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The rising ubiquity of tech companies at fashion shows underscores a mutually beneficial relationship between the two industries as luxury customer behaviour changes.
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During a fashion event, tech companies can show off products to B2B consumers, while fashion brands benefit from data and innovative toolsets.
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Amazon and Alibaba are leveraging their data and platforms to deliver products consumers want at the speed they expect.
NEW YORK — Tech giants are making their presence known during fashion month, marking a shift in power around who funds, and benefits from, the runway.
This season, payment services company Klarna is sponsoring a set of fashion presentations at New York Fashion Week that lets customers purchase items from collections on payment plans. Thom Browne will debut a rebranded Samsung Galaxy phone in partnership with the South Korean tech giant. Last season, Google appeared during the runway return of Jennifer Lopez’s Versace dress, one of the season’s most viral moments, to promote a few of its products. Amazon Prime served as the exclusive streaming and e-commerce partner for Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty lingerie show. Alibaba, meanwhile, facilitated three “China Cool” runway platforms in New York, Milan and Paris in an effort to spotlight Chinese designers.
Tech companies aren’t entirely new to fashion month — Samsung and Intel have been long-standing partners, for example — but visibility is increasing, and relationships are deepening as fashion and tech become more intertwined. The rising ubiquity of tech companies at fashion shows underscores a mutually beneficial partnership across both industries, through which tech companies can earn brand cachet and facetime with business and consumer clients, and fashion brands can milk tech’s data and toolsets.
“The brands that will be successful are those that not only partner with these companies for fashion show gimmicks but truly leverage their expertise for the digital transformation of their businesses,” says Launchmetrics chief marketing officer Alison Bringé.
The new status quo
For years, automotive and airline brands typically backed fashion shows with sponsorships, a partnership formed from the understanding that luxury fashion’s audience overlaps with that of luxury cars and travel. Although companies like Mercedes-Benz continue to sponsor fashion weeks in cities like Moscow, Berlin and Tbilisi, the overall fashion landscape has been democratised, and modern luxury shoppers might be more likely to take an Uber (itself a frequent fashion week sponsor) than purchase a new four-door coupe, according to Ana Andjelic, marketing executive and doctor of sociology.
Rihanna performs onstage during Savage X Fenty Show presented by Amazon Prime video.
© Getty Images
The global luxury goods market, 80 per cent of which is made up of the automotive, hospitality and personal goods categories, is still growing. In 2019, it increased 4 per cent to an estimated €1.3 trillion, according to Bain & Company. But tech’s emergence in luxury has fuelled a shift in the industry. By 2025, luxury online channels will more than double in their market value today (from 10 to 25 per cent), and nearly all luxury purchases will be influenced by online interactions, according to Bain.
With technology contributing to the future of the luxury market, the two industries are natural bedfellows during high-profile events.
“Consumer behaviour has evolved, and the modern luxury consumer has emerged. As you have more millennials buying things — not going to print, not reading that, not watching brands on film, but Googling things they want to buy — it makes a ton of sense for new tech aggregators to partner with brands in this distributed network landscape,” says Andjelic.
Turning a sponsorship into a relationship
Marking a new sponsorship model, fashion brands stand to benefit from tech partnerships beyond the cash they bring to the table.
When they’re not relying on gimmicks, fashion brands gain valuable customer insight through tech partnerships. Badgley Mischka and Christian Siriano, for example, both tested the Runway by SAP app for Autumn/Winter 2018 and 2019, respectively, which allows users to provide instant feedback on runway looks and add items to a wish list for preorder. The data mined from the app can help brands base design and production decisions around consumer preferences.
According to Lillian Pontius-Goldblatt, senior strategist at Carbone Smolan Agency, transparent relationships that delve beyond traditional sponsorship by sharing metrics are more beneficial in the long run by building better campaigns and activations. “The longer those relationships endure, the more transparency you have, and trust,” she says.
Because the jungle print dress worn by Jennifer Lopez at
the 2000 Grammy Awards inspired the creation of Google Images, Versace reached out to
Google to create a visual experience during its show.
© Versace
For a tech company, fashion month exposure involves more than slapping a logo on a step-and-repeat that consumers might see on Instagram. A strategic alliance with fashion brands gets tech companies in front of a valuable audience of potential B2B customers, investors and Wall Street analysts.
Google, in its collaboration with Versace (a spokesperson says that it was not an official commercial partnership), used its 3D-painting VR tool Tilt Brush to design the runway with digital artwork, putting the tech in front of people who work in design and related fields. “That’s why tech companies invest in event sponsorships. Events are one of the only and best ways to reach B2B buyers of their products,” says Forrester Research principal analyst Sucharita Kodali.
Considering the negative publicity that some major tech players have drawn recently — organised employee strikes to protest a company’s role in climate change and its alleged protection of its executives accused of sexual harassment and claims that rampant misinformation spread on social networks erodes democracy — fashion partnerships can help distract from the unfavourable press.
“They’re looking for anybody that has control over the perception of their brand in the market, and that really is what controls their stock prices,” says Pontius-Goldblatt.
Driving business
During fashion month, e-commerce companies are in a position to elevate the profile of designers, and in turn, drive sales on their platforms. In partnering with Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty line to stream the show, Amazon also became the online home for subsequent sales. Alibaba has built relationships with fashion weeks in order to drive its industry profile and support domestic retail.
Alibaba’s “Tmall China Cool” events in New York.
© Alibaba
Its “China Cool” events in New York, Milan and Paris included cocktail parties and see-now-buy-now runway shows highlighting both European luxury houses and Chinese designers. That type of global visibility helps boost designers’ domestic business, despite macroeconomic concerns in China, all while Tmall continues to penetrate new markets and facilitate new brand relationships both in China and abroad. Tmall both hosted the runway shows for the designers — an event that could cost a prohibitive amountfor a small brand – and provided trend data to help designers create collections that would resonate with customers.
The strategy was to both drive consumer sales as well as gain visibility on a global stage for both Tmall and the designers, according to Andjelic. As a tech company, it can also track how successful it was.
“With Amazon and Alibaba’s involvement in fashion, they can quantify their presence,” says Andjelic. “They are going to be able to exactly tell you how many times a fashion show was streamed and how many units were sold, but that’s not something Mercedes would have told you before. That’s not the business they were in.”
https://www.voguebusiness.com/companies/big-tech-is-infiltrating-fashion-week-amazon-google-fintech