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be exposed in the blogosphere and a photo of the marketing team was
subsequently published online. Although the blog was completely revamped
and re-launched, the seeds of mistrust had already been sewn and Vichy had
to invest further efforts and resources in rebuilding confidence among its cli-
ents online and offline.
We could perhaps say that Vichy was a beginner in the blogosphere and
therefore lacked an understanding of the rules of the blogging game, or that
they took on an ad agency that also demonstrated as little understanding of
the social web. However, the Vichy story reveals that more than respecting
the core workings of the blogging world, the place of blogging in the beauty,
fashion and luxury spheres is quite specific and should be thoroughly exam-
ined before being incorporated in an online marketing strategy.
The main questions that have arisen among luxury brands in relation to
creating or participating in blogs have been “Should we?” or “Should we
not?” and, if we should, “How should we approach the blogosphere?”, “What
strategies should we deploy?”, “How do we find the specialists that under-
stand this domain?” The quest to find answers to these questions has led
luxury brands like Chanel to invite bloggers to visit their ateliers, boutiques
and workrooms and have led other brands like Louis Vuitton to go as far as
having breakfast with a group of bloggers. These initiatives, which in them-
selves are not wrong, have however not shed the light that luxury brands were
seeking on several unclear blog-related business issues. Also, the internal
organizational set-up of several luxury brands doesn't help matters much (see
the Introduction and Chapter 5 of this topic). This is because of the relative
newness of the luxury blogosphere, which means that both bloggers and blog-
gees are still getting to grips with the key aspects of its evolution. In addition,
not many bloggers know why they even blog and there are only a handful of
people involved in the blogging world that can claim true expertise in both
the workings of blogging and the mechanics of the luxury business. So it's
no wonder that luxury brands have been asking questions about blogging while
at the same time responding to much criticism that the sector has received on
the lack of integration of blogging within the web strategy of luxury brands.
Now to the golden questions and my viewpoints:
Q.
Should luxury brands blog or not?
A.
My answer is a straight and clear no.
Q.
Should luxury brands have a corporate blog integrated on their
websites?
A.
Again I would say no.
Q.
Should luxury brands have a separate independent blog?
A.
No no no.
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