Regardless how amazing the collection could be, what’s behind the best fashion shows is the good PR and Marketing preparation. With the democratization of fashion, as a consequence of the technology evolution, now brands are fighting for eye balls like a TV show 10 years ago. What’s the biggest challenge every new season is not who will show the best looks and models, but who will come up first with the idea trend-setter, who will use the technology in a way competitors haven’t used it and who will win more fans over social media engagement.

There’re some true leaders who consequently are getting the lead also on sales numbers: Burberry, Gucci, Luois Vuitton, Hugo Boss and others. Facebook live streaming, clothes purchase directly from the runway, fashion bloggers live coverage, backstage exclusive content are just part of the new tools brands are using to make the difference. Here are some of the trends set by industry leaders during the latest fashion shows in Milan and Paris that very probably will evolve even more in the Women Fashion Week to come.

Shop the runway

Burberry was the first brand to introduce real-time shopping from the runway one year ago but this time the product range offered is really impressive – almost all bags and coats from the AW 2012 collection purchasable for a limited period of time. The looks coming out on the runway were shown during the live streaming on a side strip where just after a click you were brought to the check out. Would be interesting to know what was the demand of the users.

Burberry Shop the Runway

Other brands are embracing this trend too. Valentino broadcasted its Fashion show directly on the e-commerce site The Corner where viewers could book some items for an early delivery in June.

Ermenegildo Zegna introduced their Zegna Live application for iPhone and iPad with the option to buy four products of the new collection with immediate delivery.

These brands know their clients and the fact that exclusive access and having something before everybody else excites them. I am sure this trend will continue to evolve even more.

Foursquare lists 

Big fashion shows are happening either in Milan, Paris, New York or London during the proper fashion week that suggest a lot of influencers will be gathered in that place at the same time. Location based social media campaigns totally make sense. However, Foursquare is still underused for that matter. Just a few brands made something dedicated to the fashion week. Dolce&Gabbana created their Foursquare tips list “Milan Fashion Week” with some self-suggesting tips and no real users´ incentives to go somewhere and do a check-in. Consequently the fans’ engagement remains rather low.

On the other hand Hugo Boss is showing his innovative side this season more than ever. Their Foursquare dedicated list is just a part of all efforts during the fashion week in Berlin. For each check in made on a spot from the list followers get a drink and a Hugo bracelet for free. Now, that’s motivating. But still just 44 people are following the list.

Bloggers Engagement and Digital PR

Bloggers are the new celebrities, VIP guests and important journalists. The omnipresence of some of them is getting slightly annoying. However, booking them during the fashion week for a brand initiative must not be so difficult if you act early enough. Hugo Boss has managed to get on board Bryanboy as an official backstage reporter and brand ambassador since they already have done some projects together in 2011.

Bryanboy at Hugo Boss backstage

Beside that, on his blog Bryanboy had almost every major men fashion show in live streaming. Not surprisingly at all, having in mind  there are not so many well known male fashion bloggers right now.

The female version of Bryanboy – Chiara Ferragni from The Blond Salad was also presented and provided a live stream on her blog.

Another bloggers relations success is the traditional fashion show live streaming of Gucci – Gucci Connect where users can sign in with Facebook or Twitter account to comment or just follow the live comments of a bunch of international bloggers including TheChicGeek.co.uk, SickByTrend, BagSnob, Horston and others.

Talking about traditional PR we can’t deny it’s powerful influence on any special event. Hugo Boss turned its fashion show into a real red carpet ceremony with international celebrities and pre-show interviews with a perfect direct cut.

Prada impressed with the flawless looking actors that walked the runway for them - Adrien Brody, Garrett Hedlund, Jamie Bell, Gary Oldman and Willem Dafoe together with the younger models.

Now looking forward to Women’s Fashion Fall/Winter 2012/2013 Fashion Shows and what brands will offer this time. The challenge is getting bigger and the stake higher. Can’t wait.

Content curation is the next buzz world on the internet. In the ever growing digital world we’re getting so immersed in all kind of information that it gets really difficult to find any relevant, interesting peace of what you’re looking for.

It’s getting frustrating and more often people prefer to pay to be sure the information they will be handed will be worthy, even though there’re zillions of free sources.

The other side of the penny is the democratizing of broadcasting. Anyone can publish what they want and try to catch the users’ attention. The challenge for brands is getting even bigger having in mind that very often they haven’t much to say, but want their voice to be heard. This has also led to great chaos to find the right professionals that possesses the so longed for content talent.

But beware, producing great content is not about speaking the language of Shakespeare. It’s about storytelling. To make an attention catching story out of everything. To use the emotive link of storytelling to grab attention and build a trusted relationship. Learn to tell a powerful story — emphasizing narrative tension through a beginning, middle and end — and translate it into a digital asset through multimedia skills in video, photography, audio and animation. This is where brands will be heading to make the difference in the fast growing digital channels tube – website, blog, facebook, twitter, mobile application….

It’s a popular belief that every organization is a now a media organization, meaning that every employee — or potential new hire — needs to master the creation of these media, cheaply and often in-house. In 2012, it’ll be all about immersion — a way to capture the imagination of distracted individuals who need to be convinced that your ideas are worthwhile. The “Any Screen” era is upon us. Consider apps, games, 3D, and transmedia (a cohesive storyline that is segmented and distributed on a multiplicity of platforms) as you try to transport your audiences into a deeper media experience.

To illustrate all this I find as a perfect example the longest tracking shot in advertising history - Johnny Walker’s brand story. Shot in one continuos take, starring Scottish actor Robert Carlisle to narrate the story while walking through the misty Scottish highlands, this is one of the most inspiring ads ever made. Keeps you watching the video in one breath even though is longer than 5 minutes. Now this is quality of storytelling.

Some leader brands such as Coach, Mr Porter, Gilt Man, Park&Bond got it earlier than others and are tapping into their male audiences with a strategic approach that deserves to be mentioned and even copied from other male fashion brands.

Whether ingesting rich editorial content from Mr Porter; interacting with Coach’s new men’s Facebook page, or tapping into Park&Bonds’ expertise in style suggestions for modern men, one thing is clear: Men are as into fashion as ever, and brands need to find innovative ways to engage the male audience.

In general there are the same rules like elsewhere: While women like to talk and comment, gossip, look at celebrities pictures, with more frequency, men are more practical and prefer to be addressed with ready solution about their need or a style suggestion. No, they don’t buy on instinct.

For more details of the topic I suggest the article on “Women’s wear daily”: Fashion’s Next Frontier for Social Media.

I put the best practices of the brands mentioned above in a light ppt format.

The definitive benchmark for online competence, Digital IQ Index® reports score brands against peers on more than 350 quantitative and qualitative data points, diagnosing their digital strengths and weaknesses, giving each of them a deserved IQ rank. From pharma to luxury and fashion, everything you need is there to reality-check your brand, strategy, competitor or industry.

The latest report of L2 for 2011 was especially interesting for me because of its rather “local” and not-a-million-budget campaigns character, namely the European Niche Fashion Brands. It is the second report on fashion for the season following the Global Fashion Digital IQ ranking which put on spot the genius in the field, proving that fashion industry is an important area to watch for digital innovation, as I outlined before here.

The ranking measures the digital aptitude of 46 European niche fashion brands with annual turnover between €25 million and €250 million across four dimensions: Site, Digital Marketing, Social Media, and Mobile. Each gets a Digital IQ score and a corresponding class of Genius, Gifted, Average, Challenged, or Feeble.

None of the brands in the study made it to Genius and and a staggering 70 percent of brands were characterized as Challenged or Feeble. Unfortunately these brands still lag behind from the big player not only for their smaller budget as the study reveals but rather for the lack of integrated and efficient digital presence.

A glance at the study

Highest IQ in the ranking have Agent Provocateur, Ted Baker, Stella McCartney and Superdry, all headquartered in UK. From the Italian brands ahead are Moncler and Moschino. France is represented by Lanvin e Jean Paul Gaultier.

A key take-away is that brands with e-commerce averaged a Digital IQ scored on average 35 points higher than those not selling online.

Italy and France continue to lag behind their British peers by a considerable margin.

Mobile is only for genius. Only 33 percent of the brands provide any mobile experience—18 percent have developed a mobile-optimized site and 17 percent have developed applications.

Many European fashion brands have largely ignored the digital phenomenon. Investing in emerging digital platforms, at what is likely a fraction of the future cost, may be the litmus test for which niche brands become iconic versus irrelevant. The big disappointment for me is Italy where the highest penetration of facebook and smartphones is largely underestimated from fashion brands that invest the lowest budget on digital compared to the rest of Europe and the world, but I still that one changing soon…

Simple and Free. Thanks to Visual.me, a web-based information stylist, your boring and content overloaded resume can be transformed into a nice customized infographic. Check mine here. Works with LinkedIn Connect, so you don’t need to type anything.

And if that’s not enough, explore visual.ly where you can generate all kinds of infographics in one click, like for example you vs. Lady Gaga on Twitter, as I showed here before.

Since the book will be in Bulgarian but the matter is discussion friendly I thought to re-assume in my blog and to see after some months what really happened. I think the Internet is flouted now with experts analysis on Facebook vs. G+, so if you’re searching for another one, I am sorry, but this is not.

Everything began when some data in articles suggested that Facebook is loosing ground and repeating the faith of My Space since it lost millions of users in US just in some months. Is there ground for worries? No, but brands always want to know what’s next and if possible discover the next Facebook and forever be known as innovators.

It’s part of the life cycle of every product that after a certain amount of time in saturated markets the growth slows down and some of the early adopters give up since this is nothing special anymore (Everett Rogers: Diffusion of Innovations). On the other side Facebook is growing vigorously in some emerging markets as South America and Mexico. Which in fact are emerging markets for brands as well.

So the right question wouldn’t be what is the next Facebook. Instead of that why don’t you concentrate you efforts on how to adopt your current use of social networks to the changed rules of the game. There are still many unexplored opportunities Facebook is going to offer to the business and stopping now because you already have that number of fan you promised to your boss, it’s the biggest mistake you can do.

I know it’s trivial but more important than numbers is engagement. Doesn’t matter how many deactivated their profiles but how many actually use them to communicate with friends and brands and I bet that many Americans find a reason to log in at least once a day.

So instead of fishing for new fans, try to connect with the ones you already have. Some are really valuable and in difficult moments can act as brand advocates, in good times they would spread your name among friends. Facebook is not a separated part of the business, it’s a valuable client data base with rich information and maybe some day soon it will be incorporated in customer relationship management systems.

One thing brands can do is figure out a way to sell their products directly to their fans in Facebook, since this is the logical next big thing. Many are already doing it and if they offer some added value that can’t be find elsewhere, the results are impressive in terms of engagement and sales. One example is the Ferrero Shop in facebook where you can arrange the chocolate box to your taste ( delivery only in France, soon in other countries).

Will Google+ pass away Facebook? It doesn’t matter. Important is that we have new tools to communicate and engage so I am looking forward to their business pages. Meanwhile we can prepare to be in shape when this happens. John Bell (Global Director Ogilvy) made a great presentation on what can we expect from G+ for brands so I stop here and let you see it:

Here one idea to turn the head of every creative director. Of course you can’t succeed reusing it, have to come up with your own. Good luck!

Twitter Job Hustle from Wonder Years on Vimeo.

I got that customized infographic just in a minute thanks to a new start up for sharing and making of infographics – visual.ly. The idea is to be both a data base for cool things done so far and give the chance to lame designers like me to build their own. Sounds thrilling to me. I can see the art people condemning as an useless pictures generator but for people like me I think it will do great job. Can’t wait to try it. For now this service is not available. More on Mashable here.

And now for you little monsters:

Because Girls Do It Better

Last Friday, 1st of July, it was the last session of Girl Geek Dinners Milano and I attended of course. It was my second time here in Milan after I first became a “girl geek” in Brussels where I used to attend the EU Geek Girls nights.

Even though I never wrote a post about the event before, I thought this time would be interesting to follow how girl geeks change from place to another and to compare different formats of the international event. For all ungeeky readers (if at all…) and those who never heart about GGD event, have a look here. Basically it’s a networking event created from a girl in London who got annoyed and frustrated about being one of the only females attending technical events.

I have to say I was utterly impressed by the volume of preparation, sponsors and gadget give-aways here. The event has been always organised professionally even though is all voluntary work of couple of girls – Sharon, Marinella, Barbara, Ilaria, Emma and Morena. One significant difference here is that actually boy geeks are allowed. I am not sure about this one. Of course, me too, got tempted to take my boyfriend with me but then all the networking and girly thing is going on waste…isn’t it.

The Friday dinner had a fabulous location, the terrace on a building on a very famous designer street – Via Tortona. The staff serving you and the professional photographs making loads of photos gave the sensation of attending a really important event (I guess it’s a must here in Milan…)

But what makes a dinner a girl geek dinner? The gadget of course, and the presentations of smart girls who made it in the geek world giving some useful insights on all new interesting stuff. This time the gadgets really rocked, a true geek joy.

At the entrance I was given a big super green bag (it was actually white but made from 6 plastic bottles!) with the logo of “Gilr Geek Dinners Milano”, filled in with the Gadgets: a pre-sale trial of the new security system for Android by Norton – Norton Mobile Security, super pretty multiply usb coupler again by Norton, an elegant glass-made necklace and a small but very useful gadget for smartphones (Norton): a screen cleaner that sticks on the back of your phone when you don’t need it. And if this wasn’t enough, there was a Twitter and Facebook game with more gifts for the winners, which of course I couldn’t allow my geek self not to win.

It’s worth noting that last girl geek dinner Milan gadgets were awesome too: business cards’ holder with the logo of GGD Milano, a t-shirt and a book! Thank you GGD Milano, you are really spoiling us.

At the end I hope that all this interest from sponsors and various companies will grow a big and strong girl geek community in Milan, which is yet humble and manly populated with experienced professionals who decided to follow the trend and change their field of occupation. I would enjoy seeing more digital natives and passionate girls about digital communications and social strategies next time. I can’t wait… till October.

I am sorry the post is in English, but it will take me double the time to write it in comprehensible Italian. Maybe I will make a resume later.

Diesel – Excellbook

Initially I wasn’t a fan of the “Be Stupid” campaign of Diesel, and I though it was a bit childish and flat. But this is where I changed my mind about it over an year after they started it. I must acknowledge also that Diesel has been very consistent in all contents and channels and created a truly integrated strategy. The last input to the list of “be stupid” manuals is an app which converts your Facebook profile into an Excell sheet. Literally and with full usability: chat, notifications, news feed, photos. It’s all there and it looks like work.

Just beware not to get caught and to have to explain for which client is that excell table (if you’re working in one of those backward companies that still have locked access to social networking sites or just want to look like working hard all the time).

Tesco: Homeplus Subway Virtual Store

The market is South Korea. The rivals are many and stronger. The idea is simple: Let the store come to people. The results are convincing. How did that happen? They created virtual supermarkets hoping to blend into people offline lives – e.g. subways. Only one thing is different: you can shop with your smartphone, scan the QR code of the product you wish and expect it at home shortly after you get back. Poised for success.

Hotels.com – Trip your face!

Hotels.com is a touristic booking site around the world and they know their stuff. The application embeds your face in memorable moments from an unmemorable trips to New York, Paris or Las Vegas. A  bit doggy but once you try it, it’s really fun.

Trip your face from Ad Eight creatieve communicatie on Vimeo.