After Fashion Week A/W 2010, we wrote a post on the Impact of Bloggers on New York Fashion Week. It came to my attention that three other brands – Starbucks, TRESemme and Maybelline – all hosted social oriented events during Fashion Week, as well.

We wanted to see how American Express events measured against  Starbucks, TRESemme and Maybelline’s. We analyzed the period between 1/20/2010 and 2/20/2010, analyzing overall web coverage.

Note: Unlike our previous study, our analysis doesn’t focus on specific fashion week event dates (02/13/2010 to 2/19/2010), hashtags, or specifically marked tweets in order to gain a more neutral valuation of all the brands. The programs used were Biz 360 Tools & Community Insights, the same used in the previous study.

Here are our findings:

Between the period of 1/20/2010 and 2/22/2010,  75% of the online conversations (conversations include blog posts, microblogs and mainstream online news sites) focused on American Express. Monitoring the same conversation sources, only 14.1% covered Maybelline, 7.3% covered Starbucks and 3.6% covered TRESemme.

Fashion Week Sponsor Sentiment

Of the four brands, the Maybelline and Starbucks hosted events had mixed sentiments, while the sentiments for TRESemme and American Express hosted events were positive to neutral.  Neutral sentiment is attributed to conversations without expressed emotion; neutral sentiment tends to register as tweets and don’t effect impact.

The graphs below are more in-depth profiles for each of the brands that participated in NYFW; the charts cover their overall impact and reach leading up to, during and after New York Fashion Week.

American Express NYFW Profile

TRESemme NYFW Profile

Starbucks NYFW Profile

Maybelline NYFW Profile

NYFW Brands – Chart Analysis

The conversations around Starbucks and TRESemme (as seen in the profile for CoutureInTheCity.com) were highly celebrity driven, receiving coverage from news sites and bloggers that focus heavily on entertainment and celebrity events/appearances. The average age of these website users was under the age of 20, with a high school education and income under $60,000 per year. If the Frappucino Light events were targeting this demographic (that is, a Gen Mix consumer who’d buy their product), there was limited success since there was very little online conversation. If the goal was something other than testing online response, this campaign didn’t meet that goal.

For Maybelline, the conversations were driven by highly trafficked, more commercial web properties such as Bellazon.com and Stylelist.com. Both sites cater to broad demographics; site users are women of multiple ethnicities with college educations who interested in a wide range of lifestyle topics and trends. If Maybelline wanted to reach the “lifestyle fashionista,” a woman who buys designer collaboration at Target or H&M, then they succeeded.

The sites where they received coverage cater to women who are light social media users and haven’t deeply adopted social tools beyond Facebook or Myspace.  These audiences are more likely to get their news from Lucky.com than a targeted, niche fashion blog. The targets are in line with women who buy their products from Target or Ulta where Maybelline and Tresemme are carried.

If the goals of Starbucks, Maybelline and TRESemme were to have branded events and a presence during New York Fashion Week, those goals were accomplished. If the goals were to have a presence and to generate a massive amount of online buzz that resulted in broader brand awareness and more media (PR) coverage, then they failed.

The online partners they used generated coverage and limited conversations with their online audiences, but these conversations didn’t spread because of their audience’s social media usage patterns. From the larger sites, most aren’t as socially engaged as the bloggers and websites that American Express partnered with.

American Express’s Competitive Edge

The statistics in The Impact of Bloggers On Fashion Week post still hold up in our overall analysis of American Express fashion week events. The lower coverage and comment numbers are attributed to the date range instead of hash tag and blogger efforts. Based on the demographic profiles of the magazines and news sites that covered American Express related events, the conversations around American Express were made through bloggers, websites and social media.

The target audience that American Express reached was over 34 years of age, had post graduate education and had an average income between $60-100,000 per year (see above charts). If the goal of American Express was to reach reach a mature audience that would possibly use American Express credit cards, retail services or join its OPEN forum; the sponsorships and coverage were targeted in a way that allowed them to accomplish that.

The sites and bloggers  that American Express partnered with have more robust online audiences with advanced knowledge of social tools, content syndication and search engine optimization; their knowledge helped American Express gain broader visibility online and through blogging, social networking and Twitter.

Another event that allowed American Express to take the market share of online coverage was its sponsorship of the Naomi Campbell Haiti Relief Fashion Show. The event, cross referenced with Haitian relief efforts brought mainstream news coverage that filtered through Twitter as event attendees tweeted with the hash tag #AMEXmbfw or #AMEX #NYFW.

Furthermore, Jennine Jacob and the members of Independent Fashion Bloggers, and Yuli Ziv and the members of Style Coalition tweeted with the same hash tags; holding events before and after the Haitian Relief event. These two digitally-based fashion organizations have had a consistent presence at NYFW for the past two years; the constant coverage drove an incredible amount of buzz during surrounding the week.

All this analysis leaves you to wonder as the the future relationships of brands and bloggers; what are your thoughts as to how brands will interact with professional bloggers and blogger run organizations moving forward?

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