Tsunamis of cheap fashion brands and the earth shaking footstep of big competitors with deep advertising pockets are problems that can be solved: with inventiveness and daring will David beat Goliath. A fashion brand that develops an attractive world around great design will beat cheap and rich any day…
Cheap clothing has no identity and no character. It really is only to cover up so you don’t go naked. It disappears compared to a fashion brand which has developed its own world and identity.
Big companies may plaster everything with their advertising. But people do not like advertising and avoid it. They use ad blockers on their devices and in their minds. What good is a message medium, no matter how much money large companies pump into it, if people are not listening.
An inventive fashion brand creates its own world and identity.This empowering character offers people something they want to experience – on a personal level.
Creating a world
You don’t want to just yell out your brand name like all the others. That’s expensive and has little return.
Show people what it feels like to wear your designs, and they will read your brand name three times in order to not forget it.
People will enter it into the notes app on their phones, take a screenshot of the bit of the world you offer so they know which brand it was they just encountered.
By creating a world around your brand you create attraction because people will notice you are not just looking at their wallet. You are offering something that has soul, and talks to the soul.
This is so much stronger a force than mind numbing commercial propaganda called advertising. It is inspiring. It will build an emotionally and esthetically recognizable identity so strongly, that cheap, nameless clothing look like an army of ragged walking dead. Big companies will look jealously at your profitability and at the close-knit community of people who love your brand.
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.George Bernhard Shaw
How fictional worlds work: emotional gravity
We are all looking for fiction to give our minds and emotions some play and exercise. Life is hard enough – we need playtime that can enrich our lives with possibilities apart from our everyday lives.
A world where we can live someone else’s life attracts people. It is the temptation of new experiences and strong emotions that pulls people into fiction: emotional gravity. Everyday life can disconnect from your own feelings through repetition. This is a way to reconnect to your own, personal feelings.
If you offer this fictional world to your potential customers, it will open them to your designs. Something the carpet bombing of regular commercial propaganda will never achieve. Whenever you identify with a character in a movie, you will see the world through his eyes. And be in close contact with the world he lives in.
His world. Her world. This gives a strong, emotional connection that cannot be beaten!
.
.
I shall create a new world for myself.Frederic Chopin
Great Expectations that get Fulfilled
A world is a complex context that we can enter at a glimpse of an eye. It’s like putting on a piece of clothing. At a snap we tune in on such a world with its stories, rules, and emotions. This is how our mind works: in situations.
As a fashion brand, you can take advantage of that. Someone sees even only one image of your world, she will connect to it. Every defined, fictional world has a set of expectations about what can happen when you enter it. And these things are usually not of the everyday kind – which gets us excited.
When a character in a Stephen King novel enters a dark house, we expect him to lose his soul or at least get killed. In Star Wars we look forward to sweeping vistas of strange planets, space battles, exotic looking spaceships and a fight of good versus evil. In Game of Thrones we expect a hero to fight for power and be very tough about it and that good often doesn’t win.
Instant access to emotion.
Emotional worlds get created wherever a story unfolds. It doesn’t have to be a 2 1/2 hour movie or a 60 sequel TV show. There are short stories of 5 pages and short films of 3 minutes which opens worlds just as much.
And there is one additional effect: creating series of photos and short films together they are forming a universe, a world, between them. Each additional photo or film is another stone, adding to it – just like sequel by sequel the world increases in these wonderfully never-ending HBO shows.
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.Albert Einstein
Inventing a world that fits your brand
For the creation of a world I first look at what the fashion line is about. I meet the owner and the designers. We talk about the brand, the design concepts, the esthetics of the brand, and who the people are who are buying the line – and who else they want to get to buy the clothes.
Within this practical framework the imaginative world will be created that is fascinating to the target audience and fits the brand. It will be defined by its locations, its stories, the style of the images in color and contrast and by the quality of light. And by the kind of model – or actor – that is cast to populate this world.
The first emergence of this new world is the Big Bang. With each new collection a new cycle of creation will spawn new stories and they will build on the previous stories, detailing the world further. After every enhancement it will be easier for people to enter this world and identify with it – and love it more.
All characters will be wearing the designs of the fashion line. The stories themselves will run like real stories, setting the reality. But there will be accompanying photos and texts that comment on this world and on the clothing, talking about the story, and inviting to look at details you want noticed.
The great advantage of this approach is that storytelling is not interrupted, the fantasy continues to pull people in, and there are no alarm clocks in the sense of “they are doing this just to get my money” will not ring. People will not feel the designs are forced on them, but suggested in a very creative way. If you want upscale people, sophisticated people, accomplished and wealthy people as customers for your brand, this is the way to go. Don’t push – inspire!
To offer true content (not “content marketing” which is just the same old advertising in a new package) will let people join your world at their free will, and love your company for its great personality and world.
Questions
This is a new concept. If you have questions on how it will help your company engage its customers on a higher level, please contact me at robert(at)robertwildephoto.com
Go and See Robert Wilde’s Portfolio
Everything you can imagine is real.Pablo Picasso
Leave a Reply