P RO S U M E R S : The New Fashion Communicators
“The notion of ‘prosumption’ arises in today’s globalised world as a combination of production and consumption; where individuals who were once seen as consumers now also produce, thereby making them prosumers.”
(Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010)
What is prosumerism? As originally theorised by Alvin Toffler in ‘The Third Wave’ 1981, there is a newly emerged group of fashion communicators; prosumers. They are consumers who take an active role in producing and influencing products and services. This group is not just a hoard of internet users producing goods and content as a hobby. Their impact is felt throughout the fashion industry and they have become the voices which heavily influence brand activities, fashion trends and the opinions of others. Toffler divided prosumers into halves in order to better define the intents and purposes of this new media agent. In sector A, prosumers produce for personal use. These are the prosumers with a particular desire for something not available on the marketplace or a passion for the process of producing. In sector B, goods are produced for trade. These are the people who have a skill or product that is of commercial interest to others. Today, sector B prosumers have come to hold a wide share of the marketplace, leading to confusion when it comes to distinguishing between professional fashion agents and prosumers.
Why is it happening? There are number of social and economic reasons why the number of prosumers is increasing so rapidly. New technologies provide the tools needed to create industry standard content; professional DSLR cameras are sold to the mass market as an essential product. Social media provides a platform to share thoughts and creations with other prosumers, consumers and industry professionals alike. This free and fast flowing communication between consumers and brands, gives prosumers the connections they need to penetrate the marketplace. It is this that has changed modern marketing from a presentation into a conversation. These platforms allow prosumers to market themselves as photographers on Instagram or journalists on Twitter in a way that makes it difficult for the average consumer to differentiate between a prosumer start up and an established business. With this high level of content quality, comes the competitiveness of prosumers, “comparison is the engine of ambition” (Trend Watching, 2017) and social media offers an endless stream of motivation for prosumers trying to turn their start ups into a part of the professional marketplace. It is not just the platform of opportunity which drives consumers to become prosumers. “The desire for individuality and the crowding variety of customer” (Toffler, 1981) means that people desire more elements of customisation in their goods, as the mass market becomes generic and repetitive and consumers want to stand out. The rise can also be attributed to when a prosumer sees a problem or gap in the market; they are able to be proactive and create the solution themselves, rather than wait for bigger companies to do so. Trend Watching identifies this desire to co-create as the consumer trend of ‘joyning’ in their most recent report (Trend Watching, 2017). This report demonstrates the constant development and increasing popularity of prosumer behaviour amongst consumers, and therefore the need for brands to utilise prosumers.
Wider impact on the fashion industry Today prosumerism is no longer a theory and brands must integrate prosumers into the process of developing and marketing products in order to remain relevant. Whilst prosumerism can make brands better targeted to consumers, there is a risk of losing the original ethos of the brand if it forgets its roots and becomes too immersed in pleasing the masses. Despite the risks, involving prosumers undoubtedly gives consumers a say in what they’re investing in and allows brands to interact intimately with their fans, which ultimately enhances any brands success. It is therefore important for brands to carefully consider how they incorporate prosumerism into their own activities. The worlds biggest companies are doing it by allowing consumers to wear their trainers without blending into the millions of other pairs already sold. Nike, Adidas, New Balance, Vans and Converse all offer full online customisation of their shoes. The notion of customisation is becoming so popular that there are brands centred around the concept. Bombsheller lets customers create their own clothes. Founder Pablos Holman reported that it operates via the internet, allowing customers to submit their own eye-catching designs for leggings as well as modifying sizing and even the length of the garment. (Barron, 2017) The trend is not lost on high fashion brands either. In 2016 Gucci allowed customers to design their own embroidered jackets, jeans and trainers and have them made in store. Outside of the fashion industry, Doritos has leveraged the trend in the form of their ‘Crash the Super Bowl’ campaign which invites consumers to produce their own commercial. This has become one of the most well known commercials in the famous spot, earning Doritos the title as the most effective Super Bowl advertised brand from 2010 to 2015. According to Frito-Lay North America chief marketing officer, Ram Krishnan, the success of this long-term campaign was the product of ‘giving consumers a platform to shine’. (Maris, 2017) Whilst it is up to brands to decide how the prosumer trend fits in with their brand activities and ethos, prosumers are fashion communicators themselves, and hold plenty of power in terms of how they influence the industry.
Modding: positive prosumerism In order to examine both sides of the prosumer coin, this report will now compare game modders and fashion bloggers in the context of sector A and B prosumer behaviour. Modding is a collaborative and creative community which seeks to collectively improve and positively impact the game by adding and changing in game features, allowing gamers to customise their experience. As a part of sector A which produces for personal use, mods are available for free online and modders do not directly make any money from the practice. Modders with a large following may offer their fans the option to donate to supplement their work, however the genuine passion for creation overrides the desire for monetary gain. Game production company Steam attempted to create a platform where modders can charge others for their content but due to backlash from creators, it was shut down. (McWhertor, 2015) As
one interviewee explained, “Creative self-expression can be an essential human need. . . . We [modders] have that sort of motivation but I’m not sure I can rationalise it. It’s just something I have a compulsion to do.” (Hong, 2013) Through their immersion in the game, modders see potential for innovation where professional producers might not, particularly in the case of Skyrim, which is an endless RPG with no limit to its creative possibilities. Video game journalist Ben Kuchera said that “Perfection of the Skyrim game would come about not through additional work by the company’s development team but through the passionate involvement of game modders”. (Hong, 2013). The modding community demonstrates how prosumer activities can be used purely for innovation and an outlet for creativity. However, this genuine approach to content creation is not always the motivation for prosumers.
Fashion bloggers: promoting the self Blogging is a relatively new part of the fashion industry. Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist explains “In the digital age, the status of street style shifted when street style photography blogs emerged from humble beginnings in the mid-2000s to become part of a worldwide viral phenomenon that established the most successful bloggers as the “new favourites of the fashion world”. (Barron, 2017) In its essence, blogging concentrates on the individual; their ideas, lifestyles and opinions. Bloggers market themselves in a way which is intended to give mass consumers an ideal to admire. It is intended to be relatable and realistic, giving personality to larger brands or trends, however the authenticity of bloggers is highly questionable. As a part of sector B which produces for trade, they are used by brands as a sales tool. Julie Bradford wrote “fashion has to be written about and represented in some way to exist – otherwise it would just be a bunch of clothes with no backstory.” (Bradford, 2014) Bloggers have the ability to personify clothes in a way that models cannot. Due to their popularity, an endorsement from an influential blogger can be as effective as an expensive PR campaign and so brands will offer bloggers huge figures to praise their products. Bloggers and brands often loose sight of their own values and will use each other to make money regardless of their actual interest in the product or alignment with each others identities. This generates a lack of authenticity that causes many to criticise their place in the fashion industry; many fashion bloggers now market themselves as stylists, photographers and journalists, leaving professionals feeling stifled, and criticisms of prosumers in fashion hereby arise.
Criticisms As a new phenomenon there are still many concerns about the prosumer movement. On one hand the trend can be viewed as a fad which causes professionals to be overshadowed by amateurs, as prosumers continuously manage to penetrate the market that others will have gone through more traditional means to reach. Taking a more liberal view, it is possible to see prosumerism as a movement which breaks down limitation barriers such as prejudice and access to education, opening up a professional marketplace which is open to all and based purely on talent. Ultimately this argument can be attributed to whichever side of the situation individuals
find themselves on. Kotler predicted this conflict in 1986, stating that “counteracting forces that would restrain prosumption were also identified in terms of threatened stakeholder groups, e.g. specialist professionals, producers of certain goods and services, and trade unions.” (Phil, 2011) Another prominent concern is that prosumerism is another marketing tool with no authenticity or basis which can jeopardise the integrity of the fashion industry and wider marketplaces, rather than a creative and collaborative movement. However this is likely to be an outdated opinion held by those who have been in the industry for many years. In his analysis of ‘Marketing fads and fashions’, Christopher Phil wrote that “the suggested shift away from class fashion towards consumer fashion… provides an interesting approach to the decentralisation of the fashion system, something which has been argued to provide consumers with increased possibilities of engaging in identity and image creation.” (Phil, 2011) This is much more realistic view of the media agents as the fashion industry is notoriously fast paced and we are currently on the cusp of another revolution in the way the industry operates.
The future of prosumerism As prosumers continues to gain traction, we are left to consider how prosumerism might develop in the future. Whilst it is a popular novelty today, it is unlikely that customised clothing will become the norm, as the majority of consumers do not place enough value in their clothes to invest the time and money. We can, however, expect to see customisation become a more common part of regular brand activities. Customised sizing is a real possibility as the fashion industry has long been criticised for inconsistency in women sizing policies and there is an emerging demand for unisex clothing. Further into the future, 3D printing could allow people to print their own clothes from home using downloaded patterns; Iris Van Herpens work demonstrates the possibilities of 3D printing in fashion. Another prediction is the integration of prosuming in the physical shopping process. “A person will enter a clothing store, stand before an electronic mirror and press appropriate buttons that will project various suits on him in different colours, style, and materials. After finding the most pleasing look, he will press another button and laser beams will cut and prepare the clothing” (Newsweek, 1985). Within a business focus, brands incorporation of prosumerism must be carefully considered in order to make choices which are more authentic and fitting to a brands identity, rather than focusing on a bloggers following. This will come with the development of jobs which focus on these liaisons that are likely to be populated by young professionals who have a more organic understanding of social media. It would also be valuable to see the development of social media platforms in order to better distinguish between professionals and consumers. The verified feature now appearing on most platforms helps with this but more could be done to separate legitimate business and content producers from amateurs, however this could be seen as detrimental to the trends ability to give equal opportunity to all creators.
Conclusion Over its course, this report has explained the definition prosumers and how they emerged to become such a prominent part of the industry. With this understanding, it becomes easier to recognise how prosumers present themselves within larger brand activities and how brands need prosumers to ensure that their activities are current and impactful. This report has also examined the contrasting realities of different prosumer behaviours; sector A prosumers who produce for personal use such as modders in contrast with sector B prosumers who produce for trade such as fashion bloggers. The difficulties that emerge with introducing this new media agent into the industry and marketplace have also been considered, leading to an imagination of how the trend may develop in the future. The fashion industry, in its nature, is always evolving. Based on aesthetics and trends, there is constant fluctuation which provokes intense discussion over whether the industry is headed in the right direction. Despite the concerns associated with involving prosumers so deeply in the industry, it is heartening to see that the industry is accepting regular consumers into a historically inclusive community and it is likely that prosumers are the latest form of fashion communicators to transform the way the world interacts with fashion.
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P RO S U M E R S : The New Fashion Communicators