Fashion industry: dealing with Covid-19 webinar

18 May 2020

Gaps between brands and their customers and guidelines to close them

People and brands are facing a lot of uncertainties because of the  COVID-19 pandemic. There’s insecurity across the world, and brands are looking for the best ways to respond in this time of crisis. Fashion is an industry that got hit most and that needs to make a lot of changes in order to adapt. 

To get the pulse of how fashion brands are responding worldwide we invited Kantar and La Martina in a webinar which turned into lots of insights and great idea exchanges. 

Thank you Silvia Andreani, Senior Client Executive, Trends Expert Brand Strategy & Guidance – Insights Division, Kantar and Enrico Roselli, CEO La Martina. Sign up here to watch the entire webinar episode on-demand. 

 

The world's leading data, insights and consulting company, Kantar launched the Covid-19 Barometer, a study on how Coronavirus is influencing consumers’ behaviours, attitudes and expectations. It is run in more than 50 countries in 4 waves, designed to help brands lead the reaction that their business needs to take.

 

Consumers’ behaviours changed

People worry about the impact on their finances and about the economic crisis, rather than being preoccupied with individual health risks. 


 

Gaps between the brands and their customers

 

5 main gaps have been highlighted: 

  • A GAP OF TOP MIND

Being silent is not an option. Continue to speak in a personal and relevant way.

  • A GAP OF RELATIONSHIP

Here lies an opportunity for brands to be inventive in services and enhanced brand experience delivery. 

  • A GAP OF EQUITY

Now it’s the time to consider how your expertise allows your purpose, to be delivered in a meaningful way for the benefit of all.

  • A GAP OF PERFORMANCE

Now it’s better to change your usual rules of engagement and modes of operations. This can provide a much more memorable and positive experience.

  • A GAP OF OFFER

The lack of proposal of new and innovative products, services, relationship models, can reduce the tension of consumption. Innovation can unlock consumer benefits.


 

As a company, you have to choose where to stand by being true to the organization’s values.  The real challenge of any brand is to adapt and, in the process, execution is the most important. 

The brand La Martina has in its set of values the principles of the sport, achieving performance and being a team player. 

How to react can be answered with being everywhere, cause we don’t know where customers can come from and what are the actual touchpoints. Enrico Roselli, CEO La Martina. 



 

Has the Corona crisis damaged sustainability commitments or reinforced them? 

 

Both options can be valid. For a minority it could be temporarily frozen.

In other cases, sustainability could be boosted, because Covid 19 taught us to put aside individualistic thoughts and share solidarity, fostering the idea that the era ahead will be more about building a better society, than what you own or who you are. 


 

Communication guidelines

 

  • Share useful, positive messages, with a consistent linkage with the present situation. Pretending that nothing has changed is not possible. 

  • 74% people declared that brands must absolutely demonstrate to not exploit the situation of the virus to promote themselves. 

  • And third: be consistent with your values, your brand’s personality. If you never used an ironic and playful tone of voice don’t use it, stay true to your heritage and style. 


 

Luxury is about culture not price 

 

We have seen in the last past years that luxury was significantly muted.

Being aspirational in the age of Hype is not anymore only about price and economic value, it became cultural.

Luxury customers are expressing a sudden aversion to large logo placements, and they find ostentatious “chunky” sneaker silhouettes less attractive now than before Covid-19, they are heading towards a renewed minimalism.

 

Some brands already dulled the top-down relationship they had, building an ongoing dialogue with their audience throughout a shared set of values and ideas, in a sentence: BECOMING MORE HUMAN. 

 

This situation, like any other crisis, is boosting innovation.

If brands don’t change, they will die. It also depends a lot on the market, how brands are able to approach cultural differences. 

 

The study also identified that new generations are embracing more and more the trend of considering the collective dimension. 

 

Webinars are a great tool for exchanging ideas that help to make better decisions.

This period and this crisis should make us understand that we have to move from the scarcity mindset to one in abundance, which means that we need to work together to achieve more. If I help you, I enrich myself too.  Enrico Roselli, CEO La Martina. Sign up here to watch the entire webinar episode on-demand.


 

In our efforts to help our community overcome the challenges risen during and now post Covid-19, we organise a series of online meetings. Visit our website to register for future digital events.

 

In our Insights section, you can read about our past initiatives and also you have the possibility to watch past interviews with Sergio Rossi’s CEO, Lastminute’s CEO and many more.

 

Don’t miss the weekly episodes from #SustainableAfter, a Loomish Initiative with a balanced mix of guests from the start-up world and world-renowned brands.

 

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