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Where does your premium fashion brand stand in comparison to other brands? What’s your position in the market? Do you have access to data that can enlighten you on your competitors’ tactics and strategies?
Knowing where you stand as a brand in this competitive market is crucial; Fashion, Luxury, and Beauty brands are no exception. In preparation for 2023, where looming global recessions and increasing inflation rates announce a challenging economic landscape, it’s now more than ever to fill the missing pieces of your strategic puzzle. Make better PR and marketing decisions supported by factual data analytics that can help you benchmark your brand and competitors.
In this article you’ll learn…
About Premium Fashion
Each brand has its prestigious status, built on intangible aspects such as brand image and loyalty. Premium Fashion separates itself from Luxury due to more tangible features; its product volume and lower price point. However, the aim for all Fashion, Luxury and Beauty brands is unwavering: retaining your audience and attracting the interest of new consumers.
The best-performing brands, as the State of Fashion 2022 by McKinsey and Company report explores, are the ones that have invested in technology and digitization. For premium fashion brands to maintain their positions in the global fashion market, they need to be aware of their own wins and losses. But, they also need to be aware of the performance of their competitors. Following the right trends and generating content that consumers value is key to success in this challenging industry.
In order to give you a snapshot of the current landscape, we benchmarked the performance of 10 brands in the premium fashion sector. Thanks to our proprietary algorithm, Media Impact Value™ (MIV®), we could measure and benchmark the impact of all media placements and mentions across different Voices during a selected period.
What are the 10 Premium Fashion Brands we Selected?
For this competitive benchmarking report, we analyzed the MIV® data in October 2022, for the following 10 premium fashion brands:
- Levi’s
- Michael Kors
- Calvin Klein
- Tommy Hilfiger
- Polo Ralph Lauren
- Hugo Boss
- Lacoste
- Diesel
- DKNY
- AllSaints
The infographic below displays the overall rankings of the selected premium fashion brands by Media Impact Value™ in October 2022. It also displays the number of placements each of the ten brands had within the time frame. These placements factor in social media posts, articles pertaining to specific search queries (e.g. the brand, products, or even events). Additionally, it takes into account interactions consumers made with the posts such as tags and comments.
Voice Mix Benchmark for the 10 Performing Premium Fashion Brands
This second bar chart below demonstrates the breakdown of the Voice Mix Benchmark.
This benchmark chart represents the Voice Mix metric which provides the percentage of each of the five Voices that consumers are exposed to: Media, Influencers, Celebrities, Partners and Owned Media. The percentage is based on the total MIV® which each Voice generated for the premium fashion brands. Having an awareness of this Voice Mix gives brands a better strategic understanding of the tactics that work for either themselves or their competitors.
By and large, Voice Mix charts almost always demonstrate a strong usage of the Media Voice. For almost every brand, it is the center of their Voice strategy as it is common and, generally, reliable. This push towards Media coverage is even more significant when looking at Levi’s and Diesel Voice Mix which accumulated 70% and 83% respectively.
What is noteworthy to look at in this chart are the singularities. For example, Polo Ralph Lauren has been leveraging the Celebrities and Owned Media Voices more than any of the other brands in this benchmark. The question is why and how does it work for them?
Afterall, these insights are intriguing, but what placements in each Voice found themselves to be most engaging to the consumer audience? What were the essential trends and strategies which can easily be applied to your own brand? Why are Levi’s, Michael Kors, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, and Hugo Boss at the forefront of the rankings in terms of MIV®?
Read on to find out more about the benchmarking and analysis of some of these 10 premium fashion brands.
Levi’s
Coming at the top of the rankings for the selected premium brands is Levi’s. The brand’s performance has increased by 20% since September, garnering $44.1M in MIV® across 16.1K placements in October 2022. In a few words, their success can be attributed to their use of the Media Voice as it pitched in $30.1M in MIV®. However, Levi’s Owned Media initiatives, though less numerous in terms of placements, proved to be more impactful with an average of $4.5K in MIV® per placement.
Looking deeper into the Channel Split, the Online and Instagram Channels are the ones that turned out to be the most profitable in terms of Media Impact Value™ in October 2022. The Online Channel being the most prominent, accumulated $19.1M in MIV® for the brand. Instagram was also significant, having amassed $9.4M in MIV®. However, what makes Instagram more remarkable is that it was on that Channel that the top 5 placements for the brand were published. The top placement being a collaborative post with the Business of Fashion and Deepika Padukone which accounted for $585K in MIV®. Leveraging Social Media is crucial to understand what your audience wants, but an important step is to also engage with them in order to retain their interest.
Michael Kors
Coming in second out of the ten significant premium brands selected for this report, Michael Kors accumulated $29.3M in Media Impact Value™ across 6.6K placements in October 2022.
Michael Kors can attribute a lot of its success to the Media Voice. It independently pitched in $17.6M, 60% of the total MIV®. What sets it apart from some of the other brands, however, is its successful collaboration with famous Celebrities and Influencers. The brand garnered $3.8M in MIV® through Celebrity Voices and $3.3M in MIV® through Influencer Voices. At the top of Michael Kors’ Key Voices are Alexandra Daddario, Bella Hadid, Nora Fatehi, and Dew Jirawat Sutivanichsak. To put it in perspective, one single post on instagram by Alexandra Daddario generated $569K.
Part of the brand’s remarkable performance is a result of its high-profile collaborations with renowned Celebrities across platforms. These collaborations maximize Michael Kors’s potential reach by claiming interest on a broader scale and creating more awareness about the brand.
Calvin Klein
In third place of the selected brands ranking in the realm of premium fashion is Calvin Klein. In October 2022, the brand collected a total of $25.1M in MIV® across 7.8K placements. The Media Voice amassed $13.6M in MIV®; more than half of all of the Media Impact Value™ generated for the brand.
Similarly to Michael Kors, Calvin Klein has been strongly leveraging the Influencer and Celebrity Voices across its marketing strategies. The brand’s collaboration with Park Seo-Joon 박서준 has been a great asset for the brand with the South Korean actor generating $1.1M in MIV® for Calvin Klein on Instagram and Facebook.
Additionally, the brand’s Owned Media Voice taps into the success of Influencers and Celebrities generating more than $2.58M in MIV® across 199 placements. This can be seen below through Calvin Klein’s Instagram account featuring Spanish actor Omar Ayuso. The relationship created between these different Voices resonates with an omnipresent marketing strategy the brand uses.
Overall, the brand is affiliated with many Celebrities and Influencers worldwide such as Tara Sutaria, HoYeon Jung “(Chung)”, Maya Ray Hawke, Nailea Devora, and many more. These numerous successful ambassadors highlight its image and add more value, creating more buzz and awareness for the brand.
Tommy Hilfiger
With an overall MIV® of $22.6M across 7.3K placements, Tommy Hilfiger gains much of its success from its collaborations with distinguished Influencers and Celebrities. Together, the Voices make up 28% of the brand’s Voice Mix, generating $6.2M in MIV®. Not to forget that the Media Voice did take over, once again, as the most prominent Voice in the mix with $13.3M in MIV®.
When looking to optimize your exposure, the sponsorship of Influencers and Celebrities is a great qualifiable marketing strategy. Tommy Hilfiger, similarly to Michael Kors and Calvin Klein, demonstrates to have leveraged that strategy successfully. The brand’s collaboration with Celebrity Voices, 나연 Nayeon and Guru Randhawa, gains a lot of traction for the brand as consumers look up to these personalities.
If you’re looking for better ways to reach the Eastern market, tapping into KOLs is essential when it comes to disseminating successful campaigns. Tommy Hilfiger’s collaboration with 나연 Nayeon is a great example of that. With over 9 million followers on Instagram, the Kpop star as a KOL influences the image of the brand. In October 2022, 나연 Nayeon’s single instagram placement generated $709K in MIV® for Tommy Hilfiger.
Premium Fashion Market Asia
Do you want to know how much MIV® your marketing strategy in China is driving?
Hugo Boss
Ultimately, the last brand which we will analyze is Hugo Boss. Coming in fifth in this report’s ranking in October 2022, the brand gathered an overall $20.7M in MIV® across 6.0K placements.
Hugo Boss’s success is driven by multiple Voices with the Media Voice at the top once again with $11.2M in MIV®. The brand’s Owned Media, Influencers, and Celebrities Voice are nonetheless very prominent with each Voice generating $2.3M, $3.4M, and $3.1M in MIV® respectively. Through the Instagram channel, many renowned public figures have spread the fresher brand’s image in the midst of their rebranding. Notably, Nani Hirunkit Changkham generated $828K in MIV®, Noah Beck generated $404K in MIV®, and Chris Hemsworth generated $378K in MIV®.
Lastly, understanding what your consumer wants is essential for your social media marketing strategy. In that sense, Hugo Boss has managed to reach their audience in a different angle: humor. By featuring Italian-Senegalese TikToker, Khabane “Khaby” Lame, known for mocking life hack videos, the brand is building its authenticity.
Altogether, Hugo Boss seamlessly integrates a cross-Voices strategy by leveraging the reach of Influencers and Celebrities for their Owned Media. It’s definitely showing its worth with their Owned Media Voice generating $2.3M in MIV® overall.
How to Benchmark your Premium Fashion Brand
This data insight aims to help you gain more awareness about successful marketing strategies. It also demonstrates tactics some of the best premium fashion brands use to optimize their brand performance.
Do you want to learn more about your brand’s position? How it compares to your competitors? For that, you need a deeper dive into your brand’s performance analytics. This tailored data will help you measure your campaigns’ effectiveness. All by analyzing each Voice and Channel’s performance and benchmark your key results against your competitors.
If this insight has sparked your interest, scroll to find out more below.
Benchmark Your Premium Fashion Brand
Uncover areas to boost your brand performance and increase your industry ranking.
By Charlotte Gillet. Business Marketing Coordinator
Based in London, Charlotte is a Marketing Assistant at Launchmetrics. Passionate about creating inspiring content, she recently graduated from UCL with a MA in Publishing. Invested in learning more about the businesses of Fashion, Luxury, and Beauty worldwide; she is excited to explore the ever-changing landscape of these industries.