Isn'T Such A Down-To-Earth Luxury Promotional Film Controversial?

"This is not a bag, this is Baguette." Carrie, the heroine in the US TV series Sex and the City Bradshaw's line made FENDI's baguette popular at the end of last century. Two decades later, Baguette returned, and this classic line appeared again in the promotional film FENDI shot in Shanghai, but this time many people found a new focus.

In the film, actors Tan Zhuo and Qiao Xin fashion Four bloggers, yuyu and yoyo, painted exquisite makeup, shared the spoils bought at FENDI in front of the French windows overlooking the panoramic view of Shanghai, and then walked on stilettos, arm in arm, carrying several Baguettes to sing in the club in the night.

Netizens put this promotional film together with "Small Times" for comparison, and some people said that it was "like cleaning up for the New Year". Many people think that this film is different from FENDI in their imagination.

According to the World Clothing, Shoes and Hats Network, in the past two years, luxury brands have produced many promotional films that some people feel "dare not recognize". Prada launched an advertisement for the Spring Festival series on January 21, but it attracted attention due to the lack of festive elements and the "weird" style. However, some netizens said that this advertisement was "very advanced". Earlier, Dior released a promotional video of saddle bags in July 2018, which was an example of "disillusionment" for more netizens. It was also a rare luxury official micro video with over 10000 forwarding volumes. The comment area became a sea of joy that netizens complained about.

Even if the propaganda film is criticized, Dior Our saddle bags are still selling well. Although Dior did not announce the specific performance of saddle bags, the parent company of Dior, LVMH Group, said in the third quarter report of fiscal 2018 that Dior vigorously promoted the growth of group revenue, and saddle bags played an important role in it. LVMH Group FY18 clothing Dior is one of the main driving forces behind the 15% increase in sales of the leather goods department to 18.455 billion euros. It can be seen that the controversial promotional film of saddle bag has not had a great impact on its performance.

In the face of promotional films with different styles, there are many voices in the industry saying that this is a brand doing reverse marketing. After all, in the era of social media, "some people call it traffic", "reverse communication, cow" Most of these promotional videos have higher playback and more discussion than other standard videos. If the network popularity is taken as the KPI assessment indicator, the team making these promotional videos has successfully completed the task.

What is reverse marketing? Generally speaking, this means that the brand uses unconventional means in marketing strategy to make the brand reach users by bringing a certain sense of discord to the public's perception, or creating some unexpected surprises. But the question is, are luxury brands really doing reverse marketing? In other words, are luxury brands really willing to use controversial evaluation as a guide to ignite the public's attention to themselves?

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

Jin Ruolan, general manager of MediaCom's competitive media luxury brand, introduced the interface fashion. The biggest asset of luxury brand is the brand itself. From what perspective do the public view themselves, whether they have top raw materials or superb craftsmanship, excellent design or rich cultural heritage, these are the reasons why luxury goods are "luxurious" enough, so that brand products can sell at a very high price. The decline of brand image is fatal to luxury brands.

In addition to luxury brands, sports brand Nike and men's care brand Gillette were also suspected of "reverse operation". Nike used NFL player Colin Capenick as the spokesperson in its 30th anniversary advertisement in September 2018. He was once involved in controversy because he knelt on one knee when playing the national anthem before the game (the official requirement is that he must stand up when playing the national anthem). Nike advertising caused a huge uproar. Some people began to abandon or even burn their Nike shoes, claiming to boycott the brand. However, these negative comments promoted the sales of Nike to increase by 31% in three days. Similarly, Gillette released an advertisement in January that can be summarized as "teaching men how to behave", which made many male consumers very angry. Jon, Chief Financial Officer of P&G Moeller later said that the brand sales were the same as before the advertising launch, and the media exposure and consumer participation were even more than usual.

However, both Nike and Gillette have touched relatively sensitive social issues in their advertisements, whether it is "patriotism" or "male chauvinism", which are easy to provoke a war between two parties with different views. However, the down-to-earth luxury advertising is only close to life in image and lower in attitude. Even so, the way of "reverse operation" is not applicable to luxury brands.

"Luxury goods are different from consumer goods," Jin Ruolan said to interface fashion. "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. If luxury brands are marketed in a controversial way, the risk is too great."

Jin Ruolan said that for luxury brands, even if the so-called reverse marketing attracted great attention at that time, the effect created only stayed at the current time point, and it was difficult to create long-term positive effects in the future. People who paid attention to the brand at that time were not likely to become loyal customers of the brand.

In other words, for luxury brands, it is not intentional to receive a lot of negative feedback from advertisements or promotional films. In the opinion of Shi Saifei, the sales director of Tencent Online Media Fast Retailing Center, no brand wants its works to be considered negative by the public, so do luxury brands, let alone deliberately vilify brands.

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

First of all, it should be clear that many controversial photos or videos are not really luxury brand advertisements, but part of social marketing. A way to use social media such as social microblog and WeChat to market and maintain customer relations is to integrate advertising, public relations, promotion and other marketing means.

It is not difficult to find that those controversial video promotions are often in the field of social marketing.

In the past, many people's impression of luxury brands often came from the airport's large advertising billboards or magazine advertisements on the inside pages. These advertisements were nothing more than to show the most high-end and beautiful side of the brand to give consumers a good first impression. Luxury brands preferred advertisements on large pages, which was more powerful and conducive to the presentation of products.

With the rapid development of the Internet, marketing methods have begun to introduce new ones. Especially when many advertisements of luxury brands are uniformly produced by overseas headquarters and lack local elements, social marketing gives brands more space to communicate with local consumers.

Social marketing generally has two purposes. The first is to interact with consumers and narrow the distance between consumers. Therefore, many luxury brands will take some photos or videos locally and send them to microblog, WeChat and other platforms. These photos and videos are not official advertisements, but promotional videos. Many of them are produced by local teams rather than the brand headquarters, which is relatively grounded.

The video of Dior's nagged saddle bag falls into this category. The main character of that video is Miss Hong Kong Li Wenxuan, one of the world's 100 fashion experts invited by Dior headquarters for the return of saddle bags. This video is a record of her shopping process. Although it was posted on the brand's official microblog, it is not an official promotional blockbuster. However, most netizens can't tell the difference between them. They probably think that this video is too different from the previous Dior official blockbusters, and they don't know that this is just brand promotional material.

The second purpose of social marketing is to bring sales to the brand by attracting more consumers, which is the reason why many brands cooperate with KOL bloggers and why brands value KOL bloggers' ability to carry goods so much

According to the Report on Consumer Digital Behavior in China's Luxury Market released by Boston Consulting and Tencent in 2018, 11% of the blogger Gogoboi's fans are luxury consumers, while the proportion of Rebecca's fantasy world and Mr. Bao's luxury consumer fans is 10%. Both of them have excellent ability to carry goods.

Now many luxury brands will carry out digital marketing on WeChat, because WeChat is a platform that can carry out social marketing and meet multiple needs of brands.

Shi Saifei said to the interface fashion that the WeChat official account is the same position as the brand's official website for luxury brands. The official website is too "heavy", and the information of the official account is easier for consumers to obtain. At the same time, luxury brands can place advertisements in WeChat circles of friends, including product oriented advertisements and festival oriented advertisements, and then consumers can purchase directly through WeChat app stores.

In Jin Ruolan's opinion, social marketing can really have a great impact on consumer behavior. The amount of marketing is linked to the marketing methods, of which two are the most critical, one is the novelty, the other is the topic. For example, in 2017, Jiang Shidandun launched an advertisement for Traditionelle series limited wrist watches in WeChat friends circle, including follow-up online booking and offline delivery services, At that time, a large number of new users were recruited for the brand.

In the gift giving season such as the Spring Festival, the Chinese Valentine's Day and even May 20, 520, when social marketing and exclusive products are combined into a collective advertising campaign, it will produce better results. Dior, Valentino and other brands made a series of Tanabata marketing on WeChat during the 2018 Tanabata, and the exclusive products of Tanabata soon sold out. Lonchamp also collaborated with Mr. Bao, the fashion blogger, to design a limited series for the Year of Pig 2019, which was sold out shortly before the Spring Festival.

Through these cases, it can be seen that the impact of social marketing on the image and sales of luxury brands is constantly strengthening, and brands also attach great importance to social marketing. The reason why those photos or videos with "wrong painting style" appear is likely that the brand has lost its balance when trying to get close to consumers.

For luxury brands, social marketing still hopes to reach its core audience. "Usually, the target audience that the brand hopes to connect with is the target audience," Jin Ruolan explained to the interface fashion. "Even though the brand hopes to reach a wider audience, it is more important to keep its core audience."

Jin Ruolan also met luxury brand customers who just launched a new series and still did not know their core customer group. He hoped that through some publicity and interaction with consumers, he would know what kind of customer group he had a deeper link with, and learn and adjust in this process.

Take the WeChat friend circle advertising based on big data analysis push as an example, although it will be seen that most of the luxury brand friend circle push is the target customer group of luxury brands, there are also some users who may not be able to afford luxury goods.

"For brands, when choosing the target audience for advertising in the circle of friends, it is not always necessary to find people who can afford the brand," Shi Saifei said to interface fashion. "Some brands may pay more attention to the cultivation of potential customers, or hope to connect to people whose mental temperament and mental attributes match the brand."

In other words, luxury brands face their target customers or potential customers when conducting social marketing.

FENDI's Baguette promotional film is a genuine official promotion, but it is also part of social marketing, and naturally hopes to connect with its target customer group.

According to FENDI's introduction to interface fashion, this # BaguetteFriendsForever # series includes three videos in Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York. When the Shanghai video was shot, the brand found local companies to do some basic execution work, but the creativity and production of the videos were executed by foreign teams, and the director was the famous @ wiissa0 on Instagram.

The FENDI promotional film gives many netizens the impression that it is "too grounded", which may be because many luxury brands are trying to get closer to consumers in second, third and fourth tier cities.

There are more and more luxury consumers in the second, third and fourth tier cities. Today, many luxury brands have settled in Tmall. According to the 2017 Report on Luxury Consumption Trends in the New Retail Era jointly released by China Business Data Center and Tmall, the top ten cities with the highest growth rate of online luxury consumption are almost three to six tier cities. More and more luxury brands have opened stores in second and third tier cities such as Chengdu and Zhengzhou. According to the data of RET Ruiyide China Commercial Real Estate Research Center, the number of luxury brand stores in second and third tier cities accounted for 27% in 2017, while in 2015 and 2016, the proportion was 14% and 19%, respectively, with a rapid growth rate.

However, Jin Ruolan said that if luxury brands want to reach consumers in second, third and fourth tier cities, they also need to pay attention to balance. After all, consumers in these cities have increasingly high requirements for product texture, and their aesthetic appreciation of social marketing videos is also improving.

Because of this, luxury brands need to conduct sufficient research in advance before the formal landing of social marketing, so as to avoid the dilemma of marketing dislocation.

When inappropriate social marketing has had a negative impact on the brand, the brand also has some ways to remedy it.

If the negative evaluation of the brand is not yet counted, the most common way is to let the time fade away, not to explain more, and then show your more high-end side in the later advertising, and use more volume than before to cover the negative voice.

However, brands that cause serious negative social impact, such as Dolce in dispute& Gabbana， Jin Ruolan's suggestion is to make more contributions to public welfare in the Chinese market. Many luxury brands fulfill their social responsibilities through public welfare, charity and other ways. When the brand image has been damaged, it is difficult to recover. Public welfare may be the only way to arouse public favor.

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