Marketing campaigns, influencers, brands, and competitive strategies in the world.
SKIMS partners with the NBA; 3 Strategies for Leaders to Prepare for Recession; & The Future of Social Commerce.
November 8, 2023
Welcome back to another week in review, this past Monday SKIMS announced their multiyear marketing partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA) marking the brand’s entry in Men’s fashion.
Kim Kardashian, Co-Founder and Creative Director of SKIMS is positioning her brand for success in the men’s underwear category that has been stagnant for years. While many naysayers may point to the company’s female audience and call the move doomed to fail; brands like Lululemon have proven them wrong in the past with their entry into men’s categories.
Lululemon’s line expansion led to a 61% growth in its men’s business compared to a 37% growth in its women’s line. SKIMS is looking to replicate Lululemon’s success exponentially through its multiyear marketing partnership aimed at bridging the two companies’ audiences. The NBA’s audience is predominantly young men (70%) while SKIMS is commonly associated as a women’s brand, however, the key player in the public optics of this partnership is the Co-Founder of the company, Kim Kardashian.
The NBA may be shadowing the NFL’s recent move in influencer marketing, via its spotlighting and capitalizing on the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce relationship. In this case, the NBA will leverage its new partnership with Kim Kardashian and her massive following to bring in a new female audience to their games. It’s a symbiotic relationship, giving value and new opportunities to grow for the two partners.
Up Next...
3 Strategies Business Leaders can take to prepare for a recession and turn misfortune into opportunity.
Gallup’s New Economic Confidence Index -- which measures Americans’ net optimism about the economy -- remains decidedly negative, with 70% of Americans saying the economy is getting worse.While the financial signs are mixed, almost all economists expect a significant economic downturn within the next year. As corporate leaders prepare strategic plans for 2023, a potential recession is top of mind, leading them to ask:
“How do I prepare for economic downturn?”
1. Be Agile
Your human capital is key for your company’s long-term success. Ask yourself how is your organization going to transform to win the future? What strategic cuts are necessary to adapt to new market conditions? What are you attempting beyond cost saving? Your talent is the heart of your company, don’t look to cut, see this as an opportunity to add new blood into your organization. Savvy leaders are going to see market downturn as the best time to add new talent into their team at a bargain rate. While your competitor treats their talent worse, you have an opportunity to offer them new options and possibilities.
2. Plan Communications
“When stress and anxiety are high, communication is critical for resiliency. We saw this play out in the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Leaders increased their communications to followers, and employee engagement actually rose during that time. Predictably, when leaders pulled back on communication, engagement levels fell.” – Gallup
Companies that withdraw manager support and leadership in communications during difficult times only makes morale worse. When the natural tendency is to pull back, leaders must consciously engage with their people.
3. Know your Customer!
During an economic downturn raising prices seems like an obvious lever to pull, but tread lightly. Changing prices means changing the customer’s status quo bias. First make sure you know what changes are occurring to your customer’s behaviors, what are their plans with business and lifestyle? Understand what likelihood they’ll take to shift to other solutions and capitalize on the market opportunities that downturns cause to your competitors. Downturns will affect the market at large, use it as your opportunity to offer new customers alternative possibilities to their purchasing decisions.
Lastly...
Let’s Review the Future of Social Commerce.
In the US, the success of social shopping is largely driven by collaborations among creators, brands, and social media platforms, along with the mature and effective algorithms that power them. This partnership model could expand beyond social media and serve as a blueprint for the shoppable media channels of the future—from streaming video-on-demand services to video games and the metaverse.
Content creators play a key role in social commerce, most consumers (70%) follow at least one content creator, and about one-quarter have discovered new products or services through these creators, according to the Deloitte survey. About 60% of Gen Zs and millennials say they’re more likely to buy a product after watching a review by a content creator they follow, and more than half of Gen Zs and millennials say they seek out product reviews from creators when making important purchase decisions.
Partnering with the right online creators helps brands reach their target consumers effectively and maximize their marketing spending. What’s even more startling is that nearly half (45%) of consumers—and 70% of Gen Zs—say they believe product reviews by content creators are more authentic than brand ads, the survey finds.
Brands should consider partnering with creators to leverage their clout and integrate them into advertising strategies and campaigns.
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