selfie trends

http://www.wgsn.com/en/micro/trends_reports/2014/selfie/free_report.html[31/05/2014 11:47:44]

ALL ABOUT THE #SELFIE: A BRAND-MARKETINGWINBy Emily Rubin, WGSN, 13 May 2014

Calvin Klein, French Connection, Vero Moda and more are encouraging shoppers to shoot selfies branded to their collections aspart of a social media marketing drive.

Today there are some 125 million-plus images on Instagram tagged with the word 'selfie', which gained entry into The Oxford English Dictionary inNovember 2013. Every day, more than a million selfies are estimated to be taken worldwide, with everyone from First Lady Michelle Obama to topmodel Cara Delevingne, and of course the A-list celebrity crowd at the Oscars (as pictured), jumping on the bandwagon.

A craze based very simply on taking a photo of oneself and sharing it on social media (often at an angle deemed to be the most flattering, thenenhanced with the help of a good filter), selfies now make up almost a third of all shots taken by people aged 18-24.

There is a lot more to those numbers than mere popularity, according to Sarah Gervais, assistant professor of social-law psychology at the University ofNebraska. "Instagram offers a quiet resistance to the barrage of perfect images that we face each day. Rather than being bombarded with thosecreations in popular magazines, television and web pages that feed our discontent, we can look through our Instagram feed and see images of realpeople," she wrote for Psychology Today.

The selfie, as a part of the visual-based social media world consumers now live in, centres around the notion of being able to regulate what we'reexposed to and how we expose ourselves to others. According to artist Simon Foxall , whose work looks at individuality and self-expression: "The selfieblurs the line between 'reality' and the performance of a fantasy self".

It is precisely this blurred reality that has the selfie gaining legs in the marketing world. By October 2013, 884 brands were running selfie contests overTwitter, according to social media benchmarking company, Unmetric. Among them, retailers particularly have seen the benefit in a tool that enablesconsumer interaction, all the while subtly encouraging the most organic of social sharing. As with a previous report on hashtag marketing , selfies arefront and centre in a wave of consumer-generated content fit to enable e-commerce conversions.

Calvin Klein

Ellen DeGeneres' epic Oscar celebrity selfie

SHORTCUTSThe word 'selfie' was added to the

Oxford English Dictionary in 2013

Selfies are at the forefront of pop

culture. They are referenced in

songs, spoken about on television

and used by celebrities to share

their personalities with fans

They also now make up 30% of

images photographed by those

aged 18-24

Brands are learning to use them

as a marketing tool, with everyone

from Calvin Klein to French

Connection jumping on board. By

October 2013, 884 brands were

running selfie contests over

Twitter


Calvin Klein tapped into the selfie phenomenon with its spring/summer 2014 underwear campaign . The brand invited fans to snap a shot ofthemselves in their underwear and brand it #mycalvins. To encourage them to do so, it enlisted a series of prominent celebrities, models and bloggersto pose for the new line of Dual Tone underwear. Included were Australian model Miranda Kerr, musician Trey Songz and Man Repeller blogger,Leandra Medine. The best of those selfies can be seen in a gallery on the brand's website .

French Connection

Nicole Richie for the #mycalvins campaign

Vanessa Hudgens for the #mycalvins campaign

Neil Patrick Harris for the #mycalvins campaign

Trey Songz for the #mycalvins campaign

Kendall Jenner for the #mycalvins campaign

Leandra Medine for the #mycalvins campaign


French Connection has introduced a campaign called #canthelpmyselfie, which invites shoppers in five of its UK stores to snap shots of themselves inthe new collection to then appear on large-scale screens in the windows. The interactive initiative simultaneously enables consumers walking by (as wellas those online) to engage by voting for their favourite 'model' by placing their hand in front of sensors in the windows. Jon Carney, creative partner atdigital agency Somewhat, which collaborated on the project, said: "Mobile and social channels are an essential part of how millennial consumersinteract with brands, and especially how they can experience fashion brands. As consumers' physical and digital worlds are increasingly converging andcolliding, brands need to respond with campaigns that bridge both worlds seamlessly".

Karl Lagerfeld

French Connection UK's #canthelpmyselfie campaign


In the new Karl Lagerfeld London flagship, iPads are installed in the dressing rooms in a bid to encourage store-branded selfies. These 'virtual mirrors'come equipped with a variety of Karl Lagerfeld-inspired filters to ensure the images hold to the Lagerfeld aesthetic. Upon sharing, the systemautomatically posts the message: "Shopping Mania @KarlLagerfeld 145-147 Regent Street, Mayfair, London, W1B 4JB #KarlLagerfeldStore#KarlParfums".

Matthew Williamson

The autumn/winter 2014/15 catwalk show from designer Matthew Williamson saw a 'Twitter Mirror' installed backstage essentially an iPad preppedto take selfies inviting the models to snap pictures of themselves and autopost them to social with the hashtag #ohmw. This tool had already beenused at events such as The Grammys, The Oscars and even NBA games, but was the first time it was seen during Fashion Week. The aim was to givefans a VIP pass to the goings-on backstage while building some pre-show hype in much more of a natural way than before. "We wanted to strip awaythe camera and the photographer, so it was just the models left, and see what we ended up with," said the brand's head of digital, Rosanna Falconer.

Vero Moda

Karl Lagerfeld's London flagship selfie booth The WGSN team pose in the Karl Lagerfeld London flagship selfie booth

Chloe and Poppy Delevingne and Mary Charteris for Matthew WIlliamson's #ohMW campaign Olivia Palermo and Matthew Williamson for Matthew WIlliamson's #ohMW campaign

Matthew Williamson's #ohMW campaign Matthew Williamson's #ohMW campaign


Danish label Vero Moda used the selfie forces for good this past 'Movember' an annual event during the month of November that sees men growingmoustaches to raise money for prostate and testicular cancer. The campaign began when the retailer gave the mirrors in its stores a moustachemakeover. Consumers were then invited to snap a shot of themselves with the signage and share it with the hashtag #veromodamo for a 0.10donation to the Movember Foundation.

Zappos

Vero Moda's #veramodamo campaign

Vero Moda's #veromodamo campaign

Vero Moda's #veromodamo campaign

Vero Moda's #veromodama campaign


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With its #nextootd campaign, online retailer Zappos uses selfies as a means of offering a styling service to its current and potential customers. The online retailer asksInstagram users to use the word 'next' in front of their usual 'outfit of the day' hashtag to invite the Zappos stylist into their virtual closet. The Zappos stylist will then scrollthrough all public images on that account to make personalised shopping suggestions for the user.

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Zappos' #Nextootd campaign




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