Fashion Industry Fast Iteration, Fashion PR Seeks New Way Out

Industry fast iteration, as the middleman's fashion PR is also looking for a new way out.

According to the world clothing and shoe net, a senior public relations company recently issued a circle of friends, saying that the current fashion PR has been in a dilemma, so that colleagues continue to doubt the direction of fashion public relations.

In order to adapt to the fast-paced Chinese market changing strategies, fashion media are also exploring the way of media pformation. Under such structural changes, the traditional fashion public relations work mode is feeling more and more resistance.

Unlike traditional public relations, the nature of the work of fashion PR is different because of its different attributes.

Fashion public relations often do not need to deal with crisis public relations frequently. Most of them are daily brand maintenance work, including sample management, media relations, star relationship, briefing production, activity plan and co-ordination.

As the market continues to mature, fashion PR has become fragmented, with different emphasis.

At present, there are mainly three kinds of fashion PR companies in China: the whole generation of public relations (including brand strategy, social operation, daily maintenance), public relations maintenance (sample showroom and seeding), and event production companies.

With more and more luxury fashion brands entering the Chinese market, fashion PR is also showing a multi-level development. For example, the first group of luxury goods companies such as Ogilvy, Rhodes, blue cursor, Huambo Xuan Wei, Weida and so on, including Karla Otto from the United States, Attila&Co. from Milan, China's Instar including Tian Xing Jun Chuang, Edward weir, EFC fashion media, Lin Jie public relations, Jun public relations, butterfly billion and Junsi public relations, and APAX production activities.

However, fashion public relations dominated by star communication are becoming more and more laborious in catching up with the pace of development of China's fashion market.

Because luxury brands are not the "big gold masters" who have made big profits 10 years ago, and in the depressed climate of the industry, the luxury brands that constantly tighten their budgets are more and more concerned about the effectiveness of public relations companies.

In the past, the second tier brand that followed the head brand was no longer proud of the same public relations company as the head luxury product, and the pursuit of public relations work was becoming more pragmatic.

Talking about brand expectations for public relations, Italy

Alex, head of brand Neil Barrett market, said to fashion headlines, "now that brand budgets are getting more and more intense, we would prefer PR to think about brand sales. Any behavior needs to help increase sales rather than spend too much budget, but it will not help sales."

Moreover, under the situation of market upgrading, brand customers also put forward higher requirements for fashion pr.

In the past, "high above" luxury brands are seeking landing and becoming more localized, while the rising domestic brands of China put forward more high-end and international demands.

In addition to the strategic planning within the brand, the brand also wants to fashion public relations as a rapid deployment of resources to help brands complete the brand remodeling and dissemination promotion beyond routine maintenance.

This also means that fashion PR is only far from enough for routine maintenance, and more creativity is needed.

Alex thinks that the role of a party B is heavier than before, but now many public relations companies are more consultative than local brands because of their rich local experience.

More and more pragmatic fashion industry has made the original bubble of the industry burst. Just like the question raised at the beginning of this article, where is the way out for fashion PR, however, there are many people who grope for it and few people who see clearly.

The PR of personal heroism is out of date. The most valuable resource in this industry is resources.

Mark is a new fashion public relations fan. The EFC fashion media he created (hereinafter referred to as EFC) has become a dark horse in less than two years.

And the view of "resources" is becoming the key to divide new style and old style fashion public relations.

In the field of fashion PR, resources usually refer to interpersonal networks including media and stars.

In the past, gossip in the industry has often been heard, and some employees have left resources to compete with others, which was once considered a very serious matter.

But Mark admits that resources can't stop. Even if WeChat, who knows all stars, brokers and editor in chief, is no longer the key.

Now, with a budget to go to anyone, who will refuse you thousands of miles away? But the question is who can do the job well.

Behind the "doing a good job" is the actual measurement of public relations work, which is why EFC has become famous in the short term.

The effect is not resources or facade, but the two important pivot points of strategy and attitude.

The reason for this is not resources, because the starting point of EFC is not a luxury brand in the traditional sense.

Generally speaking, fashion public relations from international brands are more likely to receive customers from domestic apparel brands, but EFC starts with domestic apparel brands, and the first official customer is MO&Co. of domestic women's clothing brands.

The brand has achieved great success in the Chinese market in the past two years.

In the early days of the company's founding, Mark's expectation was to serve four or five brands just like many boutique agency abroad.

However, in the current market's desire for effectiveness, more and more brand customers are coming to visit, while EFC is almost harsh on the choice of brand customers.

Nowadays, the brands of EFC agents include Prada, Miu Miu, Furla, Mulberry, Moschino, Dsquared2 and other international brands, as well as MO&Co., Edition10, Taiping bird dress and other domestic brands.

In achieving the effect, EFC relies on accurate strategies to win.

Mark has positioned EFC as a provider of new communication solutions. Its services range from brand image management (branding), consultancy consulting (consulting), marketing (Marketing) and public relations (public relations).

That is to say, the company provides more creative strategies and suggestions on the basis of helping the brand's daily maintenance.

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In the current Chinese market, creative strategies are becoming more important than ever before. EFC has caught two trends in China's fashion industry, and how social media and stars can better match brands.

The influence of media environment on public relations is not only about the pfer of public relations objects from traditional media to new media.

Some public relations practitioners understand the change of media environment from the traditional media to the right KOL.

But in fact, traditional media is still very important, and social media "play" has become more diverse.

When EFC first started taking over the social media business of Taiping bird's clothing in January 2016, the highest volume of WeChat's articles was only 7000 to 8000.

By the year October 2017, the number of fans has tripled to a million level, and the reading volume is stable between 60 thousand and 80 thousand.

EFC is the WeChat circle of friends for the H5 page of Taiping bird suit 2016 autumn and winter series. It has also led the industry trend and has been replicated by the industry. It has exceeded 100 thousand hits in 6 hours.

Then, when the 2017 spring, summer and autumn winter series was launched, EFC produced H5 pages with the theme of the album cover and VR vision, which broke through 100 thousand + hits in a short time.

The Prada and Miu Miu of its services are also rapidly contributing to social media. Prada brand official micro-blog began to increase 170 thousand fans in 10 months from January this year, which shocked the industry.

From the early stage to the late stage, EFC is fully involved in social media, controlling social media communication and attracting more experienced talents.

According to Mark, there are nearly 1/3 copywriting teams in the EFC group, but the copywriter is not the traditional copy writing. It is the whole chain management of creativity, execution, backstage technology research and development, revision, text to graphic design, and a large proportion of the members of the team who once worked for luxury brands.

The familiarity and importance of social media dissemination is the embodiment of the current public relations business ability, and the effective dissemination of information has also become an important criterion of current activity.

This is in sharp contrast to the traditional public relations. Once, the heavyweight of the public relations invited to be a successful yardstick, but now it is far from enough.

"There are more people at the scene, at most 500 people to 1000 people, but if the information of this event is not pmitted, even if everyone's experience at dinner is extremely luxurious, this activity is also greatly reduced."

Taking advantage of the increasing entertainment culture, targeted star matching resources become another major differentiation advantage of EFC.

But Mark emphasizes that star relationships are only part of the content.

"No country like China relies on stars for content.

Although the United States also has popular bloggers and entertainers, there is no Chinese market so dependent on celebrities.

Because of this, star marketing has been popular in China's fashion industry in recent years, and the "cargo effect" has become an important indicator of judging artists and brands.

Global marketing consulting firm three Paull Greg Paull, head of management consulting R3, said that China's key opinion leader, KOL, has been leading the rest of the world and has become the real media carrier.

Nowadays, most luxury fashion brands are hard to keep up with this trend, inviting artists to take part in activities, announcing artistes as brand ambassadors, and public relations companies have become an important promoter of such marketing, and competition is becoming increasingly fierce.

It is also reported that artist agents are constantly targeting luxury brands, and constantly promoting the entertainers to become brand friends and even ambassadors through public relations.

However, as a rising trend of fashion relations, EFC's bottom line also lies in the synergy effect of social media thinking and brand products.

When EFC took over the Furla brand, he asked supermodel Liu Wen, Chen Bige and ho Sui to carry a package to build a supermodel.

Then three people will be put together for an integrated communication.

Let Lin Yun, Ouyang Nana, Zhang Xueying, Zhang Bichen and other 90 star back can be promoted once again.

MO&Co. a pair of jeans can let Xun Zhou, Liu Wen, Bai Baihe, Hsu Chi, Zhao Wei, Sun Li and other different types of female stars for several rounds of promotion, which in the industry simply can not imagine.

In the same series, for different coverage groups, EFC has heated up the topic of celebrity and brand in a short time by mastering the propagation rules and rhythm of social media.

From Miulady, the change of product strategy of young color matching, to the Miulady exhibition, and Miulady H5 page and theme sticker, to the spring and summer, Yang Mi, Di Ali Gerba, Tang Yan and other young artists of different interpretations, even the Miulady handbags that had been released in 2015, has also been the focus of attention through this year's EFC communication plan.

According to statistics, #whoisMIUlady# and Mr Yu searched for MIUlady#'s tag on micro-blog, which accumulated more than 30 thousand talks about 50 million browsing.

The full mobilization of the resources of all parties eventually forms effective public relations, that is, promoting sales.

Beyond strategy, attitude is another criterion for distinguishing public relations from bad ones.

Because of the technical factors such as social media and artiste resources, the attitude of public relations companies to serve the brand is the starting point of all.

"Contemporary fashion PR should have no personal color, teamwork, and invisible person behind the brand.

Instead of wrapping itself up with brand auras, that era is gone forever, "Mark repeatedly stressed changes in the nature of public relations. But there is a fundamental point that leads everything to the effective delivery of brand DNA.

In his view, like missionaries, word of mouth is still important.

The purpose of inviting artists to participate is not to throw money in to see whether the other party is present, but to regard it as an opportunity to convey the dots of the brand, which is the most basic communication and public relations.

Over time, brand DNA can be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

This also means that budgeting is indeed more and more important in the triangular relationship between media, PR and brand, but this is not without the lack of quality content without budgeting, and more importantly, the cost performance of the brand's budget and the recognition of the media.

People can see the gradual clarity of brand DNA.

In the past, MO&Co. and Taiping bird, considered to be competitors, are actually separated from the continuous brand image polishing and differentiated communication.

The cool girl of MO&Co., the new trend of 95 after the Pacific bird, the Gentelwoman style of East West integration of Edition10, the younger of Miu Miu, and the brand positioning is becoming clearer in every communication action.

In a more fickle fashion industry compared with many industries, fashion PR has been labeled as socially friendly and highly labelling. It seems that the demand for personal talents is greater than that of ability, which also leads to the loss of talented people.

However, as the industry demands higher level of business, fashion PR is advancing towards a higher level with strict organization, professionalism and dedication. What EFC points to may be the new standard of fashion PR today.

However, we need to be alert to the fact that when the fashion public relations with star marketing become more popular, consumers will feel tired. The success of star and brand marketing lies in whether they return to the product itself and have fresh ideas.

More interesting reports, please pay attention to the world clothing shoes and hats net.