In today’s digital landscape, where else is there to turn but social media for fashion inspiration? Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest have become synonymous with fashion labels, high-street retailers, and of course, apparel-savvy content creators.
Brands now understand the massive potential of influencer marketing within fashion. It’s the most visual, personalized and trend-led consumer category out there, so it’s safe to say this is an influencer-led marketing revolution.
We’re diving into the power of fashion influencer marketing of recent, showing you exactly how brands are standing out, in what always has and will be an intensely competitive sector.
Contents
What is fashion influencer marketing?
Fashion influencer marketing trends in 2024
3 successful fashion influencer marketing campaigns
Top fashion influencer marketing tips for brands
What is fashion influencer marketing?
Fashion influencer marketing is a two-way conversation between potential customers and the people they choose to follow. Rather than communication directly from the brand, influencer marketing leverages the audience, authority and authenticity of a social media personality to do the heavy lifting on their behalf.
The essential feature (and power) of this approach is cultivating a sense of genuine opinion or endorsement from a trustworthy source. This opinion might come in the form of direct endorsement or simply placement in created content, which might be video reviews, fit checks, ‘get ready with me’, skits, dances, vlogs, or almost anything else.
Why is it so effective for fashion marketing?
Audience
Influencers can instantly redraw the map of brand awareness by promoting to their unique or expansive audiences. This is especially powerful for small and boutique labels, yielding huge spikes in visibility with limited marketing spend, but it’s also a key way for large brands to stay relevant and remain a bright spot in the minds of their clients.
Authority
With influencers, your audiences are not only pre-assembled — they’re also pre-engaged. Social media users are eager to hear from their chosen influencers, they trust their opinion, and are often actively seeking advice from them on what to buy. There’s no marketing voice more compelling than this.
Human Connection
Above all, influencer marketing is personal. It’s about what they think about the item, how it works in their lives, and through that, why it will work for the viewer. For fashion in particular, it’s an unparalleled opportunity to demonstrate your product doing its thing: being tried on, combined with other items, worn out to specific occasions, in selfies – just seeing it being worn by a real person in everyday life is so much more powerful than an overly edited advert.
Fashion influencer marketing trends in 2024
Marketing practices in this sector change faster than seasonal clothes lines. Don’t worry – The Goat Agency is always on hand to make sure you’re not looking outdated.
Audience participation
TikTok has become an excellent means for audiences to contribute to creator content, having the ability to request things in the comments. In food and drink, we see this when creators create a video using a comment, usually fulfilling a recipe request, no matter how weird or whacky. Even brands have started to adopt this formula.
Now it looks to have made its way into the fashion vertical, with TikTokers like Wisdom Kaye spearheading the trend by creating outfits based on requests in the comments.
This is a trend TikTokers are really getting behind. People are left stunned by 1) where Kaye is able to find clothes to match the Paleolithic age, and 2) how it’s possible to create an outfit worth $110,000. These videos are truly iconic, and yet terrifying… cannot begin to imagine the stress of wearing £100K plus in clothing.
AI-assisted influencer marketing
The possibilities opening up through AI power continue to grow. We’re already discovering exciting new avenues for ROI analysis, influencer discovery and surgical campaign targeting that these tools offer.
That means you’ll be able to find the best influencers, from micro-stars to unconventional trend-setters, to drive your campaigns further than ever, and know exactly how much they’re doing for your brand.
Luxury vs High-Street
As you’d expect, the way in which luxury fashion labels and more affordable retailers reach their consumers differs quite significantly.
Luxury brands tend to be defined by quality, legacy and of course, price. There’s also the element of exclusivity. Luxury brands don’t want everyone to have their products, they want to maintain an air of scarcity. Brands on the high street are considered more accessible. Whilst the focus is very much still on quality, they don’t have quite the same exclusivity (or price) of luxury brands.
Where high-street brands partner with influencers in highly product focused content that aims to drive purchases in the present, luxury brands plant the seed to convert you down the line. You’ll often see luxury brands partnering with the biggest creators (Hugo Boss with Khaby Lame for example) bringing them in as brand ambassadors to emphasize their exclusivity. For premium brands, the approach is much more varied, often involving multiple smaller creators to cast a wider net, making their message one of accessibility over exclusivity.
Read more about luxury vs high-street fashion brands in our report “The Prestige Factor: How 15 Luxury and Premium Brands are Taking on TikTok.”
3 Successful fashion influencer marketing campaigns
Gucci
Gucci recently proved that you don’t need to send out physical units of your product to get it into the hands of influencers and customers.
With their very own Gucci eyewear TikTok filter, users can see themselves wearing the premium ANCORA collection glasses instantly.
Gucci engaged a range of influencers to demonstrate the new filter, from model and content creator Jamilla Strand with a modest 57.3K followers, to heavy-hitting TikTok algorithm queen @yeslydimate and her 4.7M audience.
The crucial benefit of digitizing a product like this is the incredible broadening of product access it creates. Now anyone can do a “fit check” with Gucci’s ANCORA collection shades– with no investment, no traveling, and no waiting for deliveries.
This creates a potent one-two combination of 1) inspiration, first seeing their favorite influencer wearing it, and 2) motivation, after immediately being able to ‘try it on’ themselves. By front loading more of the customer journey into the digital realm, Gucci is cultivating customers who are not only interested by the time they arrive at the store or checkout page – they’re more confident in their intent.
BOSS
It’s not news to anyone that viral trends can explode in the blink of an eye, and nowhere more so than on TikTok. It’s common for people to be catapulted from complete anonymity to internet stardom overnight, often triggering an avalanche of brand partnerships in their wake.
BOSS did just this, being one of the quickest off the mark to partner with @sabrinabahsoon, better known by the title of ‘Tube Girl’ for her windswept dance videos in front of the inter-carriage windows on the London Underground.
This might seem an unusual choice for a global fashion brand at first glance. However, Tube Girl represents a uniquely valuable character – an ‘normal’ person, suddenly elevated;content rooted in the relatable commuter landscape; and an uplifting, ‘boss’ attitude. TikTok dancing, of course, is a key feature – not to mention the tens of thousands of followers pouring in each day.
The result? BOSS found an opportunity to build on her personality, flying her to a Milan fashion show and letting her do her thing across a new city and its metro in several high-end pieces. A few months later she took BOSS back to the London Underground, transforming a tube platform into a chic, organic runway.
Keeping your finger on the pulse – which is always made easier by working with experts like The Goat – makes it possible to land these incredible influencer partnerships at the perfect moment.
Wait too long and you’ll be diluted among the pack of other brands that descend. Strike while the iron is red hot, on the other hand, and see your brand fundamentally linked with a trend or rising star in the minds of viewers.
Brands in the influencer space can often be too cautious with their partnerships. Sometimes the best campaigns are the ones that throw caution to the wind. Ditch the strict brand guidelines – be bold.
Adidas
You might think of TikTok as exclusively ‘the Gen Z platform’. You might also initially think of influencers as paid actors, existing to read your curated scripts to camera.
These two (all too common) beliefs by social media marketing teams can torpedo the best-intentioned influencer campaigns. Leading to content that is inauthentic, unengaging, narrowly targeted, and frankly boring, you can expect a disappointing return on your investment.
Fortunately, Adidas have delivered a textbook example of how not to fall into this trap. What did they do right?
First and foremost, they’ve drawn from a wide and varied pool of influencers, from male travel influencers like @alexcarvs (201K followers) to millennial-focused ‘dog mum’ content creator @greenybeany (425K followers), as well as Gen Z TikTok superstars like @benjikrol(34.2M followers).
Gen Z are a hot market for fashion, that’s true – but with so many brands clamoring to be the next trend in that demographic, competition for attention is fierce and customer loyalty may be fleeting. Adidas is aware that their audience is wide ranging, especially since they’re marketing functional fashion in the form of running shoes.
Secondly, as the posts below show, there is absolutely no script in place for this campaign. The result is a wonderful diversity of content, a flourishing wild garden of creativity that stays true to each influencer’s style. Comedy, personal stories, organically delivered reviews are all there.
Adidas understands that it isn’t just Gen Z who hate obvious advertising – everyone is turned off by it. They recognize that allowing a range of influencers to be themselves with the product makes them a natural part of their audience’s world, rather than another advert shoved down their throats.
Top fashion influencer marketing tips for brands
Embrace your unique style
Influencer marketing is a world apart from traditional fashion marketing. TikTok is not a platform for cutdowns of your TV adverts, or models demonstrating your product in perfectly poised silence. It’s about allowing trusted figures to be themselves and interact with your brand in whatever way they choose.
For Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences, fashion is no longer about aspirational ideals and demonstrating perfection – it’s about acting on their values and expressing themselves, imperfections and all.
Market to every demographic – through every demographic
In this new age of influencer marketing, fashion isn’t to be handed down from on high. People want to wear things because they see their peers or role models wearing them; they’re looking for reliable evidence that this product will work for them and will contribute to their identity.
To tap into this, you need to work with influencers that align with your audience. That audience usually spans a wide range of different ages, body types, ethnicities and various other characteristics – reflect that.
The fashion industry has certainly made progress here, but it’s clear there are still greater depths to be found in diverse marketing. The Purple Goat Agency, for example, highlights that 24% of the UK population are living with a disability, but only 0.06% of adverts feature disabled individuals.
Marketing to a diverse ecosystem of consumers also means engaging with them across unconventional verticals. A vast number of fashion consumers (also known as everyone on Earth) don’t follow fashion influencers – but they probably follow food, sport, travel, entertainment or lifestyle influencers. Find ways to integrate your product or brand into those verticals and enjoy the multiplication of your reach.
Never stop experimenting
Above all, social media and influencer marketing never stands still. Because of that, it’s brutally efficient at mothballing uninteresting or ineffective content. If you want to join other top-performing brands on the cutting edge, the solution is continuous, strategic experimentation.
That means taking risks with your content styles – and content purposes. It means really interrogating what it is your content is doing (hint: if it’s not entertaining, educating or inspiring, you’re in trouble). Most of all, it means keeping your influencers out of brand handcuffs so they can do what they do best.
Working with an agency like Goat makes this easy. We don’t just specialize in influencer marketing and understand its specific application for fashion. With us, you won’t be jumping on trends – you’ll be generating them.
The oddball effect
The oddball effect is a phenomenon where an unexpected item in a sequence stands out. As the viewer, we recognize the unfamiliarity and remember it much more vividly. In other words, doing something that’s slightly quirky and different in order to stand out.
In a world where beautiful content is everywhere, brands must ask themselves, are you cutting through the noise or creating it? If you’re looking for guidance on how to cut through successfully, look no further than Burberrry’s partnership with Sylvanian Drama.
Sylvanian Drama is a TikTok channel that brings to life Sylvanian Family figurines, acting out its own little soap opera right in the heart of the FYP. It wasn’t until some loyal binge watchers spotted a Sylvanian Family toy clutching a Quilted Lola Bag that people started to realize Burberry had teamed up with the account.
A luxury brand teaming up with a TikTok account that uses children’s toys as props to create adult dramas? It’s such an unexpected pairing that you can’t help but respect it.
Look outside fashion influencers
Some of the best influencer campaigns are those that encompass different niches and verticals.
Crocs are a great example of a fashion brand whose influencer campaigns traverse multiple niches – an emphasis of its stance as a footwear suited to all occasions. Over the years Crocs have partnered with Kai Havertz, Bella Poarch, Max Balegde, CelinaSpookyBoo, and many more who are huge names within their fields, but incredibly diverse in who their content goes out to. Crocs has also made a splash in the gaming scene. Their campaign encouraged gamers to showcase their personalities through unique and colorful Minecraft builds, aligned with the release of a Minecraft themed shoe.
While fashion brands might be tempted to stick solely with fashion influencers, audiences on social love to see outside the box campaigns.
Concluding thoughts
Fashion influencer marketing goes where traditional marketing can’t, allowing brands to hybridize with and feed into the creators who make social media worth engaging with in the first place.
It positions brands to contribute to the value of the platform, rather than simply exploiting it. Audiences recognize and respond to this. The invaluable result? Brands can cultivate a share of the loyalty and affection usually reserved for those beloved influencers.Need a hand developing your next influencer-led fashion campaign? Get in touch to find out how we can build the perfect digital runway for your brand.
