Visual Summary
Visual content
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Taking a look at GCDS’s online presence, it is clear which social network is working best for their brand image. With 116K followers (as of November 2017), consistent theme, videos and influencer collaborations, Instagram is the channel of choice for GCDS. Taking advantage of most of what Instagram has to offer, GCDS have built a large fanbase for themselves on the network and would be wise to keep investing. According to a journal article written by Clair Shumaker in 2017, there are currently over 400 million daily Instagram users world wide, with a report by WGSN (2017) adding that Instagram reached 800 million monthly users in September of 2017. One of the best ways to communicate with a younger millennial audience, such as that of GCDS’s target market is through imagery – with 60% of adolescents viewing photos on social media between 5 and 7 days a week, stating that self expression on sites such as Instagram acts as a significant motivation. (Shumaker, 2017)
This is not to say, however, that GCDS only post on Instagram. They currently have a Vimeo (2017) account with 2.5K followers, a Facebook (2017) page with 31K likes and a Twitter (2017) feed with 3.6K followers, upon which they post regularly and have a consistent theme. An article published in the Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management in 2015 claimed that Facebook was leading the way for fashion marketing and retailing, with brands being able to communicate with their consumers in a number of different platforms (Facebook live, video and photo uploads). The article also however discussed the limitations that come with Facebook, explaining that a millennial market (similar to that of GCDS) didn’t engage with Facebook brand imagery, and were only interested when the brands in the study posted videos and/or “fun activities.” (Touchette B., Schanski, M., Lee, S., 2015)
Despite WGSN (2016) reporting that young millenials tend to spend more time on YouTube watching tutorials than they do on any other social media platform, another article published in 2016 by the Central European Business Review found that digital marketing platforms such as videos were working so much for up and coming fashion brands that high street and current fashion houses started using video as a way to recapture their consumer, which in some ways began to oversaturate the video marketing route for newer brands. (Escobar, A., 2016) This study indeed underpins GCDS’s strong connection with video into their campaigns, as the venture seamlessly ties all of their marketing campaigns together across a number of different social media channels, however gives evidence that the world of video campaigning for a new brand isn’t an original way forward for their target consumer to be encapsulated.
With this in mind, GCDS should utilise Intsagram in a much more in depth way than what they are currently. As Instagram is the most popular of all social media that GCDS are part of, this platform would be the best way to get their brand image and message across, particularly in the style of an Instagram based, 10-tile-long, quarterly magazine that showcases their newest items as well as latest collaborations and other editorial imagery to showcase the brand. The idea behind the magazine is to capture and portray the brand essence for their Instagram feed, to have a place that their consumer can find out about the latest going on within the brand on a reliable platform that they trust and use daily.
The idea of an Instagram magazine is a relatively new marketing idea that is still mainly being trialed. One popular launch was that of FKA Twigs in 2017, when she posted the first issue of her AVANTgarden magazine (2017) which focused on “Roots, Shock and Beauty”. The first issue of her magazine was an homage to hair braiding. She listed the credits and title as the caption, and the magazine featured 6 articles / editorials which bled seamlessly across 10 Instagram photo tiles. The issue has 45K likes on Instagram as of November 2017, having gained support from the likes of Zara Larsson and Kat Graham. (Instagram, 2017)
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FKA Twigs posted issue 2 of her magazine in late November 2017, and gained over 50K likes in 5 days - a clear increase in interest since the launch of the magazine. This issue used white bed sheets & linen to flow from one image to the next, but focussed more on the backdrop and background, reacting to current instragram trends that show current users are generally using the background of their images as the subject, rather than a person or item. (WGSN, 2017)
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It will be important for GCDS to react to whatever trends are currently working in the industry in order for their magazine to succeed.
