Conversation with Schanel Bakkouche, Retaining Exclusivity via Social Media

In this episode, “Retaining Exclusivity via Social Media,” the final episode of a three-part series featuring Schanel Bakkouche, editor and stylist at Vogue International Publications and founder and creative director at the advertising agency, SFB Creative, we further discuss the strategies luxury fashion brands employ to engage current customers and to attract a new clientele. And stay tuned after this episode for a special add-on—to hear Schanel’s thoughts on brand collaborations.

Joshua Williams: Luxury brands are increasingly under stress to expand their market beyond their typical customer base. And in some cases, many brands have been effective, but in other cases, it's alienated the core customer. So, my question for you, Schanel, is can luxury brands retain their exclusivity, notwithstanding the consistency required around digital content distribution.

Schanel Bakkouche: Thank you for having me again. Social platforms characterized by their mass appeal, accessibility, and availability, contradict the very concept of luxury. Obviously, if we think exclusivity of brand, we can think of iconic items from renowned luxury brands; and not everyone owns them. This exclusivity helps luxury brands to maintain their stature: known by all, but paradoxically consumed by a few. 

I would mention a few points that are very important. First would be apply the personal touch and stay more authentic. Too often luxury brands will use one generic message. 

Then another point that it's very important is use consumer data. I think that customer data needs to be used to gain insight into what customer browse and add to their shopping cart, the offers that resonate with them and they respond to. By using signals such as purchasing behavior, interest, context, and location, luxury brands can make consumer feel that the communication are explicitly tailored to them, to receive personal attention, not to be addressed as a member of a broader audience. You know, this mindset can help luxury brands approach content and service in more meaningful ways. 

The other point would be experience. Obviously social media platforms are taking steps to embed the entire shopping journey from discovery to checkout. So, incorporating live streaming sales, integrated product catalog, and now even AR. So, the experience is very crucial point here again, to keep the exclusivity of luxury brands. 

And the last one would be shoppable content, from discovery content to purchase, keeping users is one place has obvious benefit in term of personalization. Luxury brand worked on being exclusive with some shoppable experience with limited quantities, limited time. 

Luxury is all about personal experience today in store that should still feel a personal experience in the digital world and on social media. Very important point again for exclusivity is for the customer to still feel valued and seen.

Joshua Williams: So, you say there are four goals that luxury brands must achieve when it comes to digital marketing content. What are those four things? 

Schanel Bakkouche: The first one would be to attract attention from social media user. And the second one would be to offer a compelling mobile experience. And the third one to build trust with a core customer. Finally, to appeal to a global audience. That would be for me, the four goals that luxury brands most achieve in digital marketing content. 

Joshua Williams: And of course, the trick is building trust us among a very core audience while also appealing to a much larger global audience. 

So what works better, short form or long form content?

So, if a brand is able to meet these four objectives, what are the short- and long-term benefits of creating content? 

Schanel Bakkouche: It's a very interesting question. In 2019, Buzzsumo found that roughly 75% of B2B brands are still primarily producing short term content. First it caters to short attention, which bring like more views. It's also quicker to produce. I would say that long term on content today does perform better in search engine. This is how I would compare the benefits between those two. But I would definitely still push for short term content. I think the benefits are higher today.

Joshua Williams: Speaking of benefits in performance, how do luxury brands measure the success of their content? 

Schanel Bakkouche: By incorporating data analytics into the business. It should be part of an ongoing strategy involving all stakeholder in the company, the creative and the business to determine what data is more meaningful and actionable. Additionally, as customer demand more authenticity to their interaction with brands, obviously then data can help companies to localize their effort and experience. 

Joshua Williams: So, besides data, what do you think the biggest challenges are for content creation for luxury brands? 

Schanel Bakkouche: The biggest challenge, it's to always find opportunities to create and keep being creative and to cultivate a consistent voice across all media. 

Joshua Williams: So obviously brands can't do all of this on their own. This is a very fast-moving business both in terms of fashion, but also in terms of content creation and what is working and what isn't. So how do luxury brands find the right digital marketing partner? 

Schanel Bakkouche: Selecting a digital marketing agency for a regular mainstream brand is one thing, but for luxury brands I would say that choosing a digital marketing agency to partner with requires an entirely a different approach. Not only does a digital marketing agency needs to have all the standard skills; they also need to have an understanding of this incredibly niche market and the market in general.

With SFB, I would say that we focus on helping brands visualize their mission statements from strategy to activation. And we collaborate with our partner, craft content, experience, messages that build more than brands, expressing them authentically and in unexpected ways. 

W are focusing on bringing a different vision an editorial vision that will help brands create a narrative around who they are and what they do to feel even closer to the customer. 

Joshua Williams: If we didn't think so before, certainly COVID has taught us that brands need to be able to connect and communicate with their audience in many different ways. And digital is one of those important ways where we can engage one-on-one with consumers. 

Thank you so much Schanel for spending the last few episodes with us, sharing your ideas about digital marketing, especially in luxury fashion, which I think is its own unique business.

Schanel Bakkouche: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me again, such a pleasure.

Add-On

Joshua Williams: So, when talk about exclusivity you mentioned authenticity, customer data, experience, shoppable content. One of the other big trends right now is collaboration or partnerships with other brands, which have become very popular. And I'm curious what you think about a brand's ability to retain their exclusivity especially in a social media space within these collaborations.

Schanel Bakkouche: Right? So, in terms of, of collaboration, like luxury brands could retain their exclusivity with partnerships as well. I think that's a good example. Like. If we are taking Louis Vuitton extended core customer with collaborations, in plenty of different collaborations. But I think there is an example that is very interesting Supreme. So, we are talking about a very different brand and different segment and different targets. And collaborations bring exclusivity and actually brought exclusivity to both of those brands obviously, and have been like very successful, but it's interesting to note, that it also brings conflict, A brand like Louis Vuitton did perform very well. They also, lost a part of their own core customer, while a brand like Supreme does benefit from it. So it's very interesting point. And obviously that one example that we could apply to a bunch of different brands that works with partnership.

There's a, you know, sometimes it's a win and sometimes it's a lose, for them, but they're really looking actually to get this exclusive moment.