Fashion and beauty brands love co-branding, is this trick still useful in 2019?

Recently, New York fashion media Glossy surveyed 149 fashion and beauty brands and summarized the marketing methods they will adopt this year. The results showed that the top three most popular marketing campaigns were joint, flash and traditional brand events, accounting for 38%, 19% and 14% respectively.

In the past two years, joint names have been one of the most fashionable marketing methods. Because this is a "1+1>2" gameplay, the popularity of celebrities and brand names is combined, and combined with their respective product features, it can bring freshness to consumers, thus stimulating sales. Starting with the trend cards such as Off-White and Vetements, this marketing method quickly became popular in the entire fashion circle.

In the past 2018, it was a year of joint explosion.

COMME des GAR?ONS's "Happy Holiday" co-branded series selected nearly ten co-brands, including BURBERRY, GUCCI, Maison Margiela, Jean Paul Gaultier, Simone Rocha, Craig Green, Stüssy, Marine Serre, etc. Styles include T-shirts, sweaters, scarves, bags and more.

Alexander Wang, who was particularly active this year, and the UNIQLO release of the co-branded series, and Adidas brought 7 newly designed joint series shoes.

There are also brands that use joint play to advance the company's major strategy.

For example, Bosideng, which announced the transformation in the second half of 2018, went to the New York Fashion Week to show off the show, and released a joint series with three international designers, Tim Coppens, Antonin Tron and Ennio Capasa, to announce the results of creative fashion change.

In order to attract people from different fields, Moncler, a high-end down jacket manufacturer, even launched a human-sea tactic, and launched the “Moncler Genius” project in early 2018. Eight designers and artists, including Pierpaolo Piccioli, Sandro Mandrino, Simone Rocha, Craig Green, Ninomiya, Fujiwara, and Francesco Ragazzi, each found a series.

From June 2018 onwards, a series will be released every month, in conjunction with Moncler's 360-degree communication and marketing plan, to keep Moncler's topic hot online.

Recently, the Instagram intelligence account "lasvirgilio" also said that Off-White may launch a joint series with H&M. At present, the two brands have not responded to this news, but in view of the "unexpected combination" of the common practice of the joint name, people have long been accustomed to the impact. Moreover, even Supreme and Louise Vuitton have cooperated, and there is nothing to be fussed about.

But Vic Drabicky, founder of market research firm January Digital, warned brands that this way of showing off to potential consumers could be offensive to old customers.

“The problem now is that any brand can do joint names and don’t care if the two brands are right,” he said. “If it’s not appropriate, consumers can be sensitive to it.”

Drabicky believes that a strong joint series must be authoritative and persuasive, and the concepts and temperament of the two brands must match. This will ensure that core customers are more aware of brand value while attracting new customers.

In the joint field, “brand” is the most common model. With the popularity of KOL marketing, the “brand” KOL approach is not uncommon. For example, Nordstrom's own brand Halogen, and American fashion blogger Blair Eadie launched a joint series. Beauty brand Morphe and YouTube video blogger James Charles have also established joint collaborations, etc. There are many more examples.

Like the "brand?? brand" problem, brands also need to pay attention to the level of KEL joint problem.

Glossy research found that KOL and the brand will still maintain high-frequency cooperation this year, and 55% of the surveyed brands also said that they should increase the budget for KOL marketing cooperation. But it is widely believed that KOL marketing is a bubble that is about to burst.

“Based on this issue, fashion and beauty brands are adjusting their KOL cooperation strategy,” Drabicky said. “In the future, the industry will see small corrections, and brands with unchanging strategies will likely lose performance.

Reshma Chamberlin, co-founder of American luxury swimwear Summersalt, said: "The most successful KOL joint marketing is that when KOL used this brand's products and really loved it, it would become an effective endorser."

This means that a simple reputation overlay is not acceptable. The problem of KOLs relying on the number of fans is also increasing. The true value of their power and fan activity should not be based solely on the amount of fans.