It seems that there have been several fashion design collaborations recently in the fashion world. Earlier this month Lanvin unveiled his collection for H&M – People lined up for hours outside the specific stores to get their hands on the designs – They sold out in minutes.
And when the doors opened on Valentino for GAP today it was the same story.
A fellow Marketing Student, Ricky Lee took an interest to both of these collaborations and discussed what he thought of both. As I was reading his blog I couldn’t help but think about the wonders that pairing with a higher end more ‘celebrity’ designer does for a company. I began to think about celebrity marketing and the power that celebrities have on promotions and purchase of goods.
Take Oprah for example. The ‘Oprah Effect’ is pretty straightforward – anything she touches turns to gold. People look at what she reads for her book club or what products she recommends and almost immediately they are sold out. It has even been argued that she was responsible for up to a million votes for Obama during the 2008 Obama/McCain Presidential Election.
The influence that celebrities have is massive. Their influence goes beyond more that just an increase in the demand of the product – Consumer are even willing to through the roof is they admire the person who is representing the product. This is very important to consider when marketing a product. Below is one of my favourite celebrity advertising campaigns – Emma Watson for Burberry (Notice how they don’t even say what the name of the company anywhere on the ad – you just know it is – talking about branding)
