Digital volatility underpins fragmented performance, per Vogue Business Index

This Vogue Business Index article is part of our Advanced Membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to The Long View from Vogue Business and bi-monthly Market Insights Reports and webinars, sign up for Advanced Membership here. This is one of the five chapters comprising the Vogue Business Index: Winter 2022/23 edition and should be read in conjunction with the others. Please use the table of contents below to navigate between the chapters of the Vogue Business Index: Winter 2022/23 edition. Key takeaways: Digital volatility: Twitter is in chaos, Meta is shifting focus, and TikTok continues to attract attention from governments globally. Social media is far from stable, and brands need to ensure flexibility and consider multiple platforms for any major campaigns. Brands should look towards successful brand strategies on fast-growing platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou in China. Boldness needed: China went through a lot in 2022 with tight Covid curbs and social unrest preceding an unprecedented surge in cases when restrictions were suddenly lifted. The country is now opening up its borders again, which will have significant ramifications for luxury in the year ahead. Brands need to be brave to cut through in such a fast-changing environment. Culture wins: The rise of platforms, including TikTok and Douyin, has seen successful influencers become more focused on video content that culturally resonates, such as skits, jokes and advice. Marketing opportunities for brands may seem less obvious than more image-led platforms, so collabs with ambassadors that have a strong cultural niche could help make the most of this shift. The shifting landscape of tech Mainstream social media had a chaotic 2022. Meta shares tumbled as the owner of Facebook and Instagram posted lower-than-expected revenue and increasing costs following its efforts to focus on the metaverse. Privacy concerns over TikTok’s links to China caused concern for European and US governments. Declining digital ad revenue has impacted all players, including legacy media publications — the number one source for luxury consumers researching new products and collections. On top of all this, the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk and his headline-grabbing tenure has seen advertisers flee the platform, with recent analysis suggesting that the daily rate of accounts being deactivated or suspended was double the usual figure in the days after the purchase went through. Data from Twitter is no longer being included in the Vogue Business Index. It has long had declining relevance for fashion brands, and the developments over the past few months have only accelerated this. The subsequent redistribution in the weightings has benefitted Saint Laurent, which was one of the biggest risers on the digital pillar in this edition. These changes to the social media landscape mean it has never been more crucial for brands to adopt a true cross-platform approach, designing content that can be cleverly adapted to reach luxury consumers wherever they choose to be online. The brands that performed well on the digital pillar this year were typically strong across all channels, with Dior being the standout leader once again. Along with big-budget beauty campaigns (often starring major celebrities), runway shows tend to be the most-viewed online videos that brands upload to their social media platforms. Gucci was one of just a handful of brands to have seen significant growth in video views and interactions on Facebook since last year. This was in large part due to over 6 million views of its Twinsburg Spring/Summer 2023 fashion show, where pairs of models were dressed in identical looks in a compelling tribute to departing creative director Alessandro Michele’s mother and her twin sister. This was one of many viral moments during SS23 shows, along with Coperni’s spray-on dress and Paris Hilton’s appearance at the Versace show. Brands that do well create moments that gain traction not just through their social media but also by resonating strongly with the wider fashion press. Fashion shows are a historic tradition but appeal more strongly to younger luxury consumers than older ones: 31 per cent of Vogue Business Index survey respondents under 25 cited fashion shows as one of the main ways they research new products (in comparison to 22 per cent of respondents over 25). Dior and Chanel are among the brands that have established themselves as the most viewed brands on Vogue galleries during SS23 fashion weeks. More Chinese platforms give greater sense of brand reach This edition of the Vogue Business Index delivers a greater sense of how much digital reach brands have in China, with the inclusion of new data from social platforms Xiaohongshu and Douyin (TikTok in China). Xiaohongshu, which translates as “little red book”, is a Chinese social lifestyle platform often presented as the country’s answer to Instagram. Dior, the most popular brand on Xiaohongshu during the six-month period analysed, had 10 times as many views as any other brand (mirroring its outsized success across other social media platforms globally). The platform offers brands an opportunity to build decentralised hype around the brand, as evidenced by excited residents in the Chinese coastal resort of Aranya posting about the set construction of the SS23 Louis Vuitton menswear show taking place there. Douyin, the short-form video platform known as TikTok elsewhere in the world, is a newer player that has been bolstering its e-commerce capabilities as of late. Index brand Bosideng is one of a handful of retailers selling via the app and hoping to turn consumer attention into hard revenue. Douyin has been an essential driver of fashion trends such as blokecore (think football jerseys and jeans) in recent years. Prada has shown how a demonstration of strong faith in the Chinese market can help a brand gain traction on the platform. Searches for Prada on Douyin increased by 1,600 per cent in the six months to November, according to the company. The Italian brand restaged its AW22 fashion show in Beijing, becoming the first luxury brand to stage a major physical presentation in China in 2022, despite the Covid restrictions that were still in place in the country. The event featured Chinese actors Liao Fan and Kara Wai Ying Hong and was streamed across Weibo, Douyin and Tencent. Social media is by far the most important way that Chinese consumers decide on what clothes to buy: 57 per cent of luxury consumers here cite social media to be where they discover new products, versus 31 per cent globally. Brands that use Chinese platforms to demonstrate a strong understanding of what is important to consumers in the country are likely to fare best. Brands making big and bold shows of support like Prada will stand out, especially as Covid restrictions easing means high-value Chinese tourist spending could be set to recover. Also present at the event was former brand ambassador and actor Li Yifeng, whom Prada cut ties with in September after he was arrested on suspicion of soliciting sex workers. This drove more interest on Wechat than any other luxury fashion story between April and October 2022, underlining how controversy can often be a big catalyst for online attention. It seems that, rather than going for the most popular influencers, some Western brands are aiming to harness the interest around more controversial figures in China, aiming to be more ambitious in navigating the nuances of the Chinese market. For example, Italian label Tod’s, one of the strongest performers on Weibo during the period analysed, recently added stand-up comedian Li Dan to its roster of brand ambassadors despite him previously appearing in an underwear advert, criticised for being “vulgar and insulting to women's dignity”, which he subsequently apologised for. However, while it might be tempting for some brands to court controversy in the pursuit of stronger awareness and digital advantage, this high-risk strategy does not always reap high rewards. Trust remains key to conversion, and controversies can erode that trust, especially when a brand is seen to have a negative social stance. Increasingly, impact on both people and planet come into consideration when consumers shop around their values. The creator economy and what it means Behind these changes to the social media landscape is the fact that many consumers are spending their time online differently, and brands are having to adapt. TikTok is popular for its entertainment and lifestyle advice, therefore, fashion does not work quite as well on the platform as it does on Instagram, for instance. Decentralised or creator-oriented special-interest communities are thriving on websites like Discord, Reddit and Patreon, while Twitter seems to be breaking apart. This raises the question of what kinds of celebrities, brand ambassadors and partners brands might seek to work with in the coming years. Luxury brands underlining their role in this new cultural landscape have been casting a wide net. Hugo Boss signed TikTok life-hack star Khaby Lame for a capsule collection for SS22, while train enthusiast Francis Bourgeois was photographed for the Gucci x North Face campaign. Younger consumers are far happier to admit that celebrities inform what they buy: 27 per cent of luxury shoppers aged 18 to 24 say they find out information about brands via celebrities, and 17 per cent say they use influencers to discover new products (versus 19 per cent and 13 per cent respectively among all age groups). With nearly two-thirds of US teens using TikTok, this is where brands will find the faces that speak to younger buyers, even if the creator's main focus is trains or cleaning pools rather than clothing. The benefit of working with creators like this is that they are more likely to have cross-social media appeal and the ability to drive hype themselves. The trade-off is that the brand might not fit as seamlessly into the creator’s social media output as with the last wave of influencers on Instagram. An opportunity that should not be disregarded is blogs, which launched the careers of long-lasting influencers such as Bryanboy and Chiara Ferragni. Eleven per cent of luxury consumers cite blogs as somewhere they go to find out about brands, with younger consumers the most likely to be readers. Blogs are popular among Gen Z and millennials before a sharp drop off in interest from older age brackets. With new popular channels for creators to self-fund their fashion-related content, such as Substack and Patreon, smart brands could cultivate relationships with some of these longer-form creators to gain access to the highly engaged communities they speak to. Case study: Prada impresses with content A new datapoint in this edition of the Vogue Business Index asks consumers to rate brands for the first time on their ability to produce engaging content. Finishing marginally ahead of overall digital pillar lead Dior was Prada, with consumers giving the Italian fashion house an average score of 6.9 out of 10 for content. Leading fashion houses are no longer just producers of clothes, but increasingly major players in the cultural landscape, partnering with highly respected collaborators. In some of the first-rate short films that fashion brands have used to advertise their clothing, Dior has called upon French football superstar Kylian Mbappé; while GQ and Gucci produced A Hero’s Journey with Liverpool forward Mo Salah. Louis Vuitton partnered once again with Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama after a much-vaunted collab a decade ago. Imagery derived from Stanley Kubrick’s films was deployed in a recent Gucci campaign, while actor Josh O'Connor of The Crown regularly links up with Loewe. Similarly, Prada has been demonstrating its status as a cultural player. American Olympic snowboarding medalist Julia Marino was recently tapped to feature in a recent video campaign for its athleisure line Prada Linea Rossa (Marino withdrew from the Beijing games after a dispute with authorities over the Prada logo on her board). Also present on Prada’s YouTube channel are interviews with DJ Richie Hawtin and artist Damien Hirst, alongside more typical fashion content (behind-the-scenes videos, ad campaigns and fashion shows). Contemporary art destination Fondazione Prada in Milan brings added heft to Prada’s creative connections. The striking building was designed by Rem Koolhaas’s architecture firm and hosts art exhibitions and screenings advertised via the brand’s social channels. This includes some of Prada’s own campaign films, including the recent Touch of Crude, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, whose credits include Drive (2011) and the Neon Demon (2016). While Dior, Louis Vuitton and Gucci all perform better in terms of views and shares, Prada is underlining its cultural impact; a powerful strategy in the eyes of luxury consumers. To receive the Vogue Business newsletter, sign up here. Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com. You can learn more about the Vogue Business Index and Advanced Membership here.

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