Key calendar moments like Valentine’s Day are popular with consumers who love adapting their wardrobes to special occasions. Simultaneously, PR professionals and brand marketers are altering campaigns to suit the style of each event and capitalize on occasions through coverage. Meanwhile, media analysis is becoming growingly complex.
But these dates play a critical role for Mass Market Fashion brands especially, providing valuable opportunities for cross-channel amplification. After all, Tmall reported a record-breaking 800M store visits during Asia’s Singles Day in 2023, proving that event interest continues to rise.
Unfortunately, harboring visibility during these moments is challenging for Mass Market brands. By design, these brands deliver new collections far more regularly than other segments (often bi-weekly). Couple this high-frequency production with campaign agility, the need to track all media mentions through media analysis and accurately measure performance. The process seems almost unachievable - and that’s before you factor in rising above high-volume competitor content at the busiest moments of the year.
It’s daunting, we get it. But fear not. Today, we’re identifying the top events Mass Market brands should capitalize on, before digging into the most efficient way to make an impact and measure performance strategically. Let’s get started.
In this article you’ll learn…
Are surprise partners the new Valentine’s Day trend?
Did you know the National Retail Federation recorded that US consumers spent $25.8B on Valentine’s Day in 2024? This popular date is a vast playground for Mass Market brands wanting to secure coverage cross-channel.
Shein, for example, coupled up with unlikely partners (Scooby-Doo and Tom and Jerry) and Influencer Voices to launch new collections and reshare gifted hauls and other forms of User Generated Content (UGC). But what makes Valentine’s Day and Mass Market Fashion brands a match made in heaven? High-volume. Our media analysis has found that all of Shein’s content was posted on February 14. Nine placements in 24 hours - talk about an impact! Converse also stepped into the holiday spirit, launching a themed collection that was promoted by ASOS. One TikTok video garnered $60K Media Impact Value® (MIV®).
Want to leverage Valentine’s Day? Differentiation is important, but don’t stray from what works. Avoiding the obvious reds, pinks and heart iconography may feel instinctive, but learn from the competition. Audiences engage with this blatant campaigning, so make your efforts unique by aligning the content with your brand or client’s essence instead of rewriting the playbook.
Promoting limited-edition collections with strategic Voices creates a sense of exclusivity and urgency, encouraging instant activity and amplifying messaging. Gifting leads to UGC and instant exposure across social media. Consider an unlikely collaborator that’s popular with your target audience to spark immediate buzz and breakthrough competitor noise.
The growing importance of sports (and aspiration)
High-profile events like the Super Bowl, Wimbledon and The World Cup are prime leveraging opportunities for Mass Market Fashion coverage. July’s upcoming Olympics will be no exception as - while sports event coverage can be fleeting - it’s immense.
Affordable athleisure has infiltrated everyday life, with Statista predicting the global sportswear market will exceed $450B by 2028. Brands must work even harder to maximize key occasions, obtain impactful mentions and optimize their media analysis processes.
Successful tactics include sponsoring viewing parties and partnering with athletes or enthusiasts. Athletes evoke a sense of aspiration, making them powerful resonators and coverage drivers. Collaborations that go behind the scenes of an athlete’s personal life produce unique and relatable content that makes an impression. GymShark ambassadors and athletes, Nile Wilson and Francis Ngannou, shared similar content, contributing to the brand’s $200M MIV® garnered between January and October 2023. Equally, Athleta’s candid collab with Olympic gymnast Simone Biles boosted the brand’s total MIV® considerably in the same period.
Voices that make an impact off the court (or pitch, or ring) are also powerful. Our data shows a rise in athletes attending high-profile, non-sports-related events. Endorsing these Voices around a key sports date will garner more coverage but, as they garner cross-channel impact, organizing and tracking mentions holistically is crucial to ensure no coverage is missed.
Why skipping Single’s Day is hurting your performance.
2023 marked the 30th anniversary of Singles’ Day, China’s mammoth shopping event designed for single students to celebrate themselves. November 11th is the official Singles’ Day, but events run for a full week and promotions dominate the digital landscape from October. An AlixPartner survey found 62% of Chinese consumers pledged to spend over $400 on the day in 2023. Sales ultimately exceeded that of Black Friday and Amazon’s Prime Day according to Statista.
It’s an important date for Mass Market brands as discount models speak to their well-honed pricing tactics. But competition for widespread coverage is higher than ever. The event has begun causing a stir overseas, piquing Western interest. UK brands like French Sole and BrandAlley relished the occasion in 2023.
Thinking of leveraging Single’s Day in your campaigns? Execute efforts actively across social media. Roughly 90% of event sales are made on mobile devices. This is where you’ll captivate audiences and fuel mentions.
In China, Influencers are known as Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), and KOL collaborations were found to be the event’s number one promotion tactic. A KOL that aligns with your messaging will ensure strengthened amplification. KOLs are also well-versed in live-streaming, a critical format for Single’s Day. Live streams and short-form videos are popular with Gen Z, generate instant buzz and lead quickly to online mentions and interest.
Father’s Day and mastering the art of nostalgia
A major gifting holiday like Father's Day sees Mass Market Fashion campaigning go into overdrive. Influencer Voices are, once again, a big performance driver. Gifting increases chances of coverage, as these collaborators opt for a fast UGC approach to spark gift inspiration amongst audiences.
For Mass Market brands, creating engaging content means catering to the needs and preferences of a vast socioeconomic audience. Father’s Day is powerful as it facilitates a deeper emotional connection between a brand and a widespread audience. Strategic storytelling - with heartfelt messaging that links to themes of nostalgia and gratitude - will resonate, foster loyalty and breakthrough competitor campaign noise.
Take Fashion Nova, for example. Analyzing Owned Media Reels performance from January to July 2023, the Reel accruing the third-highest MIV® was a Father’s Day collaboration with Influencer Voice, Ronnie Banks. The short Reel featured Ronnie switching outfits to match his daughter, accruing $174K MIV®. In other words, relatable and nostalgic content can make a disruptive media impact through just one post during this popular calendar moment. A fast and thorough media analysis of this Father’s Day campaign reveals the Reels ‘top three’ status for Fashion Nova. Therefore, the insights will prove to be powerful for future strategies.
You’re campaign-ready, but Mass Market Fashion media analysis is another ball game.
Depending on the Fashion segment you operate in, you’ll face niche coverage challenges and approaches. Mass Market brands encounter multiple blockers which must be overcome to guarantee mentions that meet goals:
- Mass Market Fashion: Working smarter (and faster)
Mass Market brands confront a fast-paced environment daily. Assets are typically produced at a rate of two collections per week - that’s a lot collections to campaign. To garner media mentions, assets must be promoted quickly and strategically. This means that masterfully leveraging a high influx of constant collections is paramount in the mass market sector.
- Making way for your ad-hoc campaigns
An event-linked campaign usually involves a new collection or themed asset. This adds a layer of complexity to cross-channel monitoring efforts. Not only are professionals tracking media mentions generated by their ‘business as usual’ activity, they then must factor in these specialist press efforts concurrently. Equally, the pressure to create strategies and campaigns that resonate with audiences is even greater. Why? Themed or dedicated collections have a short shelf life. A collection filled with the perfect Valentine’s Day looks is far less desirable or sought after in March, for example. - Never miss a mention
Now comes the challenge of sourcing all mentions. From print to online and social media, our digitally connected world provides coverage opportunities that span all corners of the globe. Targeting Vogue UK or a Chinese social media app like RED? It’s imperative that no mentions are missed. Still, many rely on outdated manual tracking processes. This can lead to missed coverage as pooling and understanding every mention becomes increasingly difficult. A real-time view of all cross-channel global coverage is paramount.
- The problem with having no filter…
Without an organized approach that instantly identifies and logs coverage, understanding results is challenging (including which channels and Voices drive your efforts more value). Unable to filter results by event, product or special term? Your monitoring becomes disjointed and far from agile. Equally, you can lose sight of any trending patterns. For instance, Which channels are more successful for certain campaigns or which publishers are paying your campaigns more interest? Nurturing press relationships is defunct if you can’t gauge the content each editor, publisher or general audience favors - and strong press relationships offer allies during key event campaigning. - From bored report to *board* report
Once you’ve collated your coverage, translating it into media analysis reports segmented by campaign, project or activation is an arduous and timely task. At the click of a button, you should be able to generate a report that collects your desired coverage so you can instantly view and analyze the results quarter by quarter or even year-on-year. Having fast and full visibility of coverage performance, including the top channels and Voices, will allow you to spend more time strategizing and harnessing results to drive future campaign success. - Coverage: money talks
One of the biggest struggles is measuring true coverage value to justify spending. Many use coverage count as their metric of success because quantifying monetary value is an extremely complex process. Without this insight, you can’t double down on successful strategies, determine which mention truly drove the most value, or benchmark coverage performance. A metric that quantifies each mention with a monetary value gives a clear view of returns on your press investments. You’ll understand which campaigns or placements were the most media lucrative by knowing which achieved the highest MIV® , for example. This will also determine which channels or platforms are driving you more value or which Voices are most impactful for your brand. A metric like MIV® also enables you to assess the performance of your competitors and benchmark activity. With these insights you can stay competitive and use the findings to cut through the noise. These benefits lead to more strategic future spending and budgeting. By quantifying your press efforts you see what is and isn’t working. From there, you’ll know where to make confident further investments and where budget is better allocated.
The key benefits of auto-tagging in your media analysis include:
Are you ready to enhance your media monitoring processes? Leverage key events and more with data-backed confidence. Launchmetrics Discover’s auto-tagging feature allows you to tag a piece of coverage to your specificities. Further mentions are then instantly recognised and categorized, ready to be converted into clear reports.
The key benefits of auto-tagging include:
- Boost efficiency by automatically compiling brand coverage into bespoke feeds so you can focus more on analysis and less on dreaded manual searching. Whether you want to isolate mentions by channel, Voice, event, region or more - we have a tag for that!
- Quantifying your coverage with MIV® - whether it’s individual coverage or full campaigns - means you can maximize returns by doubling down on what works, all while eliminating ineffective spending.
- Accurately measure campaigns by generating performance reports filtered by your unique tags. Discover your top channels, Voices and regions to track your campaign's impact. In turn, you’ll optimize its effectiveness.
- Make informed decisions with instant coverage visibility. By organizing your data, you can spot trends and understand what is or isn't working. This will enhance analysis and lead to confident, data-backed decisions.
Find out more by getting in touch with one of our team today. We look forward to speaking with you.
By Hollie O'ConnorContent Marketing Manager
Hollie is a passionate writer, editor and former journalist with a penchant for storytelling. As Content Marketing Manager for Launchmetrics, Hollie's experience involves producing relevant, thought-provoking copy and creative visual assets.