Non-Luxury Brands Finally Crack Social Influencer Code

Tribe Dynamics’ June report revealed that while brands are decoding influencer programs, retailers continue to encounter challenges.

August 30, 2017, 12:30am

nike, bella hadid, instagram, influencer, social media — Bella Hadid's Instagram.

Where non-luxury brands are succeeding in tapping social influencers to boost general awareness and revenue, similar successes continue to evade many fashion retailers. Tribe Dynamics, a digital revenue agency released its “June 2017 Earned Media Value” report that showed a general stagnancy among retailers, while non-luxury brands posted a flurry of movement.

Tribe Dynamics quantifies the estimated value of publicity gained through digital earned media and the correlating engagement. The agency assigns dollar value to each content item based on perceived value of digital communication to brands within the industry.

Tribe Dynamics includes posts from influencers, brands, publications and retailers on an assortment of platforms ranging from blogs to social media to standard web sites. It then measures the engagement through comments, retweets, likes, shares and video views among other factors.

For June this year, Adidas secured the highest year-over-year EMV growth. It posted a 134 percent annual increase, resulting in almost $73 million EMV. With a 71 percent year-over-year rise, Zara collected just short of $68 million EMV. Nike rounded out the top three with a 181 percent increase, landing at just over $57 million EMV. The real winners of the segment were arguably Fashion Nova and Yeezy, which posted 212 percent and 186 percent year-over-year increases, respectively.

The outlook hasn’t been as sunny for third-party retailers, however. Though Asos had 22 percent year-over-year increase, landing at approximately $33.3 million EMV, Nordstrom and Revolve — second- and third-highest retailers — posted -9 percent and zero percent increases, respectively. What’s more, Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie and Shopbop either reported losses or flat annual results.

This further emphasizes the confidence that brands are building as they continue to shift commerce direct-to-consumer, instead of relying on retailers to do their selling and larger marketing campaigns. Consumers are looking to multiple social outlooks to inform their shopping.

Nike tapped Bella Hadid as part of its celebration for the 45th anniversary of its Cortez shoe, introducing the shoe to nostalgic Millennials ripe to purchase an authentic item that has its own narrative. The full program included Q+A sessions with Hadid and additional influencers, resulting in heaps of social mentions of the coined #cortez. Tribe Dynamics’ report said that the hashtag garnered $1.7 million EMV in June alone.

It’s these types of partnerships that though risk appearing obvious to some, resonate with a wide variety of consumers varying in age and location.

While retailers have perhaps a larger feat to accomplish – configure new solutions to problems devised from brands going direct-to-consumer — the straightforward approach to aligning with successful and thoughtful influencers will prove fruitful. That said, navigating through the sea of would-be influencers would require marketers to rely highly on data and analytics for the most appropriate selection in order to avoid being swayed simply by the amount of followers.

June 2017 Top 10 EMV Ranking and Year-on-Year Growth, Non-Luxury Apparel Brands