Target - The Apple of Mass Merchandisers

Target is a retail innovator. Target created its first designer line of home goods in 1999 by collaboration with architect Michael Graves. Then in 2002, Target went hipster with the concept introducing a line of house wares by popular designer Todd Oldham. But of course, timing is everything. While it did well and even lead a trend among mass merchandisers to produce their own celebrity backed products (Martha Stewart for Kmart), Target didn’t let the idea end there. In 2005, when the collective purse strings tightened Target expanded their collaborations into fashion and hit pay dirt.

It’s not REALLY about the Perfume

I love this Chloe ad! I get this woman. She looks powerful and determined. She’s coming from somewhere and she's on her way to somewhere else. She’s crisp and she’s apparently not afraid to be out, walking the streets alone at night. She’s tough and demure all at the same time. I want that.

I love these two ads also, the first one for Ralph Lauren Romance. What’s sexier than a man smelling a woman’s neck? Taking it all in, before…well. The woman’s head is slightly above the man's in both. Signifying a little dominance, but not really. The second one is for Gucci Guilty, again with the tough and the demure.

Brand Failures Can Actually Hurt Your Consumers’ Self-Esteem

A new study conducted by the University of Illinois finds that consumers who build a strong relationship with a brand, can be “personally impacted by incidents of brand ‘failure.’

The study, which will be published in the next issue of the Journal of Consumer Psychology, tested a group of subjects to see how they would respond to negative information about brands with which they closely identified. According to the paper, “Because the brand is seen as a part of the self by virtue of being intimately tied to the self, failure on the part of the brand is experienced as a personal failure.” 

Interesting...

Mad Men and Banana Republic

The most important television show for beauty, fashion and feminity, in my time, was easily Sex and the City. Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik and Christian Louboutin owe their household name-ness to Candace Bushnell and HBO. Mixing a little nighttime into daywear, the word “fabulous”, tutus on the street, can all be traced back to our favorite four TV girlfriends (I’m Carrie. Which one are you?).  

I cried at the end of the era.  But now it seems that Mad Men would like to quietly take their place. While Mad Men has certainly influenced the feminine silhouettes that we’ve seen lately, they have yet to catch fire as an influencer in the same way as SATC. 

How Relevant are Street Style Blogs?

Picture, borrowed from thesartorialist.com

On one of my new favorite blogs, PopAfricana.com, editor Oroma Elewa poses the question, “Is attention moving away from designer shows? Has the street become the new runway?” Elewa cites the popularity of sites like The Sartorialist and Face Hunter as the new influencers of fashion. “It seems people are more concerned with how people interpret fashion these days.”

It’s an interesting question to ponder. Are these new websites, impacting the relationship between the consumer, the manufacturer and media in fashion and beauty? Is it an extension of a Facebook, reality TV culture that is eager to see real people in real habitats? The fun of these sites, as Elewa notes, is looking at the interpretation of fashion, visuals of global trends. I don’t think they will replace the runway. That’s like saying photos could replace figurative painting. They’re two separate but related art forms.  

The Greatest PR Opportunity in the History of Media

Empires have been built on this one media opportunity. Publicists could spend major budget on landing this one feature. Will this phenomenon ever exist again? CNBC did an entire special on the power of Oprah to influence consumers to buy into a brand idea.  Click the pink links to watch.

 “I’m hard pressed to think of a stronger brand than Oprah. And I’ve studied 200 years of brands.” Harvard Business School Professor Nancy F. Koehn to Bloomberg News on May 19 (PR Strategist, Summer 2011)