spiritual attributes."

That is to say, luxury brands are oriented towards their target customers or potential customers when they engage in social marketing.

FENDI's Baguette promo is a genuine official publicity, but also part of social marketing. It naturally wants to connect to its target audience.

According to FENDI's introduction to the interface fashion, the #BaguetteFriendsForever# series includes three videos, including Shanghai, Hongkong and New York. When Shanghai video shooting, the brand has found some local companies to do some basic execution work, but the creativity and production of the video are carried out by foreign teams, and the director is the famous @wiissa0 on Instagram.

The FENDI Promo to many netizens impression is "too grounded", probably because many luxury brands are trying to distance the consumers from the 234 tier cities.

There are more and more luxury consumers in the 234 tier cities.

Nowadays, many luxury brands have entered Tmall. According to the report of the 2017 new retail era luxury consumption trend released by the first financial business data center and Tmall, the top ten of online luxury goods consumption growth is almost three to six cities.

More and more luxury brands have opened their stores to two or three tier cities, such as Chengdu and Zhengzhou. According to the data of RET Rui Yide China commercial real estate research center, the number of luxury brand stores in two or three cities in 2017 accounted for 27%, while the proportion in 2015 and 2016 was 14% and 19%, respectively, and the growth rate was very fast.

However, Jin Luo Lan said that if luxury brands want to reach consumers in the 234 tier cities, they also need to pay attention to balance. After all, consumers in these cities have higher requirements for product texture, and the aesthetics of social marketing advertising is also improving.

Because of this, luxury brands need to carry out sufficient research ahead of time before the formal landing of social marketing, so as to avoid the embarrassment of marketing dislocation.

And when inappropriate social marketing has had a negative impact on the brand, there are ways to remedy the brand.

If the negative evaluation of brand gains is not yet counted, the most common way is to let time fade, do not explain more, and then display the more high-end aspect in the advertising campaign afterwards, and cover the negative voice with the greater voice than before.

In the case of brands that cause serious social negative effects, such as the controversial Dolce & Gabbana, Kim Lai Lan's proposal is to contribute more to the Chinese market.

Many luxury brands fulfill their social responsibilities through public welfare and charity. When the damage of brand image is hard to recover, public interest is probably the only way to arouse public sentiment.