How Can Luxury Brands Once Again Leverage the Red Carpet?
After more than a year of cancelled events in the entertainment industry, the Cannes Film Festival returned as an important platform for luxury fashion, jewelry and beauty brands to shine once more, attracting an accumulated $101 million in Media Impact Value according to data from Launchmetrics and DLG.
When Bella Hadid stepped onto the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival last month in a floor-length black gown from Schiaparelli, her chest adorned with an impressive necklace in the shape of a pair of lungs, frequency of Google searches related to the Cannes Film Festival as well as for the Italian fashion house jumped by more than 1,900 per cent compared to the three weeks prior to the event.
The overall Media Impact Value or MIV® measured by Launchmetrics for the brand was $8.5 million, demonstrating once again, how powerful a platform high profile-events can be for a luxury brand. Hadid’s Instagram posts alone helped to generate $1.15 million in MIV®, shared across all media and social networks including the brand’s own Instagram account.
Indeed, between June 28 and July 19, the Cannes Film Festival generated an impressive $101 million in MIV®, with nearly 75,000 placements on online media and social networks.
As the world begins to tentatively re-open its doors, brands should take note and once again make use of the opportunities that high-profile events can help with, generating media buzz around the names in luxury fashion, jewelry and beauty which appear next to the key personalities as the creators of a red carpet moment.
Amplify And Connect Your Messaging
While many brands benefitted from the exposure of the film festival, three, in particular, stood out in terms of how they leveraged their red carpet activities with complementary marketing strategies to amplify their messaging: Etro, Nespresso and Chanel. By highlighting new brand ambassadors, launching pop-up stores or collaborating with other brands, these three demonstrated how to execute a masterclass in events related marketing.
Etro took the opportunity to create content and complement their red carpet activities with a full strategy that included short films with its ambassadors, social media coverage, and a corresponding sale on its website that began at the start of July.
Nespresso collaborated with influencer Chiara Ferragni on a limited edition collection, creating a pop-up store in Cannes during the festival, and organised a dinner with special guests and dressed Ferragni in a custom Giambattista Valli Haute Couture dress designed to demonstrate Nespresso’s commitment to consciously sourced materials and circularity.
“Brands need to make use of the positive synergies and take advantage of them at every step, ” said Louise-Anne Fort, Performance Marketing Executive at DLG, noting how Etro published various content on its social media accounts throughout the event and promoted posts of its ambassadors during the Festival through paid media on Instagram and Facebook.
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“Izabel Goulard was dressed by Etro when she stepped onto the Red Carpet and was also wearing Etro when she arrived at the Cannes airport demonstrating clearly how Etro thoroughly planned and implemented a Cannes-360° activation strategy,” she added.
Know Where Your Audience Is
Interestingly, DLG data found that while Google searches for “Cannes Film Festival” have decreased since 2014, posting and sharing activities on Instagram have risen, year-on-year, as interest in the festival shifted to social media platforms. Instagram alone accounted for $16 million of the total $101 million MIV® generated by the festival.
“Social media allows brands to showcase their culture, values, products and stories, that’s why it’s crucial for them to know their audience (existing and potential), their interests and preferences to best connect with them on the right channels and in the right way,” said Fort.
“If a brand’s key objective is to reach a young and affluent audience, not yet familiar with their brand for instance (think Gen Z, etc.), knowing that an important share of Instagram users following specific film events tend to be fashion aficionados can be a good insight for growth,” she added. “Audience and online behavior analyses are part of the key marketing activities any company should focus on. The insights coming from social media platforms to inform global marketing and sales strategies are not to be underestimated.”
Leverage Social Media from the Start
Looking at the data, it’s clear to see that events like the Cannes Film Festival continue to be a meaningful platform for many luxury brands, helping them to solidify celebrity relationships and generate impressive media buzz crucial to driving brand performance. Brands would do well to look for the right voices to amplify and on the right channels, a crucial strategy to help them strive for success in the luxury landscape.
Indeed, Fort believes each brand represented at this kind of event should seize every opportunity to connect with its audience. “First and foremost, it is necessary to include the social media team in the overall planning of events at the same level as the PR and event teams, in order to create a unique and impactful 360° strategy,” she said.
Based on this collaboration, the engaged communities your ambassador can provide you with to help create storytelling that goes beyond a look, and the synergies that can result from it can ensure a much more bespoke media push,” she added. “Be impactful. With so many journalists and other actors present, social media is your scene, so grab the spotlight and make it count.”
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