FASHION Advertisements
The future Trends of Fashion Ads
NEW ERA OF FASHION ADS IS COMING
INTRO I
n an urbanized megacity like Hong Kong, fashion advertisement is everywhere. We see it everyday in magazines, on the streets as well as multimedia such as the Internet. As customers, our knowledge and impressions of various fashion brands are very much influenced by their advertisements. Have you ever considered, however, what makes you want to buy a certain dress from a certain brand? How do you come up with a decision of what is worth spending money on? Only the beautiful ads won’t work nowadays as the high class people which is the main target group of fashion industry are looking for something more. Instead of beauty which varies in different people’s eyes, they care more about what they
may look when holding this bag, how people may think of them by their dresses, or even how can this brand make them more stylish. And a good fashion advertisement just tells them the idea of what style and what feeling this product will give. Overall, feeling and affection is the best weapon for human, when fashion advertisements do the same thing, too. In this booklet, we are going to combine the knowledge of advertising, photography, marketing to analyze the components of a good fashion advertisement by showing some good examples alongside with bad examples in the field. Perhaps this would give you a better insight into the tricks that fashion companies used to attract you attention.
A
CRITERIA
s far as we’re concerned, a successful fashion advertisement creates feelings, atmosphere and affection, and it should match up with the brand image, the current trend or the products themselves.
Emotion, Feeling, Atmosphere
Like what we’ve had mentioned in the introduction. Creating emotions, feelings and atmosphere is the crucial point of telling the failed fashion advertisements from the successful ones. This feeling or atmosphere sholud help to show the specialty of the products or strengthen the brand image, and be combined well with the design of the advertisement.
Aesthetic, Fine Arts Approach Without any doubts, aesthetic is the fundamental part in fashion advertisement. Instead of putting every information in one advertisement, a good fashion campaign should focus more on photography, design and fine arts aspects, which means it should be well organized and have depth to read.
Brand Image, Concept
Every good fashion advertisements has strong concept, no matter it is supporting the brand image or the products itself. The concept gives the advertisement a soul, and help the whole advertisements to be shaped, including like what mood should the advertisement convey or what story should the photo imply.
THE FUTURE TRENDS FASHION ADVERTISE
We found out three majot future trends of the fashion advertisements. To make you understand more about the trends of fashion ads, we will precisely explain and analyze each adn provide few example in the field.
S OF EMENTS
o y
1. CELEBRITY COM
MBINATION
It is common that fashion brands will find celebrity to promote for them. In the past, brands rely on the celebrity to help them gain popularity. They find famous people for catch people’s eye and persuade the customer to buy the product by their favor in that star. However, though using celebrity on the advertisements is still a common situation, they are not come for gain popularity but help the advertisement to create right feeling by their personality or personal image.
PAST In the past, celebrities showed up in the commercials only for promoting the products. They are used to attract their fans and sell the products by their popularity. The example of Katy Perry holding Proactiv’s product, it has no contents that the only thing we can feel from it is “Come to buy it, Katy Perry loves it too.” This cliché commercial approach is totally out of date. Smart as the high-class customers, who will believe this and be attracted by this cheap and empty advertisement? The Britney Spears’ case is even worse. They put her name on the advertisements to promote their products, which is the approach that the advertisements decades before will do.
FUTURE These two examples of Julianne Moore in Bvlgari and Angelina Jolie in Louis Vuitton, the celebrities are supporting to comvey the right feeling and concept that the ads aim for, not just promoting the products. In Louis Vuitton's case.Angelina Jolie,who is the most famous star in the world. she didn’t dress fantastically beautiful, but arouse your interest for this bag. As the Louis Vuitton bag originally is made for traveling, this ads successfully show that how beautiful you can be if you carry this bag to travel. And even Jolie who just dress like a normal person in this ad, because you know her personality is tough and elegant, any women who saw this ad will believe if they carry this bag, they can be looked like this.
2. SPECIAL ATMO
OSPHERE
Even though more and more fashion brands are launching fashion campaign that create moods and feelings to attract people, as they know this is the right way for the fashion advertisement. There are still some new trends coming up, like what feeling you are going to create? Living in such a diverse environment now, how can you catch people’s eyes by ads? The answer is give them some special atmosphere, some combination that they have never seen before.
PAST Creating atmosphere has already been a major trend for most of the fashion brands. However, they used to create atmosphere that is associated with their brand image or atmosphere that is logical to combine with the products they sell. Like the man’s wear, it is common to see models wears the products and make some cool pose, which is ordinary and not surprising. And for women’s case, Dior must be the best example. Pink and red is the color that you always can see in their ads, and they always try to create sweet and elegant atmosphere. Their advertisements is successful without doubt that they always attract girls. However, people are easily tired with one style, and making some changes is inevitable
FUTURE Cliché stuff bores people, and so does the conservative fashion advertisements. More and more brands are trying new ways to create special atmosphere, for catching people’s eye and supporting their concept or products. From Lanvin’s campaign, they create a creepy feeling and some ghostly effect, which is different from before. Lanvin launched a series of clothes with new fabrics at that time, and this ad successfully convey the message that they are making some bold changes, and gives people the curiosity of their new dresses. And men's wear was never associated with death before. However, Sarti Taylors wisely used this controversial combination to attract people.
3. C L E A N D E
ESIGN
It is not that unfamiliar for people to see some advertisement that
full of information, which they believe it can help to attract
their potential customers. Or
even some brands that want to
promote themselves so much that they spend a lot of time to
make their logo big and fancy. However, will these really help?
PAST It is common to see an ad that the picture is full page and they put the logo on the picture. This is not a bad design; however, sometimes it will be too messy to have the busy photo with the logo on it. Two examples from Dolce & Gabbana and Dior, they are both successful advertisements that they create the right atmosphere to the audience. However, in the Dolce & Gabbana’s case, the logo is distracting people, and ruins the harmony of the picture. And Dior's ad seems balanced and appealing; nevertheless, will you really concentrate on this ad when you've already seen a lot of busy pictures.
Cluttered busy layout made it hard to see the logo
FUTURE Clean design is emphasized more than before now, especially the ads on the magazine. As the magazine already has too many photos and information, people’s eyes are too tired to see more with advertisements. As a result, fashion brands are started to use the format that half is clean with logo, and one is the photograph. These three ads all shared the same design. However, though they only hace one figure in the photo. They still try to create the feeling they want to show by the simple composition. No matter it's their face expression or their poses, all help to form the idea the ads want to convey.
Clean layout with logo having its own space
Photo courtesey to Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, Lanvin, Kohl's, Bvlgari, Louis Vuitton, Michael Kors,Topman, Sarti, Alexander McQueen, D&G, Chanel, Saint Laurent Paris, Ellie Saab