The fashion industry was an early adopter of influencer marketing and continues to lead the way with creative campaigns for high-street and luxury brands alike. Whether it’s adopting new channels or embracing video content, fashion brands are finding ways to stay relevant and adapt to trends in the industry. Let’s take a closer look at three unique influencer marketing campaigns from the fashion industry to get inspired!
DSW launch their first-ever TikTok campaign
Designer Shoe Warehouse (DSW) are no stranger to the power of influencers, and regularly feature user-generated content from their happy customers as part of their #MyDSW campaign on their Instagram feed. The campaign encourages customers to act as brand champions by posting their favorite DSW purchase with the #MyDSW hashtag. The brand also collaborates with much bigger names such as JLO for their exclusive lines of celebrity designed footwear.
Their most recent influencer marketing campaign stands out from the crowd as it was the brand’s first campaign on TikTok. They adapted their user-generated content approach to the platform where short-form video is king. The campaign invited users to post videos of their shoe collections with hashtag #TooManyShoes for the chance to win a $500 DSW gift card to spend on, you guessed it, yet more shoes.
The campaign’s success lies in the highly engaging content created by 5 TikTok influencers that sparked wide participation as people enjoyed showing off their personal style and their favorite shoes. The #TooManyShoes content would go on to generate over 1.3 billion views on TikTok. The brand successfully identified influencers that would resonate with a Gen Z audience, chose a fun call to action, that with the addition of original music created by Devmo and JulianXtra was a winning combination.
Gen Z are a key target audience for fashion brands as new college students are predicted to spend $2,300 each this fall. So brands wishing to reach a new, younger audience who are increasingly spending their own money can learn a lot from DSW’s TikTok strategy.
@brittany.xavier @dsw #TooManyShoes challenge #dswcontest #mydsw #ad
Nordstrom promote shopping safely in-store
It’s safe to say that shopping on the high-street has changed beyond recognition. In an era of physical distancing and strict hygiene measures to ease the spread of COVID-19, how can brick-and-mortar stores encourage customers to come through their doors? Nordstrom’s answer was influencer marketing. They decided to work with well-known Instagram fashion influencers, such as Wendy Nguyen of @wendyslookbook on a campaign for their New York flag-ship store, educating customers about the new in-store safety measures and reassuring them that everything was in place to guarantee stress-free shopping. The influencers were invited to check out the in-store experience for themselves. In their posts they highlighted how much they enjoyed shopping in the store boasting original artworks and carefully curated product displays. The captions also detailed specific safety measures like contactless payment and the requirement to wear a mask, in a bid to entice shoppers to ditch their couch and go offline shopping.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CDNQHssAPnp/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
This approach to influencer marketing draws on the trust built between influencers and their followers to encourage shoppers to return to the high-street whilst ensuring safety measures are widely communicated to the influencers’ large social media following. Brands can be inspired by this original take on influencer marketing. The campaign brought a human face to communicating public health safety measures that may have otherwise had the opposite effect on encouraging in-store visits.
Farfetch collaborate with The Shoe Surgeon
Farfetch have teamed up with Dominic Ciambrone aka @TheShoeSurgeon and his team to promote their shoe brands through ‘how to’ shoe customization videos. The ‘shoe surgeons’ are experts in creative DIY sneaker customization projects and they share their top tips and techniques through this video series. The content is highly engaging for their fans as it invites them to get involved at home and unleash their creativity.
Creating a mini-series instead of a one-off sponsored post is a great way to build brand engagements over time and reach new audiences with a range of different content that appeals to different segments of your target audience. The Shoe Surgeon videos with Farfetch promote their products by making the shoes the star of the videos. The added twist of a fun customization project, makes a pair of shoes not just a functional piece of attire, but a chance to express your personality and personal style. The campaign was framed as ‘tutorials for projects you can do at home’, which have become very popular on social media in recent times due to people spending more time at home during the peak of COVID-19 infections. This renewed appetite for hobbies and projects to do at home has helped the success of this collaboration.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CDJ8Z4ygmG0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
The key takeaway from this campaign is how to leverage the expertise of creators in your brand’s niche to create valuable content for your followers. The videos created as part of @TheShoeSurgeon’s weekly tutorials were repurposed by Farfetch for their Instagram account to boost interaction with their brand account. The campaign successfully promoted selected products to a targeted audience and built brand awareness amongst a new audience of people with a passion for sneakers.
We have even more insights to share from influencer marketing in the fashion industry in our dedicated fashion industry report. We analyzed how high-street and luxury fashion influencers compare on key metrics such as average followers, average engagement rate and audience demographics.
