Fashion Brand Ted Baker Makes A Bold Attempt To Tap The Marketing Potential Of Clubhouse

According to foreign media reports, British luxury clothing retail company Ted Baker has become the first fashion brand to "eat crabs" on the audio social platform Clubhouse, which is also the first brand to try to promote by holding a series of fashion discussion activities. .

Clubhouse fashion clubs are emerging one after another, and related brands are eager to try them

Specifically, every Wednesday night at 19:30, London-based Ted Baker will conduct a one-hour discussion on British culture and fashion topics with former Wall Street executive and founder of London 9AM Abraxas Higgins in the voice chat room on Clubhouse. Discussion, this chat event has been held 6 times so far. Abraxas Higgins is an active user of Clubhouse, with 370,000 followers on the social platform.

With over 10 million downloads since its launch last March, Clubhouse is quickly becoming a hub for discussion on streetwear and fashion-related topics. And according to Clubhouse data, in terms of average listening time, 20% of Clubhouse users stay on the app for more than two hours a day.

There are endless fashion “Clubs” on Clubhouse, and the number of members is also increasing, such as Fashion Talks (17,000 fans), Fashion Talk 101 (34,000 fans) and Fashion Creatives Linkup (64,000 fans).

But it’s only now that Clubhouse has officially allowed brands to join the platform. "Clubs" are groups that users can follow on the platform, and Ted Baker's "profile" on the platform also adopts the "Club" form.

In addition to Ted Baker’s “Sustainability Club”, in order to promote the brand, there are also some fashion and beauty brands that are looking for the next batch of talents who will become Clubhouse celebrities to obtain the early development dividends of the Clubhouse platform; in addition, there are also many brand founders or The executives themselves also conduct "one-off" discussion activities on Clubhouse, such as Nike and New Balance, to build the executives' own personal image and provide indirect marketing for the brand.

How to do successful brand marketing on Clubhouse

Syama Meagher, founder of retail consulting firm Scaling Retail, believes that anyone, not just industry insiders, can have access to some brand or company executives in a casual environment, which is a big advantage of Clubhouse.

However, brands are advised not to copy marketing campaigns that work on other platforms, and there are currently no advertising tools on the Clubhouse platform like those found on TikTok or Instagram.

On the contrary, brands should involve managers in any discussion that arouses their interest, without strictly controlling the brand image at all times, and without making the brand the sole focus, thus "silently" communicating in an advertising-free atmosphere. Convey the brand message.

The Forbes website also lists 4 brand promotion guidelines for Clubhouse:

1. Keep up with hot topics and integrate into culture.

Brands can launch brand marketing campaigns in conjunction with current hot holidays or topics. For example, French cognac brand Martell collaborated with social media and digital media marketing strategist Karen Civil to launch a campaign about black women during Black History Month. Discussions of entrepreneurial topics were combined with important cultural moments of the time.

And brands should choose the right influencers and executives to participate in the discussion based on the discussion topics in the chat room to create a fun and professional atmosphere in the chat room.

2. Brainstorm and be creative

Brands need to brainstorm to come up with creative marketing campaigns, and these creative ideas don’t necessarily need to be product-based or consumer-focused. For example, RBI, the parent company of Burger King, created an open forum space for its managers to conduct its post-earnings conference calls, successfully bringing users closer to the brand.

Brands should also consider how they engage with users, for whom talking to executives or influencers can be a huge added value and can provide brands with a two-way communication channel with customers. Brands can establish Q&A sessions or open up more opportunities for free discussion to increase audience participation.

3. Respect public space, Clubhouse is also a kind of media

Although Clunhouse prohibits users from recording conversations without the consent of all relevant speakers, this does not actually prevent users from recording and sharing chat content on the App. Recently, the chat voice of Elon Musk and Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev was leaked by others. User uploaded to YouTube. Therefore, brand spokespersons should not make any remarks on Clunhouse that are not intended to become public knowledge.

4. Prepare early and seize the opportunity

What if a brand had partnered with one of TikTok’s biggest influencers before it took off?

Similarly, Clubhouse is currently in its initial development stage, especially since there are not many brand marketing activities on the platform at present. If Clubhouse later opens its API interface, it will introduce functions to link to related articles, such as those about exercise. Articles can be linked to real-time audio conversations about the topic, so Clubhouse's brand marketing methods and promotion efficiency will be greatly improved.

Therefore, sellers can prepare early and seize the opportunity!