Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Every fashion and beauty brand competing for consumers’ attention today understands what sneakers and streetwear have long known: Hype works.
Digital culture has rewired shoppers to engage with fashion through rapid-fire content consumption. In this ecosystem, where the biggest fashion campaign or the most thoughtful runway show can be dismissed in a finger swipe, even the most tried-and-true marketing efforts can fail to translate into sustained cultural momentum.
“In a world where the attention span has been reduced to seconds, you have to be successful in capturing and holding attention through the noise,” said Stone Island chief executive Robert Triefus.
Building genuine hype around a brand or product has proved an effective strategy for channeling and controlling that attention time and again.
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The concept is sometimes derided as fleeting or superficial, but the ability to generate genuine, contagious excitement around a product is one of fashion’s most valuable skills, and one of its hardest to sustain.
The challenge for brands is that the hype playbook of the past is wearing thin. While older methods like viral stunts, artificial scarcity and logo swaps continue to garner notice, consumers have become more inured to these tactics, and what drives hype today isn’t solely defined by quick hits of virality. It requires a more strategic approach.
“It’s about the right people, not all the people,” said Harry Bainbridge, Highsnobiety’s head of strategy. “Where hype has gone is that it’s more selective, more considered and it’s qualitative, rather than being about mass volume and noise.”
The new way of generating hype is based on marketing that has a real story to tell, centred on products that aren’t new just for the sake of newness but have an enduring appeal that’s been refreshed and tailored to a particular audience. Instead of just drawing in consumers with another release, brands need to create a journey their customers can become emotionally invested in.
In this case study, The Business of Fashion dissects what really generates hype today, by speaking to brands that have defined it for decades and continue to exemplify it. It includes perspectives from Italian label Stone Island, legacy streetwear brand A Bathing Ape, or BAPE, and heritage outdoor brand The North Face.
Fashion businesses that can successfully embrace and build hype will create strong connections with their customers and be rewarded with genuine cultural resonance.
