For Olivier Rousteing, the Designer Behind a Social Media ‘Army,’ Instagram Looks Stale

In this interesting article written by Matthew Dalton, French designer Olivier Rousteing, creative director of high couture fashion house Balmain has recently voiced discontent with the way the fashion industry is advertising on Instagram. According to Dalton, Mr. Rousteing was the first creative director to use Instagram five years ago when no other fashion house was using social media.

 In 2012 Mr. Rousteing, saw a unique opportunity to showcase Balmain in a non-conventional way. Rousteing decided to share photos of himself with celebrity friends like Rihanna and Kim Kardashian sporting the brand. To his surprise sales rose as a result, according to Dalton, sales went from $62 million a few years ago to $182 million in 2017. Despite the success of Balmain, Rousteing can not ignore the rat race the credible and exclusive fashion brands like Prada and Louis Vuitton are running using Instagram to monetize on the opportunity. According to Dalton, what bothers Roustein the most is the "authenticity" of the brands have been corrupted by fashion houses paying off a new breed of social media money makers called "social media influencers" that post photos of themselves wearing the brand only to cash in, not because they genuinely love the brand. Another reason Mr. Rousteing is falling out of love with Instagram is giant fashion Instagram accounts like Dior, Prada and Louis Vuitton have amounted such high number of followers that Balmain has been left behind. According to Dalton, Mr. Rousteing has begun several projects with Instagram rival Snapchat, to begin a new
endeavour.

In my point of view, like everything else, including advertising has been revolutionized by the introduction of the internet especially the influx of social media sharing applications (apps). In this world full of imperfect humans, wonderful innovations are sometimes tarnished by greedy or ruthless users. Take for example Instagram, it was originally a photo sharing app with "no advertising" for the common folk to share their photos with family and friends, then came those who started showing off their new stuff! Then in 2012 Balmain made its debut and now Instagram is a "marketing machine". Sadly, companies are spending lots of money on ads in desperate attempts to strike it big. It is clear to see brand recognition as a major culprit in the high level of followers big names like Prada, Louis Vuitton, and Dior have played in the demise of Balmain, resulting in a battle of the brands.

The relevance I see in this article to marketing is promotion in the marketing mix, Rousteing used Instagram as a marketing tool for communicating his life and Balmain products to consumers in hopes of increased revenue for the fashion line, which turned out to be so. However, other fashion lines followed, and now he is left searching for another promotion platform with Snapchat, unfortunately, I see the same thing repeating its self again.

  Finally, social apps are not exempt from fads, what is in today, is out tomorrow, anybody remember Myspace? "No" that's what I though!

Link: Olivier Rousteing Instagram Dilema