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Interview 2

My second interview I had the pleasure of talking to Lindsay Molin of Hermes about her career and the differences in the PR landscape and the differences between working in agency vs. working in house. She talked about her experiences in both agency and in house, and touched on how different they are. In her experiences working for agency she said it was a constant battle with everyone over certain clients, since there are multiple. She said that over the last 5 years there has been a ginormous shift to deliver not only influencer deliverables but also to sell the experience of things. She works in the events department and works solely to create experiences for her consumers and clients to come to. She works to make every show and every event istagram(able) to create experiences. During her time in agency she spoke about the importance of print and how most of the sample trafficking she did was for that purpose, or to get someone in a gown on the red carpet. However she noted that that was still an important factor of PR but there was this other force, the digital force which has taken over. Now, she said she might be spending about 30% of her time working for print and showings and 70% geared towards digital.

This was an interesting thing to learn because I had just read an article about the importance or lack thereof of celebrities wearing certain designers on the red carpet. “According to a recent Hollywood Reporter/Morning Consult poll, 44 percent of Americans never watch award show red carpet coverage. Only 6 percent of the 2,203 respondents said they watch for the fashion. Ratings of the Oscars themselves are also in steep decline.” (BoF) Which aids to the point then that people are not watching and necessarily looking for fashion in these moments but maybe later on. The article talks to Christian Siriano about his relationships and collaborations and speaks to the point which he believes. He states its not about simply dressing someone for events, but about working with them to cultivate a relationship which will last for a very long time, and showcasing that to consumers.

The rise of social media has supercharged the influence economy, making influencers a critical part of the marketing mix. Download BoF’s ‘Playbook’ for actionable insights on how to maximise your influencer strategy.

“According to Business Insider Intelligence, the value of the influencer economy is predicted to stretch to between $5 and $10 billion in global ad spend by 2022.”

As I just discussed in my last post during my interview with Bree Ryan, she touched on the vast possibilities and the right and wrong was to work with influencers. This article touches on not just that, but the ways in which brands can stay ahead of the game and align their needs with influencers.

This interesting read touches on the ways that many brands are loosing strides because of the constant battle with other brands to be represented the most. Which leads to overly saturated consumer feeds which do not lead to sales. The author discusses 5 key factors to follow when trying to manage the influencer market correctly. The first being laying the foundations, basically to know your consumer and their needs, and know what you want to communication. Second, focus on alignment which basically just means finding the right influencer who agrees with your brands needs. Third, making a collaboration and not a transaction. Work with the influencer to create relationships not one time transactional posts. Fourth to monitor success selectively, and know consumer behaviors. Lastly, to give some creative control to the influencer because they know how to market to their audience the best.

#influencer

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Henry Golding attends the Met Gala Boom Boom Afterparty in New York City (May 6, 2019)

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Giambattista Valli S/S 2019

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Karlie Kloss by Alique | Beauté: Le Soleil Á Découvert | Vogue Paris Beauty May 2019

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Frank’s photo’s from the Met taken with his Contax T3 for Vogue.

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Kendall Jenner by Oliver Hadlee Pearch for Vogue US, June 2019

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Vivetta Spring 2019

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Christian Dior Resort ‘20

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Chanel Resort ‘20

Interview 1

The first person I interviewed, was at the internship showcase this spring in Snow Atirum. I spoke with Bree Ryan of VisionPoint Marketing, formerly of Rebecca Minkoff. We spoke about the difference and changes in consumer behavior over the last 5 years and discussed what it means to be a brand and what she learned from her time with Rebecca Minkoff. She learned a brand needs to have a clear brand presence across all platforms and needs to be cohesive. Particularly when dealing with influencers she said the people working for the brand need to know exactly what the brand emanates so that partnerships and campaigns can reach your target audiences effectively. Most recently, the idea of a micro and macro influencer has been talked about a lot, and at first when Instagram became this powerhouse platform macro influencers were all the buzz. However now the needle is pointed more towards the micro influencer because of their close knit relationship to their followers. Whereas with the macro influencers who have 500K+ followers, the connection is not as close. She agreed with that idea and noted that at Rebecca Minkoff they needed to pick the RIGHT influencers which was sometimes harder to do. The influencer has to stand for the same things as the brand and has to be a relevant individual who can engage the market with smaller more loyal followers. In the end she said a lot about the influencer market was being authentic to who you are and who the brand is.

Interviews

Interviews were another large part of my independent study and I had the pleasure of talking with three different individuals who all have had or are currently working in the Fashion Industry in some capacity. The first was Bree Ryan from Vision Point Marketing who used to work at Rebecca Minkoff. Next I spoke to a former Elon alum Lindsay Molin who is the Director of Events at Hermes. Lastly, I spoke with Hilary Keefe who is an Account Director at Vogue.