Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Yesterday I met with James Killough, an innovative London-based film maker, who happens to have a film in pre-production that may end up being one of the first real films about the fashion industry -- or so everybody tells me.
More to the point, James also talked to me about the potentially powerful combination of the Internet, video and the luxury industry and cited an innovative video project directed by Olivier Dahan, the renowned French film-maker, who collaborated with Cartier on a series of 12 videos for its Love collection.
I took a gander at the videos today, and was impressed -- not only with Cartier's forward-thinking use of video to create a narrative behind one of its most important iconic lines, but also with the stories themselves, which were engaging and, sometimes even moving.
There's always a risk that this kind of approach will come off as gimmicky -- but for the most part, I think Cartier has avoided this (though it's creation of 'Cartier Love Day' smacks of Hallmark's exploitation of Valentine's day as an excuse to convince people to spend money, even if Cartier has tried to mask this by inviting celebrities to raise money for charity as part of the festivities). Nonetheless, if you have some time to watch the entire video series together, I'd highly recommend it
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In a completely different, but equally effective use of video, I also came across this cheeky and fun video for the Sergio Rossi brand. It's interesting to note the innovative things that Gucci Group brands are doing online.
It's something we should begin to see more and more of, especially as it dawns on luxury companies that the Internet can provide an excellent tableau for low cost permission-based marketing through videos. Imagine the difference between showing a video to someone who wants to see it, versus interrupting someone with a commercial when they want to be watching something else.
