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July 26th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda 
Macala Wright is the publisher of FashionablyMarketing.Me, one of the leading fashion and retail industry business websites. She is a retail consultant and business strategist who specializes in marketing consulting for fashion, luxury, and lifestyle brands. You can follower her on Twitter at @InsideFMM or @Macala.
Brands are shifting from company-centric experiences to customer-centric experiences, largely through their digital initiatives. As Julie Bornstein, the senior vice president of digital at Sephora recently noted, brand experiences need to facilitate emotions and conversations that drive consumers to take action.
Most brands are struggling to figure out this shift. Although there are exceptions. Here are four luxury brands creating connected consumer experiences that yield great results.
1. Tourneau
Tourneau hired Condé Nast Media Group to populate their newly relaunched Tourneau.com with cultural content from September 2011 to January 2012. The custom content on Tourneau extended to the brand’s social media channels. The creative storytelling embeded the concept of time into each piece in a way that provided actual value to the reader. Two sweepstakes provided incentives for social participation and gave style and watch bloggers a reason to point to the content on the site.
The goal of the program had three objectives:
- 1. Position Tourneau as the authority on time, contextualizing timepieces among a modern luxury consumer across Tourneau-owned media.
- 2. Educate consumers about the Tourneau advantage and all of the unique benefits and values of being a Tourneau customer.
- 3. Get consumers and social influencers to participate in the Tourneau brand.
Trusting the content to a strategic partner was a new direction for Tourneau. “We realized we needed to educate the consumer about fine timepieces, but make it more in the form of “edutainment” not simply dry technical specifications. Furthermore, we realized the various segments of our customers and thus, the need for various forms of content which is ever more important to traffic-building exercises on digital properties,” says Donald McNichol, SVP of Marketing and Digital for Tourneau.
The end result was impressive in terms of consumer engagement with the brand. Tourneau saw page views to specific products or collections increase based on the pieces being featured in the editorials.
The company also utilized these pieces of editorial within email communication efforts and saw a 90% increase in open rates and another 35% increase in click-through rates. The numbers are important, as they indicate customer brand loyalty and propensity to convert to a sale.
Lastly, McNichol shared that he has seen the Tourneau social fan base increase more than 1,000% in one year. As the brand has become more consistent in social media, their following has become much more active with comments, sharing, and re-posting.
2. Mr Porter
Mr Porter is one of the strongest examples of an online luxury retailer that’s focusing on their customer experience. For instance, each Tuesday, Mr Porter rolls out stories and features of the week. It then delivers pieces of that content across its online and offline channels so it conveys a piece of that story in a way that feels relevant to the audience on that platform. “Overall our marketing strategy is quite diversified at Mr Porter. Whether via traditional advertising avenues like GQ, The Wall Street Journal or via social media channels such as Facebook and Tumblr, we build a strategy that speaks to various audiences in a multi-platform way,” says Mario Muttenthaler, Head of Marketing.
Also, in March, Mr Porter launched a global treasure hunt in Hong Kong (Sydney, New York, London and Paris have already taken place). It utilized the GoldRun app, which let users capture a virtual shopping bag in various city locations to win prizes like Lanvin sneakers or APC jeans. This was in a celebration of Mr. Porter’s first birthday.
3. Marc Jacobs
In February 2012, Marc Jacobs Intl partnered with Bumebox to add interactive social media overlays to the live stream of their shows. Marc Jacobs Intl began live streaming their shows in February 2010, inviting fans to RSVP to watch with a chance to win airfare, hotel, and two tickets to their collection show and after party. “We asked people to include their name, country, and email address in their RSVP in return for a front row seat and the possibility of winning an all-expense-paid trip to NYC for two,” says Daniel Plenge, Director of Digital. “We still offer this opportunity to fans each NYFW.”
It wasn’t until February 2012 that Marc Jacobs saw really impressive results. “We partnered with Bumebox and created a custom social overlay for users to join the #marcjacobslive conversation via either Twitter or Facebook,” says Plenge. “The night of the collection show, the #marcjacobslive tag had more than ninety million impressions on Twitter.”
What’s more, by adding real-time interactions and shares from fan commentary, the recent Marc Jacobs show trended to the number eight most talked about topic on Twitter worldwide. No other show during New York Fashion Week accomplished this aside from the #NYFW tag itself. Also, consumers were so excited to see the Alice In Wonderland type images in the show that it resulted in a 20% click-through rate to Marc Jacobs’ ecommerce site. The experience drove consumers to shop.
4. Fisker Automotive
In the automotive sector, customer experience is exactly what Henrik Fisker is focusing on with the Karma, an electric luxury vehicle. “When people see a great design, they get emotionally drawn into it, they get excited about it,” says Fisker. “I believe what we have been able to create with the Karma is this very deep, original desire for the automobile.”
To foster relationships with prospective customers, nurture relationships with current customers, and continually tap into the emotion of their product, Paul Imhoff, Director, Global Marketing Communications at Fisker, shared insights into the luxury automaker’s customer experience strategy. “Our events like the Driving Good Karma tour do a lot to get potential customers behind the wheel. We are also maximizing exposure at the local level through our long-established retailers who have strong community relationships. We then build owner loyalty by bringing them into the inner circle.” The company does this by holding customer town halls with senior executives and engineers that give them an opportunity to voice their opinions and help our team improve the product. TheirFacebook and Twitter feeds are starting to become invaluable social channels as well.
All luxury brands have challenges with creating a connected consumer experience, especially in the automotive sector. Imhoff advises that, in addition to a company’s main web presence on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, they must also participate in forums where consumers have built communities celebrating their passion for the company’s products. “We always participate in an authentic and transparent manner building a solid connection between our consumers and our brand” shared Imhoff.
How is your brand creating connective consumer experiences?
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, wdstock
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