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Key takeaways:
- Digital engagement begins to shift. Louis Vuitton overtakes Dior in digital engagement by leveraging its global ambassadors. As TikTok’s rise democratises the social media landscape, smaller brands like Loewe and Marc Jacobs continue to gain traction, signalling changes in digital strategy for luxury brands. Meanwhile, Chloé and Stella McCartney excel in their Autumn/Winter 2024 collections.
- The lo-fi/high-quality balance. Luxury brands are navigating the balance between engaging with social media trends and maintaining their high-fashion status. Marc Jacobs and Loewe exemplify this balance, with viral internet content driving engagement alongside more traditional brand-building efforts. However, while lo-fi social content gains ground, celebrity-driven campaigns still dominate luxury brand engagement across social media platforms.
- Social commerce gains traction. As social commerce emerges in Western markets, luxury brands face pressure to adapt. Despite relatively low adoption rates in the UK and US, platforms like TikTok Shop boost opportunities for resale. With social commerce projected to grow, luxury brands should explore this space to maintain competitiveness without compromising their integrity.
The changing face of digital engagement
For the first time since H1 2021, Dior has been knocked off its top spot at the helm of the digital pillar, as Louis Vuitton jumps two positions to claim the lead. Dior’s historic success is categorised by its ambitious global ambassador strategy, high post frequency and variety of content. For Louis Vuitton, it’s the same story, with posts utilising ambassadors such as Stray Kids’s Felix, Deepika Padukone, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer garnering the most attention.
Shifts within the digital pillar aren’t solely limited to the Index’s top players. Changes within the industry over the past few years have democratised the social media landscape, most prominently the rise of TikTok. The top 10 brands on TikTok include Hugo Boss, Tory Burch and Fendi, with the algorithm and content preferences providing more room for smaller brands to emerge. Most notable is the rise of Loewe (+13), Marc Jacobs (+8) and Tommy Hilfiger (+11). The former brands perform strongly on TikTok and Xiaohongshu, while Tommy Hilfiger has risen on Instagram. While this platform is inherently more challenging to compete on due to high content saturation, the brand has gained traction through its Met Gala content, which heavily features the eponymous brand founder alongside its celebrity ambassadors.
On Vogue Runway, in a year where the industry has been preoccupied with its white male legacy, female creative directors have generated significant interest. Chemena Kamali’s return to Chloé for AW24 saw the brand rise 27 positions on Vogue Runway to become the second-best performing brand, while Stella McCartney’s AW24 show saw the brand rise 47 positions to become the fourth-best performing brand. This highlights renewed attention on female creatives and their unique point of view in comparison to their male counterparts.
It’s not just organic performance that is driving changes in the digital landscape. AI has long driven algorithmic performance, yet new tools are assisting both brands and creators in navigating the complex social media landscape. Tools such as Pre Social utilise AI to predict how much engagement social posts will garner, with up to 80 per cent accuracy, while Grace Beverley has launched an “AI talent agent”, Retrograde, to streamline the talent management process. However, the integration of AI into social platforms is not without controversy. Snapchat’s My AI tool has been criticised over privacy concerns, while Meta’s use of users’ posts for AI training has also raised concerns.
Balancing high-low culture
While luxury fashion brands are expected to hold strong cultural capital, they’re increasingly expected to understand social media culture and jump onto social trends. This summer has seen brands jump on trends such as Brat summer and Jools LeBron’s “very demure, very mindful”. The most engaged-with content within the data capture period sits within the latter category of social media culture. Marc Jacobs utilises niche TikTok creators to create funny content, garnering over 1.5 million likes on a ‘summer style’ video, while Burberry’s post showing a duck sitting on a Burberry scarf garnered the same. Yet, how can brands balance this engagement with social media trends with their status as tastemakers?
Marc Jacobs’s ascension in ranking can largely be attributed to its TikTok strategy, tapping into viral moments such as the Tinashe ‘Nasty’ dance and of-the-moment creators such as Nara Smith who tapped her personal brand to bake the label’s iconic tote bag “from scratch”. Yet this is balanced with the use of industry darlings Alex Consani and Gabbriette, giving the brand fashion it-girl credibility. On platforms like Instagram, the brand shifts towards more polished, platform-appropriate content that aligns better with its high-fashion status.
Loewe’s strategy is arguably more balanced. Loewe’s content is still inherently fun and internet-coded, utilising creators such as Aki and Koichi and posting content that shows users rating Loewe shoes based on their sound. Yet, these posts sit alongside those with more cultural depth, including behind-the-scenes footage, exhibitions and craftsmanship-led content.
Loewe’s strategy is clearly working for the brand. Purchase intent has risen from 47 per cent in H2 2023 to 51 per cent in H2 2024. What’s more, the brand’s intergenerational appeal is strong, as distribution of purchase intent across age ranges largely aligns with the Index average, despite an 8 per cent rise in the 45 to 54 group. In comparison, purchase intent at Marc Jacobs skews heavily towards Gen Z, at 60 per cent — almost double that of its overall purchase intent of 32 per cent. While digital content isn’t the only factor attracting a younger audience — price point and product assortment play a substantial role — brands must be careful to not alienate a large portion of potential shoppers.
This social-first content is not overtaking celebrity content for driving engagement, however. Billie Eilish’s Gucci campaign was the best-performing post for the brand over the period, while Louis Vuitton’s top five posts feature the rapper Felix, with a combined engagement of 6.8 million. Loewe even played on its own celebrity strategy, by inviting a fan of Phuwin Tangsakyuen, friend of the house, to the SS25 men’s show.
Despite this celebrity strategy, just 18 per cent of luxury consumers discover new brands and/or products through celebrity endorsements, in line with influencers also at 18 per cent. Brands should be assessing if the return is strong enough to justify luxury’s current investment in its celebrity ambassadors or whether this level of engagement can be achieved through other means. Brands need to understand that what is entertaining to consumers does not necessarily drive the highest spend.
The West begins to embrace social commerce
Luxury items have a low conversion rate of just 1.69 per cent on average globally, almost half that of non-luxury fashion and apparel. While price point and digital experience no doubt play a large role in that figure, so too will luxury’s fragmented path to purchase. Social media is the third most popular discovery channel for luxury following a brand’s own website and magazines, yet consumers can only shop directly through one of these channels. Consumers can browse luxury products on social platforms, but they are usually required to navigate to a brand’s external website to complete a purchase, with any additional steps a consumer has to take after seeing an item — such as clicking an external link or using visual search to find a product — reducing the likelihood of purchase.
Around half (48 per cent) of luxury consumers globally consider the ability to purchase luxury directly through a brand’s social media to be important. In Western markets, the prevalence of social commerce is still nascent. Despite a lack of luxury brands on platforms such as TikTok Shop, 39 per cent and 38 per cent of luxury consumers consider social commerce to be important in the UK and US, respectively.
Resale could act as a low-risk entry point for brands. TikTok Shop launched “Preowned Luxury” with verified sellers such as Luxe Collective in April 2024. Brands could look to test the waters of social commerce either through their own pre-owned channels on the platform or through partnerships with verified sellers. In China, social commerce is well established, with 26 per cent of luxury consumers in the market already purchasing secondhand luxury through peers on social media, according to a Vogue Business study with Barclays.
As such, 69 per cent of luxury consumers in China consider social commerce to be important. This familiarity also means the expectation that Chinese consumers have on their digital experience is higher, and satisfaction with what brands within the Index offer is reduced as brands fail to meet this expectation. Chinese luxury consumers, on average, rate a brand 6.03 out of 10 for their digital experience — lower than the global average score of 6.15 and significantly lower than what they rate brands for their in-store experience (6.31).
Despite the promising outlook, the absence of many luxury players in the social commerce space presents a significant risk. With social commerce expected to account for 20 per cent of all e-commerce sales in the next two years, luxury brands risk being left behind if they don’t adapt. However, entering this space doesn’t have to compromise a brand’s exclusivity or status. By leveraging more affordable extension lines or resale platforms, luxury brands can experiment with social commerce in a way that meets consumers where they already are.
Case study: Louis Vuitton leads on star power
Having previously led performance on Facebook, WeChat and Douyin, Dior is no longer winning on any of the social platforms tracked by the Vogue Business Index. More mature channels such as Facebook and WeChat may have been deprioritised by the brand, as only 238 Facebook posts were made in the nine months tracked, in comparison to 250 in the six months prior — and there is currently no signal as to where Dior’s social media priorities are being placed. Louis Vuitton, meanwhile, is leading on both Instagram and TikTok performance, while overtaking Dior across Facebook, YouTube and Douyin.
Both heritage brands have their fingers on the pulse of — and the funds to participate in — key cultural moments such as the Olympics, as well as hone their strong celebrity strategies. For Louis Vuitton, elected star power ranges from Blackpink’s Lisa to Burna Boy to Beyoncé, while for Dior, ambassadors include Blackpink’s Jisoo, Rosalía and Rihanna. While these strategies may seem similar, in the eyes of consumers, Louis Vuitton’s content is rated higher in terms of engagement at 7.03 out of 10, in comparison to Dior’s 6.99.
Louis Vuitton’s runways offer a masterclass in presenting collections around key brand moments and leveraging their hype. Nicolas Ghesquière’s 10th-anniversary Louis Vuitton show in Paris for AW24 drove the highest unique visitors on Vogue Runway, while its menswear collections — directed by Pharrell Williams — drove over 10.7 million YouTube views for the brand’s autumn and pre-fall releases.
Neither Dior nor Louis Vuitton is yet winning on Chinese socials, led instead by Prada (WeChat), Fendi (Weibo), Gucci (Xiaohongshu) and Bosideng (Douyin). On WeChat, peak engagement was largely driven by local celebrities, with Prada announcing Chinese actress Jia Ling as brand ambassador in June and Hugo Boss posting a New Year greeting from Chinese singer Chen Linong back in February. For Hermès, it is culture that’s largely driving engagement, specifically via the preview of its film On the Wings of Hermès. Dior and Louis Vuitton should do more to crack the Chinese social media landscape.
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