Chanel's holiday 2018 make-up and skincare campaign starring Lily-Rose Depp. Image credit: Chanel
By Mickey Alam Khan
Chanel has been declared 2018’s most-loved fashion brand on Facebook, based on the number of Love reactions posted by fans to its posts and quantity of content shares.
Louis Vuitton and Versace were in second and third place, followed by Carolina Herrera and Gucci. The findings from Crisp Labs’ Luxury Social Reactions Index (LSRI) 2018 report list the top luxury fashion brands on Facebook in 2018.
“Chanel is excellent at telling the story behind the brand,” said Julia Ruane, head of PR and content at Crisp, London. “They draw people in by sharing their history and what goes on behind the scenes, such as their video post showing house ambassador Margot Robbie and her preparation for the 2018 Oscars, or their Handbag Stories series that highlights the detailing that goes into the creation of those stunning pieces.
“They also very skilled at using social to share their spectacular shows to best extent,” she said. “The videos of the Grand Palais runway shows are master-classes in how to bring the experience to the viewer, giving you a sense of the whole event as well as closeups on particular details and elements of the design.”
The Facebook-focused study identified brands that generated the most Love from fans over the year, most shareable content and that had the biggest standout moments.
Per the report, Chanel generated more than 350,000 Love reactions this year on its Facebook posts, ahead of Louis Vuitton’s 298,000 and Versace’s 269,000.
Chanel’s most Loved and most-shared post of the year was its Spring-Summer Ready-to-Wear 2019 show (see video).
Chanel's spring-summer 2019 fashion show in Paris
Crisp Labs’ report analysed more than 15,000 Facebook posts published Jan. 1 through Dec. 14 by the top 38 global luxury fashion brands. Crisp Labs is the research arm of
Crisp, a social media monitoring firm.
Top 10 most-loved luxury fashion brands on Facebook, ranked by popularity
- Chanel
- Louis Vuitton
- Versace
- Carolina Herrera
- Gucci
- Dior
- Giorgio Armani
- Dolce & Gabbana
- Michael Kors
- Jimmy Choo
Crisp Labs had no way of knowing if this Facebook affinity translated into sales, Ms. Ruane pointed out.
The report also examined brands that generated Love as a percentage of all reactions, rather than volumes of Love emojis posted. It found that Kenzo, another French luxury fashion label, topped the chart.
Indeed, with just fewer than 1 million followers on its Facebook page – versus 19 million for Chanel and 16 million for Dior – Kenzo’s fans were most likely to post a Love reaction, with 26.8 percent of the reactions from Kenzo fans to its posts being the Love emoji.
This compares strongly to brands such as Prada, whose fans only showed Love 4.7 percent of the time, despite having nearly seven times as many Facebook fans, according to Crisp Labs.
Kenzo’s
most Loved post of 2018 was its announcement of Britney Spears as the new face of the brand. That post generated more than 1,000 shares, with 47 percent of reactions from fans being the Love emoji.
Kenzo's most-Loved post of 2018 showing performer Britney Spears as the new face of the brand. Image credit: Kenzo
Top 10 most-shared luxury fashion brands on Facebook in 2018
- Chanel
- Dior
- Gucci
- Louis Vuitton
- Dolce & Gabbana
- Versace
- Giorgio Armani
- Carolina Herrera
- Prada
- Kate Spade New York
Overall, Chanel posts were shared 343,000 times, which was the highest level of shares of brands that Crisp Labs analyzed. Close behind was French fashion peer Dior, whose posts were shared 324,000 times over 2018.
Dior also had the second most shared post of the year, with its “Dior Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2018 – The Hurel atelier” (see
video), which highlighted the detail and attention that went into creating a dress called “Songe” that means “dream.”
Dior's most-shared post on Facebook in 2018. Image credit: Dior
That said, high levels of shares do not necessarily translate into something good.
When Michael Kors announced its “My Next” smartwatch, the
video post was shared nearly 7,000 times and generated more than 10,000 comments – the most comments generated by any post in the Crisp Labs study.
However, upon examining the comments, Crisp Labs noticed a high level of negativity from Facebook fans.
Comment criticizing the Michael Kors "My Next" smartwatch. Image credit: Michael Kors
Reaction to Michael Kors smartwatch. Image credit: Michael Kors
Luxury fashion brands generating the most humor in 2018
Not all luxury brands got it right this year, per Crisp Labs.
Versace had the dubious honor of the post with the most Haha reactions from fans. This was in response to a picture of Jennifer Lopez wearing a pair of denim boots from the Versace 2019 collection. This post generated nearly 8,000 Haha reactions, with comments focusing on how the boots looked like her jeans had fallen down.
Boot, or jeans falling down? Versace takes flak. Image credit: Versace
Indeed, humor is not a usual response to Facebook posts by luxury brands.
All in all, only six posts across all brands received more than 1,000 Haha reactions, each from fans. The average number across all posts is only seven Haha reactions, with 89 percent of posts receiving this number of Haha reactions or less.
Criticism of a brand’s design is often one of the main causes for this situation.
That did not deter Tom Ford.
Taking a stab at humor with its
video showing behind-the-scenes clips with Celeste Barber, the Tom Ford video generated 3,655 Haha reactions, putting it in the top three most humorous posts of the year for a luxury fashion brand.
Tom Ford's video was a fit. Image credit: Tom Ford
Top 3 standout moments from luxury fashion brands on Facebook in 2018
Of all the 150,000 posts published in 2018, three stood out.
- Kate Spade New York’s post announcing the passing of the brand’s founder. This post generated more than 148,000 emotions, the majority of which (57 percent) were the Sad emoji. It also generated more than 4,500 comments and 35,000-plus shares.
- Dolce&Gabbana’s post addressing the backlash from the controversial ad campaign in China which led to its products being pulled from a number of Chinese ecommerce sites and the fashion house cancelling its Shanghai show. This generated the highest number of Angry reactions from fans, at 1,400, which was 50 percent of all reactions to that post.
- Louis Vuitton’s post announcing Emma Stone as the newest muse for the label. This generated the highest number of reactions for any post by any luxury fashion brand in 2018. In fact, it was the only post to generate more than 1 million reactions from fans.
The response to the Emma Stone post appointment shows that influencers – from A-list celebrities to reality stars – are proving effective for brands to generate love from fans on social media, the research found.
Of course, as with other sectors that use high-profile influencers, luxury brands should monitor these influencers and the associated events around them to avoid bringing the marketer into disrepute.
Love bytes
The Crisp Labs research is designed to give an idea of what works best on social media platforms such as Facebook, highlighting which brands generate strong engagement from their fans with the relevant messaging.
What the report also confirms is Facebook’s relevance, even as the platform is hammered from all sides over its influence in global politics.
Instagram, another social platform owned by Facebook, currently seems to be belle of the ball. But that is no excuse for luxury marketers not to up their game on Facebook.
“Yes, absolutely, but it's not a case of one versus the other,” Crisp’s Ms. Ruane said. “Both have their place.
“Instagram is about discovery, it's about keeping on top of new trends and being part of the fashion zeitgeist and, of course, it's very visual,” she said.
“Facebook, on the other hand, is more about telling the story behind the brand. It's an opportunity to build up a more in-depth relationship with fans. It's also easier to create a flow to other areas, such as the brand's Web site or a campaign site, than on Instagram. This fits well with the Facebook algorithms which reward brands that encourage engagement and interaction.”
While there are differences in content posted on the platforms, the user base is distinct, too.
Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest currently rank as the top three mass social platforms for luxury fashion, although Snapchat does get interest as well.
“In terms of audience, you can look at the general stats which show that Instagram is favored by the under-30s, whereas Facebook tends to draw an older audience,” Ms. Ruane said.
“Pinterest, meanwhile, has a much smaller user base and a more diverse spread of age ranges,” she said.
“But those figures are generalized, not specific to the fashion industry, where age truly doesn't make a difference when it comes to style. Instead my suggestion would be to focus on the strengths of each platform, and how fans like to interact with brands on each.”
