Maxus Mouth

Fashionably social - London Fashion Week for the masses

London Fashion Week kicked off last Friday and this year it’s not just Burberry leading the charge in social media. For those of us not named Alexa or cannot count Stella as a BFF, fashion and media brands participating in the glamour are bringing the fashion week experience live to the average consumer through a number of interactive ways.

New York Fashion Week alongside show partner YouTube live-streamed 25 shows for consumers and London is following suit with a record number of 46 shows being streamed from February 17th – 21st via the British Fashion Council. Fashion followers can watch the shows online or via the outdoor LED screen currently set up outside Somerset House. Screens in the London Underground have also been showcasing highlights, including live Twitter feeds and behind the scenes shots from a dedicated backstage photographer.

Fashion magazines are also getting involved with Vogue’s British edition taking over a giant digital screen at Westfield London shopping mall for the week and Grazia is providing fans with complete behind the scenes access to its editorial process on YouTube. Grazia editors are being followed 24 hours a day, to form a series of week-long videos called Grazia’s Fashion Issue…. Live, with videos from fashion darlings like Olivia Palermo going through her fashion week wardrobe (amazing) and Victoria Beckham talking through her design process and about Harper (adorable). The special issue hits stands tomorrow and is accompanied by a 30 minute version of the documentary.

Big name stores are also participating in the fun, with Topshop producing an upgraded app where users can live stream shows such as Peter Pilotto and Mary Katrantzou directly to their mobile phones. Harrod’s is taking inspiration from US store Bergdof Goodman last season, allowing Facebook fans to make the buying decisions for AW’12. Every look from the Burberry show will be posted on the Harrod’s Facebook page with the image with the most Likes featuring in the store’s buys for the next season.

Not everyone embraces the all access approach and it wouldn’t be fashion without some levels of exclusivity. Tom Ford has a strict no photographs and reviews policy for 3 months and Phoebe Philo at Céline calls for no shots or tweets from backstage at her shows. Although met with mixed reception, these decisions are attempting to maximise the hype of a new collection and the time (approximately six months) until it is actually available in store. When you’re Tom Ford or Phoebe Philo the backlash of creating this level of exclusivity is likely to be more minimal than your less well known designers– but it’s interesting to see how different brands are behaving in the social space. As I don’t have a handbag named after me I’m definitely a fan of the more open and social approach to Fashion Week – but will still always love you, Tom.
 

Mobile Social

Social media is growing up and growing fast, Facebook, the largest of pack is dusting off its suit in anticipation of its highly public IPO -a record breaking initial offering if the press is to be believed. According to researcher Emarketing Inc. Facebook doubled its revenues last year to over $4.5 billion dollars. 2011 was the year the Twitter broke the $100 million dollar revenue barrier and more importantly made a profit. MySpace has turned its fortunes since parting with News Corp – with a strong start to 2012. In the first 30 days they have signed up 1 million new users – averaging 40,000 new users per day. Google + burst on to the scene and the best is yet to come from them. Social media had a tremendous 2011 and it’s expecting to have a more colossal 2012 and this will be fuelled by mobile!

Social networks are focusing on mobile this is being led by Facebook. According to Facebook globally 44% of its traffic is via mobile so a vast opportunity to target a global audience of the 800 million users whilst on the move. Currently Facebook does not offer mobile targeting on their ad platform but this is all about to change. Twitter however is designed for mobile and not just the sleek and sexy smartphones but any mobile device via their SMS to tweet offering. Twitter is fully integrated into the new iPhone iOS5 operating system which makes tweeting even more seamless.

The world’s largest sporting event, Super Bowl highlighted the presence of social sharing via mobile, research from Clearspring shows social sharing via mobile is up 500% year on year at the SuperBowl.

There’s a wave of Mobile only social networks appearing rapidly. Path, which describes itself as a social journal, recently re launched itself as an android/iOS only platform and had a staggering 800% increase in users in their first month after re launch. Their user base grow from 30,000 to over 250,000 in the same time period and now has over 2 million users globally - highlighting the opportunity for social networks on mobile devices.

As mobile technology is growing (at a very fast rate) so are the possibilities of social media. Will 2012 be the year social has more presence on mobile vs. computers? Who knows, all we know it’s going to be interesting so watch this space.

Latest ABCs

There are few surprises in the latest round of ABC results, with the general trend continuing to be downward, and the same sectors taking a heavy kicking. Most men’s monthlies and weeklies appear to still be dead men walking; the celebrity weekly sector has suffered more heavy losses YoY. Hello and OK also posted significant PoP losses, meaning they have failed to hold on to the extra sales generated by the Royal Wedding in the first half of 2011. Undoubtedly the doom-mongers will cite these results as further evidence of the death of print, while publishers will blame their favourite catch-all: the recession. But is that what’s really going on here?
 
Take everyone’s favourite whipping boy (or girl), the Celebrity sector. This recession has certainly proved that the existing magazine marketplace and the volume of publications isn’t sustainable in its entirety. There are far too many publications providing similar content badly! Gone are the days of each magazine having a unique USP on the newsstand and the ability to compete purely on the content it provided or the exclusives it could land. The battleground has become “how many magazines can I fit into a single polythene bag and flog them for a quid”, while neglecting the most important element of what they stand for – differentiated, valued content! Similarly, compare the brand strength of some of these titles to what they were even five years ago; brand identity been eroded by multi-packing and constant redesigns- and readers pick up on this.
 
The sectors that post big declines make the headlines, but look deeper and we see some positive stories: the mature women’s lifestyle sector (GH, Prima) showing growth; the Home Interest sector (Good Homes, Country Homes) showing growth; and the luxury sector (Tatler, Harpers) holding its own. These successes yet again prove there is an appetite for the written word when quality publishing is at the forefront- but the same three factors still have to be right: brand, price and content. The market is very quick to talk about the demise of print, and the industry is equally as sharp to isolate TV, digital, VOD, tablets, mobile and the other means of communicating to our target audience. However, in a world that has experienced a rapid rate of media proliferation in all channels, there are still 2000+ magazines consumed per minute in the UK. When publications are much more than just their print edition – with touch points in tablet, mobile, online, events – the strength of the brand proposition trumps the pure circulation number. Shouldn’t this be what’s most important to clients?
 
The relative success of free magazines in recent years adds a fourth factor for success: convenience. Although they are far from reaching critical mass, the emergence of iPad editions makes ‘convenience’ easier to deliver than ever; the publishers that get all four factors right will always find an audience; those that don’t will continue to be a bad headline.

Video of the week #85

London (Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger) from David Hubert on Vimeo.

Video of the week #84

Not one for the faint hearted (no pun intended) but an amazing example of how looking at something from a completely different angle rather than trying to copy the existing solution can deliver some amazing results.  

Heart Stop Beating | Jeremiah Zagar from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.

Lana Del Ray - Style over substance?

So this week sees the anticipated release of Lana Del Ray’s debut album. It looks set to be number one this week, with the Official Charts Company reporting that it has sold more than 117,000 copies in a week. But what exactly is all the fuss about?

Having listened to the album, I can’t rave about it and laud that it is the best thing I have ever heard. There are some stand-out tracks and she has a unique style and tone of voice, but does this really make her the next big thing? Does she offer something that mainstream artists like Florence, Gaga and Jessie J don’t?

Her story is one of a modern media phenomenon. According to her background, the singer failed to make an impression on the music charts when she previously released material under the names of Sparkle Rope Jump Queen or Lizzy Grant, but for some reason Lana Del Rey has got everyone talking. In a digital age where new music is born online, Del Rey burst onto the charts late last year after releasing Video Games through You Tube (since then the video has attracted over 26 million views) and has appeared across TV shows (Jools Holland and David Letterman), Press (Vogue, Independent, NME) and online channels (You Tube, Vevo).
 

I agree that she looks like a pop star and her ‘haunting’ voice and nostalgic styling is a change from the hip-hop, electronic and over styling that appears to be dominating the charts. However, has everyone bought into her because of what the media has said and the way she has styled herself? Only time will tell if she sustains this new-found popularity and continues to be top of the charts for years to come.

To Puff or to Post?

So what’s more addictive than alcohol, tobacco or coffee? Well according to researchers from the University of Chicago Business School, fighting the urge to check Facebook updates or tweeting apparently proves more difficult to resist than a cigarette, a glass of wine or cup of coffee, which all prompted much lower levels of desire despite their addictive reputation.
 

Now, I don't smoke or drink coffee so I can’t empathise with such a statement … but wowzas! This simply demonstrates the addictive characteristics that lie within social media. In today's cyberworld having a social networking account could be said a MUST, and this research takes it a step further.

The survey of 250 people also highlighted that sleep and sex were the two things people most longed for during the day, but that the urges to keep on top of social networks were the hardest to resist.

For advertisers this is surely a great thing, but the challenge is how to become part of this irresistible urge rather than intruding on it. For the everyday consumer, these are not only cheaper past times but also healthier!

Maxus….Please Leave the Big Brother House!

Now that the humiliation of the shameless Z-list celeb schmoozing has subsided, I feel able to share with you our night at the Celebrity Big Brother 2012 Final last Friday (27th Jan). A few Maxus bods were lucky enough so get VIP access to the last live show, along with Plusnet who were proud sponsors of the series. 

Video of the week #83

Social Media Sobriety Test from TDA_Boulder on Vimeo.

The Rise(?) of IPTV

In October 2010, Marketing Week ran an article on the impending rise of Google TV, with their ‘expert’ commentator concluding that “This will spell the end of the 30-second TV ad during Coronation Street" and "It's a great time to be in the business of data, and a bad time to be a traditional media planner or buyer". He claims that On Demand content fed through an Ethernet cable will completely replace scheduled programming within 5 years. A lot of people, quite rightly, dismissed this as sensationalist nonsense, but a year later - is there anything to suggest if he was on the right track?

Well, the technology is certainly here. Large companies like Samsung are pouring money into their Smart range, which integrate the existing On Demand platforms like iPlayer, 4OD etc into a user friendly experience. Hooking a product up to your Wifi is hardly rocket science these days, and as 7.2% of UK homes already have a Smart TV this is a good rate of early adoption for an expensive product, especially when considering they’ve only been properly pushed for a year.
 

So, perhaps the continued rate of adoption will be slow, preventing his 5 year prediction? Considering most of these TVs are adopting an app-based operating system / interface, then probably not. Most people are used to this functionality by now, with pretty much every mobile / tablet device utilising it in some form or another, and with Apple and Google being major players in this space it’s safe to assume it’ll be easy to use. A lot of people have computers for nothing but Facebook and iPlayer, so building this into a TV makes sense – quickly check your Facebook during an ad break or have Twitter streaming down the right hand side with relevant #hashtag conversations to the programme you’re watching, your iPhone integrated as your keyboard. I don’t think any of this would be hard for the masses to get their heads around?
 

So is the demand there for On Demand to surpass scheduled TV? This is what I think makes his prediction seem ludicrous. As we stand now, 60% of people watch On Demand content. 15% of people will watch this content in the same way as traditional TV (on their TV set) through a connected device (laptop, console etc). Although this is quite a sizable chunk, and I definitely think this number will grow, I just don’t think it will grow that fast. The vast amount of On Demand content that we consume is ‘catch up’ content; things we have been introduced to by TV but just don’t have the time to watch every single week. Importantly, there’s also relatively little content created to solely be broadcast online, and it’ll be far more than 4 years before there is enough investment to make this content good enough to completely change the way programmes are viewed (let alone commissioned and created). Only then can the balance tip toward consuming content designed to be On Demand rather than scheduled.
 

For me, the basis of his statement isn’t too ridiculous. Smart / Internet enabled TV will become mass market in the next 5 years. A third of all people are looking for some kind of Smart function in their next TV, and once a simple, more affordable product comes out people will flock to it as the ‘future-proof’ alternative to a normal TV when upgrading (especially if there’s an apple logo on it). What won’t happen in the next 5 years is that scheduled viewing will be eradicated by On Demand content.
 

I think it’s inevitable that broadcasters will ditch the airwaves for the broadband cable, but this doesn’t mean that they won’t still focus on scheduled programming. It does mean that suddenly there will be limitless targeting options & opportunity for innovation. There won’t be a ‘winner’ between buying 30” slots on scheduled programming or a number of impressions against a vertical. What I do think we’re likely to see in the next 5 years is the advent of personalised 30” TV slots in Coronation Street; the whole country watching different, more relevant ads during the X-Factor final based on family viewing habits rather than the BARB panel.