London Fashion Week: A Marketing Analysis For Brands

Event marketing has a special place in the world of retail marketing, fashion retail, in particular. Because fashion marketing is all about crafting and delivering personalized experiences for customers. So, what better way to do this than through events? And when we talk about event marketing in the context of fashion, the “Big Four” fashion weeks are perhaps the first topic that pops up. Since it’s February already, can you guess which of these fashion weeks we are going to talk about? That’s right – London Fashion Week. 

London Fashion Week is just around the corner and fashion brands are gearing up for the big week. Gone are the days when only luxury fashion brands focused on fashion weeks. Even high-street fashion brands have been actively taking part in London Fashion Week year after year. 

So, fashion brands big and small often find fashion weeks like London Fashion Week as the big break that launches their business to an even bigger market. What can you learn from the marketing strategies of brands that take part in London Fashion Week? What do the evolution of London Fashion Week as an event and its promotions tell you about where marketing is headed? Let’s find out. 

10 fashion marketing lessons from London Fashion Week events & promotions 

London Fashion Week is held twice a year in the months of February and September. Featuring hundreds of designers, this event often introduces some of the biggest trends of the year. 

Wondering how to capitalize on London Fashion Week and direct some attention toward your brand? Don’t worry, there are many ways to do it. 

From signing up your designer label to feature on the ramp to putting up a pop-up shop at the London Fashion Week Festival and being part of other commercial events and partnerships, there are plenty of ideas to explore. Let’s look at a few of them along with some marketing strategies that helped brands stand out during London Fashion Week events in the past. 

Even if you haven’t worked on your strategy for this London Fashion Week, you can always keep these ideas in mind and set the stage for the September event.  

1. Hybrid events are the way forward

There was a time only a tiny part of the global population could attend London Fashion Week events. But times are changing. The British Fashion Council (BFC) has been extensively using digital media to allow London Fashion Week events to gain momentum in recent years. And as a part of this BFC releases a virtual events schedule along with the physical schedule. 

The digital events include DiscoveryLAB presentations that talk about a variety of advancements and technological trends in the retail sector among other things. 

One big takeaway from this shift is that virtual events and hybrid events are the way forward. Brands cannot turn a blind eye toward the emerging demand for virtual events anymore. 

2. Digital-forward approach to marketing 

In addition to the digital events, BFC has also been digitizing its promotions and collaborations in many ways. For the February 2023 event, BFC worked with IBM to create a mobile-first website with effortless online purchasing options. In addition to this the event attendees can also instantly acquire event-related insights like:

• Schedules 
• Map locations 
• Details about city-wide celebrations 

Streamlining all aspects of the event to one platform and delivering a wholesome omnichannel experience is BFC’s way of making London Fashion Week more human-centric. 

A majority of the event participation-related activities have also moved online. This includes accepting applications for designers, influencer accreditation and so much more. 

The one takeaway for brands is that a digital-forward approach is one way to keep up with emerging trends and stand out in a crowded marketplace.

From shoppable posts on social media to convenient ecommerce portals, the key is to make the overall experience free from friction that leads to cart abandonment. 

3. Make the most of social media 

We spoke about a digital-forward approach just now. Social media holds a special place in this. Brands around the world use social media to boost engagement and generate new leads. BFC also uses Twitter and Instagram to keep its audience engaged. 

The best part about social media platforms is that brands get to cater to all kinds of audiences in one place. In this case, BFC engages with brand partners, designers, sponsors, influencers, and fashion enthusiasts all through its social media channels. 

From instant updates to relevant information, social media users gather a lot of information about London Fashion Week on social media. 

Providing quick and useful updates like this one helps your social media audience feel like an insider. They know that by following your page they gain access to exclusive content. That’s one way to incentivize engagement and grow your following on social media. 

Now let’s talk about another way to make customers feel included. 

4. Let all your customers feel included 

Burberry became a pioneer in the use of live streaming during London Fashion Week. In 2010, the brand partnered with Twitch to let its global audience watch the live stream from the runway. This is one way to make customers “feel included”. They know that they are not missing out on the fun. And they get to be part of something big. Steps like these are surefire ways to boost customer loyalty and build your brand reputation as well. 

5. A busy time for influencers 

For London Fashion Week social media influencer accreditation there is a specific set of criteria like a minimum of 35K followers on Instagram with a fashion-related page, for example. The requirements vary for bloggers, TikTokers, and YouTubers. Influencers who meet these criteria can directly be accredited and be part of the big event. 

Influencers in the fashion niche aspiring to go big can keep a close eye on influencer-led campaigns this time and prep their accounts and content strategies to get ready for the September edition of London Fashion Week. 

Brands actively incorporate influencer-driven content during London Fashion Week. The below Tweet from Dolce & Gabbana features Liam Payne. 

This idea almost always works especially in the world of fashion. Customers are more trusting of influencers. So, celebrities and social media influencers make wonderful advocates of fashion brands. 

Kimp Tip: In the above Tweet, Dolce & Gabbana adds more value to customers by letting them know what the star is wearing. Similarly, while featuring influencer-driven content remember to provide all the details of the products that are featured in the campaign. Mimicking their favorite celebrity style is something several fashion lovers love. 

You can use post captions to provide the details. Another idea is to create carousel posts with shoppable links (as on Instagram), to let customers quickly check out the clothes or accessories worn by the influencer you choose. Remember to keep all these designs on-brand because, at the end of the day, you cannot give up on branding consistency. 

Need help creating on-brand graphics for all your influencer campaigns? Choose a Kimp subscription today. 

6. Find ways to enhance the experience 

Experience is not just a buzzword that concerns service-based industries. Even product-based businesses like fashion brands need to focus on the experience. Events like London Fashion Week are proof! 

Simplifying shopping convenience is one way to boost user experience. One example from London Fashion Week that shows how you can creatively enhance customer experience is Topshop’s array of shoppable billboards for London  Fashion Week. 

The idea was simple. The brand set up an infrastructure to capture and display real-time trends from social media on digital billboards placed across different spots in Birmingham, Leeds, and other areas. Upon Tweeting the respective hashtag with a mention of Topshop, customers received personalized shopping lists to help keep up with the trends. 

What did the brand achieve through this? It helped customers save all the time spent hunting for what trending and then figuring out where to shop for what was trending. 

Burberry also did something similar in 2015 with its Tweet-activated camera. This was one step ahead of Topshop’s billboard idea in the fact that it allowed customers to get a peek into the runway events. Tweets with the hashtag #TweetCam and the mention of Burberry’s Twitter page automatically triggered a runway camera to let customers see what was happening on the runway from every corner of the world. 

7. Discounts to help boost your profits 

London Fashion Week festival that happens after all the runway reveals is the actual retail portion of the event where customers get to visit stores and pick trends straight off the runway. 

Fashion trends tend to be volatile. So, customers are eager to adopt trends before others do. Which means that shopping increases right around London Fashion Week. According to Cyrine Allani Joaristi, founder of Nothing-to-Wear, some independent fashion stores saw a 24% boost in profits during the week of September 2018 London Fashion Week. 

Limited-time discounts, exclusive offers for in-store purchases, or purchases made on the website can all act as catalysts to boost sales during this season of shopping frenzy.  

8. Create topical content to appeal to the enthusiastic crowd 

Even if you find it beyond your scope to feature your brand on the runway or put together a pop-up shop, you can still keep up with the trend by creating topical content. This idea works because around the months of February and September and also a few weeks leading to London Fashion Week the search for “London Fashion Week”, and a host of other fashion-related terms shoot up. 

The above image shows the sudden spike in the search for London Fashion Week around September. Create blogs or social media posts that help customers understand emerging trends. Or better yet, create content that guides them on how to incorporate these trends, styling tips, and affordable alternatives to buy in place of designer pieces that ruled the runway. 

All of these ideas bring your audience to your website or social media page during London Fashion Week or any other trend-altering fashion event for that matter! 

Make use of such trends to help your brand stand out in web search and social media search. Plan your content calendar incorporating these events so that people find your brand right at the time when they are looking for answers. Inbound marketing efforts like these can help your brand in the long run. 

Kimp Tip: When you create content surrounding London Fashion Week, you tend to face heavy competition. Focusing on the right keywords and using the right visuals can help you gain a competitive advantage and cut through the noise. 

Looking for a way to streamline all your marketing graphics like blog images and social media posts? The Kimp team is here to help. 

9. Give your audience a flavor of the backstage scenes 

Brands, influencers, and everyone taking part in London Fashion Week spend sleepless nights getting the show ready. Letting customers look at all the effort that went into the process makes the whole event even more exciting for them and wins their respect too. 

You will see a lot of backstage scenes being shared on London Fashion Week social media pages. If you cannot come up with a detailed encounter of the backstage activities, you can also share raw footage videos on your Instagram Stories. 

And if you need help editing these raw footage videos to make them look more professional, get in touch with the Kimp team. 

10. Get creative to reach new audience groups 

When we talk about social media, most fashion brands stick with Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. However, since the competition is tough, you need to get creative. For example, there are more than half a billion monthly users on Snapchat. 

11.8% of Snapchat users fall in the age group of 13-17 years and about 39% of them are in the age group of 18-24 years. In short, a huge portion of the Snapchat audience consists of millennials and GenZ who also happen to be the main focus for most fashion brands that strive to keep up with trends. 

These statistics show that in addition to a strong strategy to woo your Instagram and Facebook audience, focusing on platforms like Snapchat helps you get to your niche audience. During instances of a paradigm shift in fashion, like London Fashion Week, the young audience is the most likely to hop on to new trends. So, Snapchat can be a boon during these high-traffic events. 

We are going to talk about a campaign by Burberry again. In 2016, the brand ran its Discovery Channel on Snapchat. Tapping into the power of this ephemeral platform, 

With all the resourceful content and shopping recommendations the brand shared on its Discover Channel, it helped users stay connected to the brand during London Fashion Week. This campaign is yet another example of Burberry’s digital marketing prowess. 

Design London Fashion Week inspired campaigns for your fashion brand with Kimp  

Do you own a fashion brand? Are you looking for an opportunity to be part of a massive trend that excites other brands in your industry and your customers too? Then London Fashion Week is your answer. It’s a struggle to grab the front-row seats, we know. But you should know that the results of these campaigns are worth the struggle. So, make the most of London Fashion Week and other such globally-acclaimed fashion events to show customers that you are always ahead of trends. To design visuals that capture the glitz and glamor surrounding these events and to put your product in the spotlight of your campaigns, get your graphics designed by Kimp. 

Register now and start your 7-day free trial.