Gsues what It-bag brands get talked about most online: Hermès? What fools these mortals be! Balenciaga? Not really.
Turns
out, in data compiled from over 200 million English-speaking blogs/chat
rooms/media outlets and so on, the hottest brands of the moment are …
Ralph Lauren, Fendi, Louis Vuitton and Michael Kors.
Not only that, but the least hot brands are … wait for it … Hermès, Marc Jacobs and Kate Spade.
Surprised?
I was too. So I called up the people responsible for the shocker,
a.k.a. the “Online Brand Momentum Index- Handbags”: that bastion of
fashion trend-predicting, Credit Suisse.
The
bank, it turns out, has teamed up with an online analytics firm called
NetBase to develop a tool within the fashion big-data game, the better
to be able to advise clients about what brands may or may not find
consumer favor in months to come, presumably so that clients can then
better play the stock movement game.
They’ve been compiling data for the last 27 months, but this is the first time they have released the results. As to why:
Over
the last few seasons, “We have seen significant disruption in overall
brand performance, with Coach down and Michael Kors and Kate Spade up,”
said Christian Buss, a Credit Suisse equity analyst, director in the
apparel, footwear and accessories sector, and the man in charge of the
report. Mr. Buss & Company want to not only understand why, but to
predict when such changes may occur again.
“But
identifying changes in consumer preference is the most challenging
thing for a financial analyst to do,” he said. “We can see the changes
when they happen, but seeing them in advance has been the subject of a
lot of mediocre research: analysts trooping off to a mall outside New
York or San Francisco, or polling a few hundred people.
“Look,”
he continued, “the reality is I am a balding, middle-aged guy who does
not have credibility when it comes to calling fashion trends.”
Numbers, however … well. Check out this chart!
The
analytics look at not only brand mentions, but intensity of feeling
among chatters (“love” for a bag, for example, gets weighted more than
“like”), as well as negative chat — which is where things get
interesting. Indeed, there are a number of findings here that sent red
flags up, in my head at least.
For
example, Hermès, a.k.a. the brand most often considered the handbag
ideal, leads the negative chart, with 22 percent of comments on the down
side (by contrast, Fendi has only 7 percent negative comments), as well
as a shrinking share of the online discussion, down 8 percent.
Credit
Suisse postulates that this has to do with the brand’s desire for
exclusivity, and hence nonencouragement of general online chat, although
the report goes on to note, “this strategy could prove risky long term
in an ever-expanding, youth-driven digital world.” Hermès had no
comment.
Meanwhile
Louis Vuitton, the bags that have become derided as being the poster
children for the problem of ubiquity, and a company that has reported
less-than-exponential growth recently, proved to be No. 2 in the luxury
growth momentum category, suggesting it still has a secure foothold in
the consumer imagination and may be about to turn the corner.
Indeed,
the Credit Suisse report says Vuitton is “consistently the most overall
dominant brand with the greatest average index over a 2-year period. It
ranks 1st in volume, 2nd in our June 2014 index and 3rd in Y/Y growth
(up 124% Y/Y), an impressive growth rate for such a mature online
company. The terms “gorgeous,” “best,” and “love” represent 36% of
consumer behavior online.”
Meanwhile,
Gucci, in a similar is-it-too-everywhere? situation, also comes in as
No. 2 in momentum from January to June this year.
Then
there’s Calvin Klein, which frankly is not generally thought of as a
hot handbag brand, but which, Credit Suisse says, “has seen accelerated
growth, up 129% since January 2014 and up 166% Y/Y. Calvin Klein
handbags generate the lowest volume of all the brands we studied, but
volume has also improved, up 521% since January 2014, suggesting that
the improved product line is resonating with consumers.”
By
contrast, Marc Jacobs, which is supposed to be readying itself for a
much-ballyhooed maybe-possible I.P.O.,"has experienced the most online
sentiment momentum decline, down 14% since January 2014”; its “online
reach” is down 27 percent. Oops. (The company did not respond to my
emails.)
Still,
we won’t know whether the data is actually going to translate into an
equivalent sales profile for another six to nine months, which is what
Mr. Buss said was the general lag time between consumer chat and action.
And
certainly it is unclear whether the people who chat about the bags and
write about the bags are actually the people who buy the bags (there are
no “chatter” profiles included with the report). Arguably, when it
comes to Hermès, the answer is no.
Meanwhile,
and perhaps more significant, I wonder what effect this kind of
information is going to have on the brands themselves.
Put
another way: Will it make them more or less controlling of the online
conversation? The cat may be out of the (Birkin) bag, but that does not
mean they won’t try to stuff it back in.
