In the brutal fashion track, nothing is a permanent winner. Even though the figure of fashion bloggers is not yet extinct, beneath the surface, the industry is already shuffling such opinion leaders. A significant portion of these brands are shifting their promotional budgets from fashion KOLs to pop icons, reality TV stars and cultural pioneers.
In fact, as early as the early stage of the outbreak, the survival and development of fashion KOLs were hotly discussed in the industry. On the one hand, physical fashion shows where the pause button is pressed sharply reduces the exposure scene of KOL; on the other hand, the policy of home isolation also limits the output of carefully planned visual materials. In the face of turbulence in the external environment, many KOLs have chosen to change with the times, using live broadcasting and other means to maintain their exposure to continue the career lifeline.
But recently, some insiders have asserted that 2022 may be a huge career turning point for bloggers. Brenda Otero, Cultural Insights Manager at Lyst, a British fashion shopping search platform, said in an interview with WWD: "This is the second decade of fashion democratization, in the first decade, fashion bloggers broke down industry barriers and emerged, but now, cultural attributes and community influence have become crucial. ”
According to the latest data provided by Lyst, "cultural pioneers" will be the fulcrum that brands will rely on this year. "Cultural pioneer" refers to a person who can promote social or political careers, and amanda Gorman, an American poet who has become famous in recent years, is one of the typical representatives. At just 23 years old, Amanda was the recipient of America's inaugural Young Poet Laureate, whose poems focused on oppression, social exclusion, feminism, and racial issues in the United States. Last year, Amanda Gorman was invited to attend the inauguration of the new U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, where he recited his poem "The Hill We Climb" at the ceremony.
In terms of dress, Amanda Gorman's predilection for eye-catching colors and prints unexpectedly attracted Prada's attention, and the brand then invited her to fashion events. And when Amanda Gorman was preparing for the presidential inauguration, Prada did her look, and the combination of a yellow coat and a red satin hairband created a classic fashion moment. After the ceremony, Amanda Gorman's "fashion journey" did not end there. Last May, she became the first female representative to appear as a poet on the cover of vogue in the United States.
Amanda Gorman
Fashion KOLs are gradually fading out of the range of brands that love to chase hot spots, and one of the main reasons is the decline in its credibility. In the past, KOL broke through because of its objective perspective and true speech, and this content presentation form that is close to the reality of public life is more likely to resonate with the majority of consumers, so consumers are more willing to make consumption choices according to KOL's recommended grass. However, with the increasingly frequent cooperation between KOLs and brands, consumers can clearly perceive that the negative content about the brand has basically disappeared from social media, while the density of advertorials that are positively promoted has risen sharply, and the result is that the credibility of fashion KOLs has generally declined, and consumers who are conscious of consumer consciousness are obviously no longer so easily swayed by KOL's brand content.
Take the Chinese market as an example. According to the "2021 China Luxury Products Report" jointly released by Ruder Finn Communications Group and the Precision Market Research Center, 9% of respondents in all Chinese mainland said that they would reduce their willingness to buy the products recommended by bloggers after learning that the brand sponsored the bloggers, while for celebrity paid cooperation, the proportion of respondents who said that they would reduce their willingness to buy was relatively low, only 6%.
Linda Saieb, founder of LHS Consulting, a blogger marketing agency, points out to WWD that the public is tired of overly refined or curated content and doesn't want to see the same face as often. While this does not mean that interest in all bloggers is lost, the value of this group has been diluted as bloggers have become more and more prolific.
On the other hand, the orientation of the new generation of consumers is also forcing brands to adjust the target of cooperation. Growing up in the era of mobile Internet, he is young, and at the same time has a strong sense of self and information collection ability, so he is more critical of content creators. Among them, professionalism and realism are the most important factors for this group of people.
Nora Zukauskaite, marketing director at British brand Ciaté London, found that consumers are now more willing to trust industry experts than acquaintances, because it is clear that KOL's so-called sharing recommendations are almost all paid ads for brands. This also means that even if it is a KOL, the orthodox genre with professional knowledge and experience is far more popular than the "halfway monk" amateur players.
In addition, blockbuster movies and TV dramas and short video software are also increasingly taking food from the mouth of KOLs. Compared with KOL, film and television dramas can grab a larger amount of traffic, and can help brands seize the mind in the mass incremental market. Characters rooted in ups and downs of the plot can quickly provoke the audience's nerves and form emotional resonance with it.
In the case of niche accessories brand Métier, when Nicole Kidman carried his bag on the popular series "Undoing", the strong exposure quickly transformed into the brand's upward potential energy. "We almost immediately experienced an uptick in sales and awareness, and the dividend went on for months, which was a really good effect during the pandemic. I think the reason for this positive feedback is that there's a connection between the person wearing the product and our real customers," Melissa Morris, founder and creative director of the brand, told WWD.
Stills from Nicole Kidman in the popular episode Undoing
The rise of short video software has also allowed the public to rely more on algorithmic recommendations to obtain information, rather than actively focusing on search, which has also weakened the stickiness between fans and KOLs to a certain extent. The weChat platform, the main position of domestic fashion KOL, its user use time continues to be seized by Douyin. According to Aurora statistics, the average daily total usage time of Douyin users is 44.16 billion minutes, and if calculated according to the standard of 600 million daily active users, the daily use time of a single user is about 73.6 minutes. According to the "Eighteenth National Reading Survey", in 2020, mainland adults will spend 100.75 minutes of mobile phone contact time per day, which also means that users who have installed Douyin will basically spend more than 70% of their time on the software.
In the face of the fierce rush of traffic, IF KOLs still want to retain a place, they must realize the importance of content is king. In the past stage of the original accumulation of traffic, the content was more considered in the dimension of absorbing fans, and the recipes that KOL could choose were rich and diverse, from reviews to professional science to real people trying on successful cases. After the steep rise in the number of fans, whether they can effectively plant grass has become an important test for KOLs, because in repeated trials, the brand has clearly realized that highly popular KOLs do not always cash in on high returns.
As consumers become more savvy and have more information channels to choose from, KOLs need to pay attention to whether the content produced can deepen their credibility and authority in the long run, so that consumers can accept recommendations convincingly. Just as consumers tend to adopt the words of professionals, they also need to feel that KOLs have a deep understanding and real use of the product when they are planted, not just copy and paste the brand information.
Consumers' increasing emphasis on authenticity and communication also means that personality display has become a must for KOLs.
The word personality, it can be a true expression of one's own likes and dislikes. For example, gogoboi, a domestic fashion blogger, has always taken the praise and criticism of the style review as its reserved column. In his blog post, both veteran stars and popular idols may receive sharp criticism for dressing mistakes. Unreserved display of personal preferences allows bloggers and KOLs to get out of homogenization and form deeper links with their audiences. During the Spring/Summer 2020 Fashion Week, Gogoboi and fashion magazines gave very different reviews on the same show stars, and in terms of netizen discussions, Gogoboi's "spicy reviews" were obviously more supported.
At the same time, personality can also be the output of the blogger's KOL attitude proposition. Another leading blogger in China, Rebecca, has launched a video column of "100 Chinese Girls' Homes" since last year. In this column, Rebecca records the living space of women of different styles and identities, and in the dialogue with the owner of the house, she conducts a deep depiction of the value position and culture through the female perspective. According to the blogger's Weibo, the series has repeatedly landed on the Weibo hot search list, and the video of visiting the residence of Chongqing girl Cora has received millions of likes on Douyin.
Rebecca's "Home of 100 Chinese Girls" video column
Overall, top-down teaching has become increasingly ineffective for a younger generation that is self-aware and likes to deconstruct authority. Younger generations are more concerned with equal communication with warm emotions, so they hope that bloggers can play a flesh-and-blood companion rather than a simple grass-growing machine.
This also means that bloggers, in addition to the output of professional content, also need to consider sharing daily life and joys and sorrows. Chiara Ferragni, known as the "first blogger in the universe", launched a reality show called "The Ferragnez" last year to disclose her private life, in which Chiara Ferragni is no longer flawless at all times, and viewers see the blogger's vulnerable side beyond the aura. Alison Bringé, chief marketing officer at launchmetrics, a consultancy, told WWD: "Chiara Ferragni's performance on the show has drawn the outside world closer to her and successfully established an emotional connection point in the minds of others.
Chiara Ferragni's The Ferragnez reality show
In the ever-changing fashion world, it is an indisputable fact that fashion KOLs are not as strong as before, but its content creation ability that distinguishes it from the media and celebrities is still the fulcrum that brands can rely on. However, it should be pointed out that brands need to choose partners more carefully. In grass planting campaigns, the recognition of a product or brand can be boosted to a large extent depends on the follow-up of fans to bloggers and KOLs.
Therefore, the number of fans and the flow of works of KOL should not be the only focus of the brand, and the stickiness of fans will be more important in terms of planting benefits. Brands and bloggers should work together not only for instant exposure, but also about whether bloggers can successfully convert their fans into potential customers of the brand through endorsement recognition. Achieving this conversion requires a high degree of stickiness between KOLs and fans. Therefore, when the brand evaluates a KOL, in addition to considering the popularity value, image fit and content production capacity, it is also necessary to pay attention to the interaction between fans and KOLs and whether KOLs will emotionally maintain fans.
At some point, feedback from KOL fans can also calibrate the brand's market needs. According to industry insiders, Mr. Bao, who has launched a cooperative series with a number of brands, will solicit opinions from fans during the product design stage and select packages and colors with a high degree of popularity, so as to ensure that the mass-produced items are in line with consumer preferences to the greatest extent and promote the occurrence of purchasing behavior.
In addition, as social platforms become more diverse, brands also need to line up KOLs according to the attributes of the platform. Taking the domestic platform as an example, the Weibo platform can be used as a strong exposure channel, WeChat as a content-based platform is suitable for precipitating high-quality in-depth content, and the Little Red Book Douyin, which focuses on visual expression, can pave the grass materials that grab eyeballs. Correspondingly, in a marketing campaign, brands also need to consider the division of labor arrangements between KOLs and bloggers, forming a multi-dimensional reach that integrates information transmission, professional analysis and trial trials, and uses a long communication chain to extend consumers' memory range for the brand.
"Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes:", indeed, the boom in social media has indeed made the odds of overnight popularity steeply increased. But for those KOLs who have gone through the moment of going out of the circle, they should think more about how to leave a distinctive voice in this era. Otherwise, the densest traffic may end up being reduced to a flash of memory. WWD
Written by Drag
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