"Smart" Jewelry: Connecting while Accessorizing

     If you thought fashion couldn't get any more tech savvy......you thought wrong.

     Ringly, a new, but already well known brand, designs and crafts jewelry that connects to your smart phone and notifies you about things that matter most. The jewelery is no only fashion forward, but it's functional. Ringly is discreetly integrating useful technology into our lives with both bracelets and rings that notify you using vibration patterns, when you get a call, email, text, or post on social media.
    Some people may think this new innovation is just another technological intrusion on our lives that makes us interact with people less, but it actually does exactly the opposite. Ringly vibrates with four different vibration patterns, and flashed four different colors, that you can customize. It takes us away from being glued to our screens and phones, and simply reminds or alerts us when we get notified, and then gives us the choice of whether or not it's an appropriate time to check our phone or computer.

    Although Ringly is only taking pre-orders at this time, the jewelry is set to launch and be delivered by Winter of 2015. Designers like Rebecca Minkoff are also catching on to this new fad and designing their own tech-savvy jewelery collection.
    Now the question is..... will you join in on this new fad and remain discreetly, while poshly, in touch?

Which Platform Will Give Your Brand the Greatest ROI?

Return. On. Investment. Three words that any brand with a social media presence is after. Most companies stray away from discussing it because it’s one of the hardest things to prove. ROI is difficult to track, and most brands and stores are reluctant to share this information. It cant be difficult to pinpoint and collect data on customer behavior leading up to sale, so most companies stick with like to share finite numbers, not ROI.
         

       It is becoming more apparent, especially in the fashion industry, that two platforms are giving brands the most bang for their buck.  Facebook-owned Instagram is fashion and retail’s go-to social medium, and is where the majority of brands’ social efforts are focused. Why? Because Instagram is the only social platform where engagement rates don’t decline as fashion brands gain more followers. Facebook-owned Instagram is considered the best medium for brand-based marketing, and it has an organic reach of 100 percent, making it one of the easiest platforms to invest in.

People may wonder how the investment in Facebook and Instagram is so helpful for brand marketing, when there it doesn’t allow for linking out or purchasing from the platform. On other platforms, as communities grow, engagement dips, because the brand gains followers beyond their specific target market. This doesn’t occur on Instagram. As the number of followers of a brand increases, engagement continues to increase as well. There is no negative correlation like we see with other platforms.

          Instagram’s and Facebook’s hold on the digital marketing funnel is an extremely powerful combination. Instagram  has an emotional hold on users that’s entirely organic. This initial behavior from the consumer will eventually combine with Facebook, which has a direct response and targeting tools. 

          An example of a brand that uses both of these mediums to their fullest extent is Calvin Klein. In the year since Calvin Klein rolled out its #mycalvins social campaign, the brand said it saw “unprecedented engagement” and “strong ROI” from its efforts, which included both organic and paid elements. Although ROI may be difficult to calculate, it is safe to say, when you take content from Facebook and Instagram, and place it anywhere else, you can expect a big impact.  


 http://wwd.com/media-news/digital/social-medias-elusive-goal-return-on-investment-10096379/
 

 

Are Camera Phones Killing Fashion?

       In the past few blog posts, I have praised social media and talked about it's positive influence on the fashion industry. Yes, social media is shaping the fashion industry in ways we never thought possible. With the help of social media and the platforms we have made a part of our everyday lives, we can now purchase items directly off Instagram, or see behind the scenes footage at any fashion show we want. So although all of these are great and experiential for the consumer, we have failed to see any negative aspects of social media in the fashion industry.
        Iphones, Galxaxy S5's, Androids.... it's rare that any mobile phone comes without a camera in our world today, and this has become a big problem for fashion weeks around the world. Social media reports from London, Milan, New York and Paris consisted of blurred pictures on Twitter where a viewer could barely make out the clothes or even the model wearing them on the runway. One writer commented on this topic and said, "The urge to post anything and everything linked to a fashion event has become frenzied, hysterical and masturbatory." Although technology has improved immensely over the past decade, smart phones that are equipped with cell phones are not designed to shoot fast-moving objects under high contrast lighting (see pictures below).

     A designer spends weeks on a single garment. A collection is made up of twenty plus garments, and this has to be done twice a year. The low-fi, poor quality images taken on smartphones is somewhat disrespectful to the designer who spent so much time putting together the brilliant collection that in a matter of seconds is being shared around the world via blown out and blurred pictures.
     So now the question is, should phones be banned at fashion shows? There was a time when phones weren't allowed at fashion shows, and only one photographer was allowed to record the event. By banning phones and keeping it simple, the fashion industry may be able to preserve the timelessness of each garment that makes an appearance on the runway, as well as give each designer the respect they deserve.


http://www.businessoffashion.com/2014/03/cameraphones-killing-fashion.html