Brands are always looking for new and innovative ways to tell their story. Social media has provided new channels for PR and marketing, and the core of this new promotional mix is often centered around engaging the the almighty Fashion Influencer, the early adopter, the brand ambassador. While many fashion PR pros may be well versed in the rationale and purpose of pitching fashion bloggers, few brands have gone beyond the fashion blog to engage with fashion influencers in the other places where they are connecting with each other and producing content online.
American Apparel has a history of working directly with fashion influencers as well using real people, aka not models, in their advertising. To recap, they made a series of ads with Chictopia members last year, held an in-store modeling call/shoot for customers during New York’s Fashion’s Night Out, and photographed style bloggers such as The Chic Muse in Mexico City and The Cherry Blossom Girl in Paris.
However, the partnership with LookBook.nu is the most extensive to date, and is rooted in AA’s true appreciation for the LookBook.nu community, as well as a company commitment to use resources as a big company to do cool artistic projects with artists whose work they enjoy. In case you aren’t familiar, LookBook.nu is an invite-only international community of members who post their outfits. Members then vote up the looks that they like, and the more votes, the more your reputation grows. LookBook.nu regularly runs contests with fashion brands that engage their community around producing content.
As a representative from AA explains, “basically, we were intrigued with LookBook.nu when it first came out, which led us to eventually advertise and feature their users on our site. We decided to do a bigger collaboration late last year and as part of it hosted a contest where their members submitted photos featuring their favorite American Apparel pieces. Now there are something like 7,000+ looks of people using our basics. Our 132 favorites became The LOOKBOOK.nu Lookbook by American Apparel.”
The LookBook is a free 64 page book that was designed in-house at the AA factory in Los Angeles. The company paid to have it printed, and is now available at American Apparel stores worldwide–or online if you pay shipping.
So why work with a group of fashion fanatics who post daily outfits to the LookBook website instead of the tried and true catalog or standard lookbook? Well, many of the members of LookBook are active in social media and many are style bloggers, so there is viral benefit to their participation. Quality is also a major boon – just taking a cursory look at LookBook.nu site reveals a member base that is highly passionate about fashion and skilled in presenting a professional, often stunning point of view through photography.
AA agrees and explains further,”What’s so crazy about this lookbook is that’s almost entirely shot by someone other than us. We brought out three winners who got the experience of modeling for our creative team in Los Angeles (they’re on the cover and centerfolds) but what we really tried to do was use our designers to put a spotlight on the great creative work of these users. It’s a collection of 77 creative people who each have their own way of styling and interpreting our garments. That’s what we wanted to show.”
A definite emerging trend is brands creating their own print and digital publications. American Apparel has instead leveraged a social media marketing contest and taken that digital endeavor a step further; they have created a unique piece of print content that focuses on how real customers are wearing their product, it connects well to their brand identity, drives interest to a site they believe in (where their customers are), and builds buzz through the promotion of the book itself. Lookbook.nu sent out an email to all their users, tweeted about it and American Apparel is doing their part to promote through Facebook ads, The Sartorialist and a few other sites.
What do you think about this collaboration? Are wardrobe/outfit sites like LookBook.nu on your radar?
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