Instagram has long been beloved of fashionistas — and a magnet for luxury-goods makers seeking to capture a slice of their spending.
However, glossy selfies are so last season.
Since short-form video took the world by storm, ByteDance Ltd’s (字節跳動) TikTok has begun nibbling away at Instagram’s dominance.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Luxury brands, including Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Balenciaga, are embracing the world’s most-downloaded non-gaming app, where teen influencers capture followers by the millions with flashy dance routines and challenges.
So now Facebook Inc-owned Instagram is betting its new Reels feature can help it stay relevant to sellers of the hottest handbags, shoes and watches.
Users on TikTok tend to be younger, an important demographic for luxury brands. The platform’s emphasis on content created by TikTokers themselves makes it feel more authentic and fresh, but it also presents a greater risk that groups could lose control over their brand image.
Still, many are trying it out. Burberry Group PLC launched the TB Challenges when the iconic British brand unveiled its Thomas Burberry monogram last year.
The idea was simple: Users were invited to post videos on TikTok and its Chinese version, Douyin (抖音), making the shape of a T and a B with their hands. The campaign generated more than 1 billion views across both platforms.
Kering SA’s Gucci created its first TikTok channel in February. Soon after, the Italian fashion house ran the Accidental Influencer project, promoting its vintage-inspired Gucci Tennis 1977 sneaker with videos including bespoke choreography for TikTok.
That effort was outstripped by the #GucciModelChallenge, which has garnered 24 million views. It took off this summer with no encouragement from the brand — proof of the power of the platform’s user-generated element.
To participate, TikTokers emulate Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele’s “granny chic” style by dressing up in vintage finds, oversized sunglasses and headscarves, often including pieces by the brand.
If their aim was to be cast by Michele, they might get their wish: Gucci is to feature some of the people who took part in its own TikTok project.
What makes TikTok so powerful is its youthful focus. Prada SpA invited 16-year-old Charli D’Amelio to its fashion show in Milan in February, where she danced on TikTok with catwalk models.
Tapping into future big spenders is crucial. By 2025, under-45s are set to make up half of the luxury market and of that, 15 percent would be younger than 30, according to Bain & Co.
For all the experimentation on TikTok, Instagram, with more than 1 billion monthly users, is still the most important social media platform for fashion and luxury.
According to analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein, it is the leading social media indicator of how brands are performing outside of Asia. In Asia, apps such as Tencent Holdings Ltd’s (騰訊) WeChat (微信) dominate.
Companies have carefully curated their images on the platform. They work with more established influencers and celebrities, such as Jennifer Lopez at Tapestry Inc’s Coach and musician Harry Styles at Gucci.
In a relatively new twist, users can shop directly from Instagram posts and live videos without leaving the app.
If Reels can take that all to a new level, the platform might just have a chance against TikTok.
An increasing number of influencers and brands, including Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Ralph Lauren Corp, are posting Reels, and the results are promising. A short video of model Bella Hadid dancing to original audio with Burberry’s pocket bag generated 3.7 million views. Only one of its longer-form videos on Instagram TV reached 1 million views.
The way for Reels and Tiktok to capitalize on their positioning across luxury, fashion and retail would be to make their videos shoppable, something TikTok is to launch in the US shortly.
Meanwhile, Alphabet Inc’s Google has introduced Shoploop, where people can buy from short videos demonstrating beauty products.
However, success for Reels is not guaranteed. Facebook is testing ways to make it easier to find on the Instagram home page. It is unclear whether it will become as addictive as TikTok, which serves up content based on viewing habits.
My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Tim Culpan has described this as TikTok’s secret sauce keeping users glued to their screen.
However, perhaps the biggest challenge for Instagram is convincing luxury brands to invest time and money in Reels.
After all, TikTok is already dominant in short videos and, with international travel ground to a trickle, they might want to focus on wooing wealthy consumers from Asia, and China particularly, at home on their local platforms.
In Shenzhen, Burberry has done just that. Its new store in partnership with Tencent boasts a WeChat mini-program featuring a cute animal character that evolves the more users engage with the brand, from liking social media posts to buying things.
If ever TikTok is weakened in the US amid questions over its ownership, then Instagram would be well-placed to benefit. If the two platforms continue to coexist, the competition for luxe users would intensify. Instagram needs Reels to work to avoid becoming a fashion victim in the battle for short-video supremacy.
Andrea Felsted is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the consumer and retail industries. She previously worked at the Financial Times.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Micron Technology Inc is a driving force pushing the US Congress to pass legislation that would put new export restrictions on equipment its Chinese competitors use to make their chips, according to people familiar with the matter. A US House of Representatives panel yesterday was to vote on the “MATCH Act,” a bill designed to close gaps in restrictions on chipmaking equipment. It would also pressure foreign companies that sell equipment to Chinese chipmaking facilities to align with export curbs on US companies like Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc. The bill targets facilities operated by China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc
RSS