A new era of marketing

By investigating the ‘Tommy Hilfiger’ brand for my Digital Artefact (DA), I can gain insight into how the fashion industry responds to its target market and conduct research to do so in a productive manner. My reason for choosing this as my focus is because of my future career. I am interested in getting into the fashion industry in the future and working in either editorial design or marketing as I am currently studying visual communication design and marketing and advertising as my majors. Through studying this media niche ethnographically, I will be able to gain insight into how these big prominent fashion companies use social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to persuade, influence, and inspire customers to purchase their items. Using academic research to further extend my awareness and appreciate how these brand icons use social media can help me gain innovative marketing expertise.

Network Map

As noted in Burrell’s The Field Site as a Network, “the researchers identify the artefacts and subjects of their study through the process of constructing a field site” (Burrell, 2009). I produced a rough mind map to develop this, highlighting the essential relationships and interactions the brand has. This field site is restricted but I believe it covers the brand ‘s key relationships.

For example, in 2017 Tommy Hilfiger and Barbie partnered to transform the model Gigi Hadid into a barbie doll with features consisting of her, The @barbiestyle account tweeted a total of 7 times to promote the Tommy x Gigi series, 5 of which performed higher than their already unprecedented 2.74 per cent average. They inserted the link in their account bio to shop the collection, just as they did last season, except this time their promotional material was even more extensive, and also even included a Storie’s reel. This cross-brand strategy is a genius way to go about brand-building if your partners are on point. This was so successful that  Gigi posted an image of herself as a doll, just chillin’ which poured the @barbiestyle account with over 27K new followers in 24 hours (Heath, 2017).

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQOd6LojvC6/?utm_source=ig_embed

Tommy Hilfiger has been tucking into the new trends in social media most recently: Instagram Stories. The fashion brand has revealed it is launching custom templates inspired by its new TommyXZendaya collection for the platform. Through using an influencer-led line to market the models, Tommy Hilfiger can highlight their brand (SHAUL, 2019). Yet, because of the use of influencer marketing by Tommy Hilfiger. Growing data indicates that millennial customers are searching for genuine content and less interested in endorsements by celebrities. Coinciding with this preference for authenticity in influencer marketing is a change from top posts of fashion shows and brand-sponsored activities to less brand-overt occasions such as charity and award activities (Farooqi, 2019).

https://www.adweek.com/digital/unfold-partnered-with-tommy-hilfiger-to-launch-instagram-stories-templates/

Another example included Tommy Hilfiger in New York Fashion Week (NYFW) seeking to expand the scope of its inclusive brand DNA. Through using social media sites like Twitter, the company provides a perfect way to connect with fans directly. Traditionally, runway shows were exclusive events, but Tommy Hilfiger wanted to join the growing list of brands such as Burberry, Topshop and Alexander McQueen to use social media to make their shows available to a larger audience (Digital marketing case study – Twitter case study: Tommy Hilfiger hashtag takes fashion show global – Digital Training Academy, n.d.). The plan for the campaign was focused on creating shareable content and using imagery, celebrity and smart targeting to ensure that fans around the world were able to engage with the brand. The brand’s twitter campaign produced 460 million views and gained an average of 4000 new followers every day during the campaign (Digital marketing case study-Twitter case study: Tommy Hilfiger hashtag takes fashion show global — Digital Training Academy, n.d.).

Ultimately, after studying how Tommy Hilfiger uses these social media channels to connect and engage with their target audience, I find it very fascinating how they use various tactics to help them express their brand identity and get their customers to interact with the brand.

References

Leave a comment