Gill Linton: Does the Fashion Industry Know What a Brand Strategy Is

Now that fall fashion marketing is here and the industry is working on what’s next, what should fashion brands do differently to make up for a terrible fiscal 2009?

Everyone’s a brand strategist these days, including people in the fashion industry whose core business is to produce fashion shows, generate publicity and create ad campaigns. In which case you’d expect fashion brands to be more distinct from each other, wouldn’t you?

Considering fashion is all about change, the fashion-marketing model is really old fashioned. It took a recession for people to accept that the selling cycle doesn’t work, and although advertising isn’t as effective as it used to be, brands still invest heavily in formulaic print ads, along with the same old sponsorships, trunk shows, pop-up shops, collaThe fashion-marketing model has its place and it’s cost of entry – tactics mostly differentiated only by the aesthetic and personality of a designer/retailer and their collections, which, for a lot of mainstream brands isn’t actually that different. Brands can pr, collaborate and twitter all they like, but without a differentiating brand strategy that creatively frames a different way for consumers to think about them, beyond a cool image or shinny mobile app, brands will always be focused on outdoing their competitors latest tactic.

Daniel Chu, Executive Creative Director of marketing agency Momentum, who has worked with brands like Nike, Thom Browne, Kenneth Cole and Target, points out that
borations and now blogs, videos and social networking.