By Emma Drummond on 2010/04/06
Ideas, Involvement and Investment
Crowdsourcing is the concept that entails outsourcing solutions to business problems or tasks from the minds of customers instead of seeking solutions internally from employees or contractors.
It seems that fashion brands are putting more importance on their customers in this regard and utilising the crowdsourcing concept has become common among brands - those that are established as well as the up and coming. Fashion houses are taking the next step in online user engagement and getting involved in the various Social Media platforms to grow and encourage their fan base to spread the word and become deeply invested in what they have to offer.
For the fashionistas out there, this is a great step forward as we are able to get all the tips, insights, inspiration and pics in real time - all while having our own say. This could be in the form of commenting on blogs or even customising items to suit our individual preferences. It is fantastic to see the customers getting more attention - whether as the opinions that drive the fashions, becoming the faces of the brands or merely steering the next best thing.
Classic Examples of Customer Involvement
The ever fresh Converse brand, made their mark in customer engagement through crowdsourcing by allowing their customers to customise their own shoes. The focus was on originality, which ties in very well with the hip and unique personality of the brand. This element of crowdsourcing allowed visitors to the site to be able to choose the shoe, the style and the material it was made of – right down to the colour of the stitching. The fact that they focused on engagement to fulfil customer needs made those involved feel valued and important and most of all, entirely satisfied with the end product result. Adidas created a site which fulfilled a similar function. They let the athletic/cool Adidas loving customers customise their own shoes to as they put it, “help you run faster, react quicker and always look your best”. To add to this campaign, they used this site to advertise upcoming events and store locations which made it easier to engage – both on and offline.
Customer Involvement Turns into Implementation
The online community is not only becoming empowered to customise their wares, but to become the actual creators of the products themselves. And what better forum to advertise and share creations than the Internet? Both Springleap and Threadless - T-shirt designs are good examples of online customer engagement in designing products. These are reminiscent of our Idea Bounty platform, which also seeks to draw ideas and inspiration from the creative community. In their own words - “Threadless works with artists around the world to produce amazing tee shirt designs”, while Springleap “allows members to use our Website as a platform from which they can express themselves through designing or voting and commenting on designs”. They have used their online space really well to engage with their target market of creative minds – with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Flickr profiles and blogs that allow people to follow and keep updated with news, events and the latest innovative additions. Community interaction is essential to the success of these tactics, evident when people post their creations and utilise the forum for comments and feedback on the designs. Essentially, this enables the talented designers to learn and feed off one another – upping the calibre of the work that they produce while allowing a massive audience of fellow buyers and creators to be exposed to the talent.
Putting Even More Power in the Customers’ Hands
To go a step even further from mere crowdsourcing of ideas, giving power to the online fashionistas of the world has seemed to transcend to setting the actual trends themselves. Those operating in the online fashion space have learnt and grown after having so much exposure to available material and footage and they are now the ones setting the trends, not the big head honchos in the fashion forecasting houses. Brands are now approaching their user base to predict upcoming trends, as seen on Style Hop, which provides a portal for exactly that. They offer consumer-driven fashion trending tool, which not only illustrates what the upcoming trends may be (on a style or item level), but also assist in cutting the spend on forecasting errors. The way in which it works seems pretty fluid and makes a lot of sense; “StyleHop is the first company to provide the fashion industry with a tool to accurately measure consumer preference and style-level forecast risk. With StyleHop's MarginFeeder, merchants will more easily identify both the big hits and the dogs before they commit.” An interesting element about this is the way it differs from the other traditional business models online - StyleHop is a hosted solution requiring no IT integration, add-ons or downloads for their clients. This fast, easy solution helps their clients to avoid the challenges associated with building and maintaining their own Website or working desktop applications. This ties in very well with their mission to “To help move fashion merchandising into the 21st Century with forward-looking consumer analytics.”
Crowdsourcing Transcends to Crowd Funding
Another compelling business model that has emerged is one that has been termed “crowd funding”. Customers invest (sometimes as little as $1) in a product, for example an item of clothing or jewellery from an aspiring designer. These investors then help to promote these products by posting online about them and as an incentive; they receive a cut of the profits that are in proportion to their investment.
One of the benefits of business models like this one is the fact that designers are able to leverage a powerful distribution channel with no costs incurred. The investors get to influence which designers/creators become successful and stand to benefit from investor profit sharing. Some examples of sites that are currently running according to this business model are CatwalkGenuis.com and Cameesa.com. There are a few sites in other industries that use the notion of crowd funding, but it is apparent that the approach works best with products “for which customers feel a strong personal attachment”, just like they do in fashion. This interesting article outlines the practice in more detail.
There has been a very interesting transition for the fashionistas that work from, invest in or are drawn to the Web – the roles have clearly shifted from how they used to operate in a traditional fashion industry. It’s amazing to see what consumers can come up with if they are given the freedom and the power to have a say in their own fashion efforts. So whether it’s customising stock items, designing or creating the products themselves or investing in the creations of others – the online space is a fantastic place to be mingling if you have an interest in fashion.
There is a clear indication that if you are a fashion brand or designer, engagement with your customers, whether by crowdsourcing, or by exploring other engagement angles, is a tried and trusted approach, no matter how niche it may be. To further any online campaigns/efforts, it’s integral to utilise other Social Media eMarketing channels such as Email Marketing, newsletters and blogs as well as to leverage getting exposure through Facebook, Twitter or MySpace pages. All these tactics ensure that the insatiable fashionista is able to voice their opinion, contribute their feedback or ideas and keep occupied and engaged in the online space(s) that you provide them. The more you please them, the more they will want to voice their delight among their peers – spreading your reach and broadening your potential online audience.
