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In May 2023, brand director Yuri Kim posted a video of her parent’s outfits on Instagram. She had always loved their eclectic style, which mixed independent Japanese brands with their native Southern California edge. Soon, the elderly couple Aki and Koichi Kim started regularly posting their ‘outfits of the day’ on Instagram and TikTok. Typically, Aki, 73, presses record and walks back to hug her husband Koichi, 75, before giving a twirl. In just over a year, the duo hit 915,000 followers on Instagram, and 318,000 on TikTok. Their most popular video on TikTok has nearly 10 million views.
The Kims are two of millions of creators who regularly post their outfit of the day (OOTD) on social media. While many content trends have come and gone, OOTD has remained one of the most popular formats across social media. On TikTok, 21.3 million posts have been created using the #OOTD hashtag, which regularly appears as the top-trending fashion hashtag in the Vogue Business TikTok Trend Tracker. In 2018, reality TV star Stassi Schroeder spent $40,000 to make 30 June 2018 ‘National OOTD Day’ to honour its significance — as acknowledged by the National Day Calendar.
TikTok content
“It feels like over the years OOTD content has completely swallowed other forms of marketing,” says Cora Delaney, CEO and founder of London-based talent agency EYC, who works with brands like Nike, Rabanne, Gant, Lacoste and Birkenstock on OOTD content. “The way I look at it is simple: we have the capacity to drive meaningful conversations to audiences via mini storytellers who have curated loyal fan bases that trust their opinion, style and aesthetic.”
Lauren Stretch, head of influencer and social marketing at sustainable skincare line Facetheory, first noticed the power of OOTD content while working at Guess in 2015. “At the time, I was still faxing things over to Vogue and Marie Claire to essentially get free advertising,” she says, noting that they were getting a lot of coverage of their hero denim, the five-button Marilyn jeans, but that it wasn’t exactly converting to sales. “If a popular influencer mentioned a specific silhouette in their YouTube though, the next day it would sell out,” she says. “That’s when I knew I had to pivot.”
From mega-influencers like Alix Earle to the everyday casual poster, OOTDs are a go-to for all types of creators. “In place of highly polished static imagery on Instagram that was so commonplace in the 2010s, we now see much more lo-fi videos on TikTok, so styling content has become more democratised and accessible,” says Éloïse Gendry-Hearn, digital and talent specialist at creative agency The Digital Fairy. “Instead of needing a ‘professional’ shoot set-up and a camera, creators and audiences alike can prop their phone up anywhere and capture an OOTD video in seconds.”
Its ability to single-handedly transform an individual’s life has been well documented over the years, whether it was the then-14-year-old Gully Guy Leo who gained over 700,000 followers for his streetwear fit pics from 2016 onwards, or Jett and Pookie’s more recent viral “What you wearing, babe?” videos, which have earned the couple over 1.5 million followers on TikTok in little over a year. “It never fails to surprise me how many different unique takes there are on the same format — with each creator bringing their own individuality to the table,” says Verity Parker, founder of TBH Talent. “Take for instance our client [actor and singer] Hannah Lowther, who created a playful OOTD spin within her theatre niche, reaching millions and inspiring thousands of others to create their own OOTDs to her viral sound.”
TikTok content
Since working in influencer marketing, Stretch has seen influencers shift up to 5,000 units of product in two days from organic posting, and references how Chinese influencer Zheng XiangXiang recently made $13 million in a week promoting low-cost products like sweatpants and brooms on a TikTok live stream for less than three seconds each. “I’ve worked with creators who can talk about a reasonably priced pair of trousers and generate over £25,000 in sales from just one organic Instagram story frame,” adds Parker.
A powerful brand tool
Out of all the various niches and formats on social media, OOTD remains one of the most enduring and popular types of content because audiences are so curious about other people’s daily lives, Stretch says.
“We want to be part of a tribe when it comes to our reptilian brain. We would love to think that we are above that. But we are not,” Stretch continues, reminding us that the fascination with other people’s clothing choices — especially those with aspirational social standing — far predates the rise of online networking platforms.
In the 19th century, to help the dying silk trade, Queen Victoria hosted a ball where everyone had to wear British silk, with newspapers covering the event with detailed drawings, Stretch explains. “They calculated that they added another 10 years to the British silk trade from that one event.” The difference is today, we can analyse — and monetise — the impact of OOTD content, which for some brands can generate thousands or millions of dollars in sales.
“OOTDs are such a platform-native format that translates across creators and audiences regardless of their niche. Brands are keen to tap into these types of videos where product can be featured in a prominent way without it feeling like a hard sell,” says Gendry-Hearn. OOTD content can also double up as reviews, which are a crucial part of the purchase journey for Gen Z shoppers. Consumers can find creators with their skin tone (for beauty), or their sizing (for garments), and really see what the product looks like on somebody like them.
“Influencer-led brands like Tala have perfected this approach. If you look at their Instagram, they consistently leverage OOTD UGC (user-generated content) made by their creator community and consumers… and who can blame them? It’s low cost, shows what the product truly looks like and starts a two-way dialogue with their community,” says Parker.
TikTok content
Delaney of EYC believes that the ability to inject humour, personality and creativity into the mix makes it possible for OOTD to override any traditional means of marketing. “I see a campaign and think, ‘Wow that’s cool,’ but I see a ‘get ready with me’ (GRWM) or an OOTD and think, ‘That’s something I can copy or seek inspiration from.’ It’s just a lot more tangible and tactile and personal.”
Getting a good deal
Hijacking OOTD content doesn’t guarantee success. Stretch explains that she once paid an influencer $60,000 for a YouTube video and they only generated £22 in sales, which is why she now builds metrics into every single contract that she sends out. “We expect the influencer to be able to cover 100 per cent of the fee, plus at least 50 per cent in some cases through the sales they generate from posting.” For an OOTD video to be considered very successful, she expects a return on investment of 200 per cent.
“I think the general public is often shocked to find out about ‘high’ payments of influencers because most know very little about what mainstream media [advertising] costs,” says content creator and fashion editor of 032c Brenda Weischer. “As these numbers mostly never reach the public, influencer’s quotas can seem high, as people have nothing to compare it to. I am not insinuating that influencers are underpaid, but I think when bringing up their rates, other media rates should also be included in that conversation,” she continues.
Weischer recently spoke on her podcast, ‘Brendawareness’, about being more picky in what gifting she accepts, as the pay off for the brands versus her is not always fair and she wants to be authentic with the things she supports to her audience. “While influencers often have to share their insights with brands before getting accepted for a job or an activation, the brands don’t have to share how much the influencer brought them in revenue in return. So they are often simply not aware of their own impact.”
The arrival of TikTok Shop and affiliate marketing should narrow the disconnect between creator compensation and brand revenue. Here, creators are entitled to a proportion of the sales that they generate (8 to 20 per cent, depending on the brand, creators told Vogue Business earlier this year), rather than a one-off flat fee that might not fairly reflect the partnership’s revenue pull.
“Affiliate platforms like LTK and Awin play a crucial role by offering valuable sales and clicks insights for both creators and brands, acting as a middle man, offering financial compensation to both sides,” agrees Parker. “With a well-crafted posting strategy, the right timing, and a bit of luck, successful creators can earn up to £100,000 in a single month from commission through these affiliate platforms.”
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