The words 'fashion' and 'analytics' rarely go together but in order to elevate consumer-facing fashion event, Melbourne Spring Fashion Week (MSFW), the City of Melbourne has joined forces with tech giant IBM in order to not only increase sales and foot traffic, but to also understand consumer behaviours and preferences.
The partnership is in its second year and after using social data gleaned in year one, it is already seeing posts on social channels double year-on-year and shows sell out, where they didn't before.
IBM's interactive experience lead for ANZ, Ian Wong, said the partnership was geared around a shared goal of lifting consumer experience.
“It was about really driving consumer insight through analytics and social analytics at MSFW to increase the experience of event-goers and ultimately to drive business for the retail precincts, drive people into the city to look for great fashion, and ultimately, well we know, they'll go and shop the fashion,” he said.
MSFW is less about couture and more about the mainstream consumer, with the City of Melbourne more focused on driving sales for its retailers and getting people to explore the city. All the clothing on the runways is shoppable, often just metres down the road, and the City tasked IBM to generate more insights from social media to better connect the online with the offline experience.
Marketing executive for the City of Melbourne, Lucan Creamer, said the increase in information garnered had changed the way the event evolved in recent years. “The big evolution around the event has been generated through insights and strategy based on social media analytics, in particular,” he said.
“Our objective behind that is to help retailers lead by example, understand and give them examples of how they can enhance the experience, and bring the digital into the physical.”
IBM monitored social and used its social tool to recruit influencers to raise awareness around the event alongside targeted email marketing and Facebook ads, based on likes and target demographics to inspire purchases. The all important question is whether it worked.
“Our ticket sales have gone through the roof from last year,” Creamer said.
However, the missing piece is realtime communications, and that's coming down the track so if a shopper likes a post on Facebook or is at the event, MSFW or its retail partners can send a push notification to prompt them to buy.
This story originally appeared in the current issue of AdNews magazine (18 September). Don't want to be behind on the news? You can subscribe right now for both the Print and iPad editions.
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