Rewarded for simply being the first on the bandwagon
The good news for luxury brands is that it’s still relatively easy to create buzz for being “innovative” by doing some relatively simple things.
Though no luxury brand has nailed the best ways to utilise new technologies – including virtual reality and live streaming – those that have tried new things have often been rewarded for simply being the first.
Now or never, live streaming
With more than 100 popular live streaming platforms and 344 million people engaged on these platforms in China, live streaming has become the hottest new mainstream technology sweeping the country, and is no doubt a goldmine of success in hiding for brands that can implement it properly.
However, while live streaming has had its share of enthusiasm from businesses and consumers alike for a while now, for the most part luxury brands are still scrambling to keep up with the fast uptake of live streaming in China. Even now, there is still a distinctly lo-fi and non-luxurious feel to live stream broadcasts.
- Considering the success that some luxury brands have already had, now is as good of a time as ever for luxury brands to jump on the bandwagon, but not just as adopters but as pioneers — changing or even improving the way it is used.
Live streaming being used for success by beauty brands
The success of live streaming implementation, can be seen in beauty brands. As with other previous incarnations of digital innovation, beauty brands have been faster than most on the uptake.
- Granted, its much easier for consumers to fork out the price of a lipstick than a luxury bag, the fact that Maybelline was able to sell 100,000 lipsticks during a two-hour live streaming event with KOL Angelababy, should be enough to make other brands sit up and take notice of live streaming as a vital digital marketing tool.
- More recently, the rarefied air of luxury watch mecca Baselworld was opened up to fans of Chinese pop star Kris Wu, who partnered with Bulgari to live stream his impressions of the event on Sina Weibo’s Yizhibo platform.
In both of these examples, the fact that brands were utilising live streaming at all was as much the story as how they were using it, or whether they were using it well.
Luxury brands are generally inclined to wait until they can find the best usage scenario before adopting new technologies or innovations, but sometimes it definitely pays to be first on the bandwagon, rather than the best.
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