"Buy the Way…" Insights on Integrated Marketing Communication

Is it shocking to you if I tell you that a blogger can earn as much as $7.5 million a year for sharing fashion stories? Chiara Ferragni, the 27-year old Italian who runs the blog The Blonde Salad is reportedly making upwards to $8 million in 2014. The blog receives around 600,000 unique visitors and 6 million page-views each month. In the meantime, she has a significant size of audience on Facebook with about 860,000 “likes” and on Instagram with 2.9 million followers.

The Blonde Salad Blog
theblondesalad.com

Her huge popularity on the blog and other social media sites is interestingly not the major way of getting revenues. According to a report from Women’s Wear Daily (wwd.com), only 30 percent of her income (about $2.4 million) comes from her blog, corresponding advertising and brand collaborations, while the remaining 70 percent (about $5.6 million) comes from her footwear line – Chiara Ferragni Collection, created in partnership with Lorenzo Barindelli and Paolo Barletta.

Earlier this year, Ferragni unveiled her own boutique on Depop, a mobile platform founded by Simon Beckerman and backed by investors including Balderton Capital, Holtzbrinck Ventures and Red Circle Investments. It is an app in which you take a picture of something you want to sell and it can be out for sale online in 30 seconds. With the massive amount of followers, Ferragni’s clothes are usually sold minutes after she posts them, as she shared during an interview with The Business of Fashion.

Chiara Ferragni’s Instagram

Ferragni is a very successful example of a fashion blogger who has managed to parlay a personal life-style and fashion blog into a fully realized brand and global business. One essential way leading to her success is the use of integrated marketing on social media and with brand partnerships. Ferragni and her team manage the blog and purposely plan their marketing and PR strategies to pursue retail business. It is obvious that her fashion impact on social media channels is huge: a selfie she posted in February during Milan Fashion Week in a Roberto Cavalli dress received 105,000 likes, and a portrait shot of her several years ago wearing natural makeup garnered more than 100,000 likes. These numbers could be associated with her achievement in market sales. The 10-style capsule collaboration she did with Steve Madden that hit the market in February sold 16,000 pairs in just the first two weeks; her own Chiara Ferragni Collection started in fall 2013 and this line of $220 to $500 shoes is now carried in almost 200 stores in 25 countries worldwide. The brand will launch in the U.S. with the spring 2015 season. So if you think fashion blogging is not really a serious business, Ferragni might ask you to reconsider.

Reference:

Chiara Ferragni’s blog: http://www.theblondesalad.com

http://stylecaster.com/the-blonde-salad-chiara-ferragni-will-make-8-million-this-year

http://www.businessoffashion.com/2014/02/business-blogging-blonde-salad.html

http://www.wwd.com/media-news/digital/the-blonde-salads-chiara-ferragni-talks-fifth-anniversary-and-footwear-launch-7888047

Guerrilla is a Spanish word, which means a battle fought by small army against a giant military. It depicts the practice of using forceful measures to accomplish philosophies practiced by a category of people . A guerrilla fighter will always have an edge, as he would be the only one who knows the time and type of attack unlike its rival who could be more vengeful. Guerrilla warfare is rampant today and has been in practice since decades. Most of the times, this type of warfare is used when a minority of people are suppressed or opposed, which could be unfair or for the greater good. The foes are unaware of the type and time of attack against them as the minorities revolt to benchmark their theories.

The guerrilla warfare concept seemed like a good idea to create a lasting impression on people, therefore the marketers in the 1960s started adopting it as a promotional tool (Baltes and Leibing, 2008). The spawning of corporations has made it more difficult than ever to gain attention of the right audience, in such times guerrilla marketing, with its modest budget and facile operation, has proved to be an efficient tool of marketing. The idea of applying the ‘guerrilla’ concept on the audience is not something that all companies would adopt as it is a brave attempt to capture the attention of the audience and it can easily fall flat if not planned and executed cautiously. In comparison to other promotional ideas, guerrilla marketing is taken as a very attractive strategy as it has the advantage of triggering surprised emotions from the audience (Lautenslager, 2007). Assuredly, if people are to experience a sudden change in an ordinary part of their routine, they will be amazed and take notice of what is happening around. It is very well said that guerrilla marketing spreads like love “You will find it at the moment you do not expect it at all. And at the moment you notice the advertisement and start thinking about its message they have what they want – your attention and interest” (Adeniyi, 2013, p. 44).

Look up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dInhX6ED15Y for a successful example of guerrilla marketing. Wait for the next blog for further discussion. Till then, Fight On!

Adeniyi, A. (2013). Guerrilla marketing: A sustainable tool for entrepreneurs andmarketing practitioners. Journal of Science and Science Education, Vol. 4(1), pp. 44 – 54.

Baltes, G. and I. Leibing, 2008. Guerrilla marketing for information services. Newlib.World, 109: 46-55.

Lautenslager, J.A (2007). Guerilla Marketing, Los Angeles, London Pres.

I’ve never been a fan of social media. I find it to be a nuisance. Too many times friends have stopped me from consuming my food just so that they could spend five minutes attempting to find the perfect angle. What is the purpose of halting the enjoyment of experience only to capture it on photo?

Shortly after the upload, a tiny alert pops up with hearts; someone has “liked” their photo. Their faces now gleamed with joy. What was so exciting about steak? In a recent article by WSJ profiling cosmetics brand Estee Lauder “photographs put our products in a whole new light”-Laney Crowell, Estee Lauder executive director of online global communications.

In an attempt to revitalize the brand for the younger generation, brands are now utilizing marketing strategies in the form of photography. Instagram, an online tool cataloging photographs has over 150 million active users. With such a large following, it’s not surprising the companies are looking to Instagram to build their brand capital.

But can Instagram really create enough envy to sell a product? Well, 91% of all retailers now utilize Instagram as a marketing tool (Dishman, 2014). What is it about the photographs that make people wish or want? In reality, lipstick, steak, and jeans are all very common goods. But through Instagram, lipstick is now an experience. Estee Lauder currently posts photographs daily on how their lipstick is used, in a desk drawer, on the beach, with a bikini. Lipstick is no longer a cosmetic in the photo, but rather a desire. Who doesn’t need sultry red lipstick with that teeny weenie polka dot bikini?

http://online.wsj.com/articles/how-estee-lauder-creates-effective-photos-for-facebook-pinterest-twitter-instagram-1403146580

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lydiadishman/2014/02/13/instagram-is-shaping-up-to-be-the-worlds-most-powerful-selling-tool/

I’m currently in Wisconsin spending time with family. I grew up in Wisconsin but have lived in Los Angeles for about 5 years now. It’s always a joy to go back during the Fall and see the leaves changing colors and feel the cool air. Just as some background, Wisconsin produces some of the best cheese and meat in the country. Home cooking and great food is part of the culture out here. While driving around town I stumbled across this billboard by McDonald’s:

(picture by Amy)

Here is a map of all the McDonald’s in Wisconsin.

(Picture from https://www.mccourtesy.com/content/home)

This ad really makes me think that McDonald’s is doing their part to get healthy food from local farmers. However McDonald’s doesn’t buy directly from the farmers because they are sourcing for Industrial food processing. This is a big problem because they are leading people to believe that McDonald’s food is part of a healthy lifestyle but it really is just the same old bad food. What are your thoughts on this kind of food marketing?

David Bertowitz recently wrote an article in Advertising Age that raises the question: Are the storytelling ways of marketers coming to an end in favor of becoming a “story maker”? My answer: no. I don’t believe that storytelling is coming to an end; instead I think that storytelling is now a part of story making. If you create a story, you or someone else needs to tell the story on the brand’s behalf. Sometimes the consumer is not interested in another story thought up by a marketing whiz at Corporate Headquarters.

This is where the consumer is being called upon. Brands such as AppleBee’s are filling their Instagram accounts with photos taken by diners. This tactic encourages followers, as people always love to be featured on someone else’s page. Shannon Scott, Executive Director of Marketing Communications at Applebee’s says, “People continue to prove that they’re more into the stuff they create versus the stuff we create”. This user-generated content is a great way to include consumers in the story making process. Now they are hooked.

Bertowitz cites the “Share a Coke” campaign as a “radical” new campaign that asks users to share their stories via custom labels. While, from a packaging standpoint this is a newer concept, Coca-Cola is not the only company including users as story creators. He states that story telling from the brands standpoint is fiction, but this is not always true.

To me the real purpose of the Coca-Cola campaign is to get the user involved in the story and become invested in the telling, sharing, and creation processes. Brands such as Apple, Red Bull, and Starbucks tell stories that allow the consumer to identify with the brand’s culture. Consumers are then encouraged to share their stories via social media. Here the brand has started the story or discussion about the product and then passed the baton to the consumer, starting a relay of sorts. Consumers then share, re-tweet, and post their stories; stories that create a brand buzz better than anything the marketing department could have conjured up on their own. The rise of social media, the Internet, and blogs has definitely changed story telling. The consumer can become part of the process in a way that was not possible 15 years ago.

References

Bertowitz, D. (2014, September 17). The beginning of the end of storytelling. Brands need to be story Makers not story tellers. Advertising Age. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/beginning-end-storytelling/294975/

Johnson, L. (2014, September 22). Food porn campaign gives Applebee’s a social lift. AdWeek. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/food-porn-campaign-gives-applebees-social-lift-160257