softgrey
flaunt the imperfection
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2004
- Messages
- 52,923
- Reaction score
- 346
wwd.comShooting at the 'Net: Luxury Brands Boost Their Online Profiles
02/20 09:05pm
By Miles Socha
PARIS — Imagine having an audience of 860,000 people for a couture show?
You don't have to: Giorgio Armani's already done it, having streamed his Armani Privé show in Paris last month live on Msn.com.
Too intimidated to walk into a Place Vendôme jeweler? No worries: Log on to Secondlife.com, pretend you're a bee and fly around 3-D computer renderings of Dior's latest precious baubles.
Initially wary of the cyber world, European designers and luxury goods firms are suddenly buzzing about new media and communication technologies, unveiling six-figure gems online, dispatching fashion shows to cell phones and iPods, and expanding e-commerce to more product lines and regions, from the U.S. to Japan.
To be sure, many brands are still tiptoeing into the fast-moving field, investments remain small and some have yet to come to grips with the dizzying pace of change. But believers contend the high-tech world offers crucial new channels to communicate with current and future customers, enrich their brand experience — and capture impressive sales.
"For us, it's like electricity, trains, cars, planes were for other generations: It hadn't existed before," said Karl Lagerfeld, who last year did a live podcast of his signature fashion show from New York. "The world has changed: For some audiences, it will soon be the only way to reach them….Fashion has to be seen.
"It is the future and it will continue to grow," echoed Mark Lee, chief executive officer of Gucci, which saw its online sales rocket 65 percent last year, making e-commerce one of the Italian brand"s fastest-growing channels. "I think it"s really just complementary."
Gucci has also done a live Web cast of its cruise collection, and offered a podcast of a store opening in Tokyo, underlining the role of new technology for brand communication.
"It"s very valid," said Sidney Toledano, president and ceo of Christian Dior, which broadcast its "Madame Butterfly"-theme couture show last month to an audience in Japan. "It"s about communicating with the customer in new ways."
Regarding the fine jewelry preview, editors who didn"t log on to Secondlife.com were recently dispatched a DVD containing a film and downloadable images of the online "Belladone Island" — although the disc"s contents were programmed to self-destruct within 24 hours.
"I love the fact that this presentation is open to anyone who wants to come and see it. There are three million people on Secondlife.com. You can fly, meet people, sunbathe on a huge rock," Victoire de Castellane, Dior"s fine jewelry designer, enthused about her online teaser. (The real stuff will be unveiled in Paris next week.)
