How to advertise a luxury streetwear brand?

[DeletedUser0287]

Anti Social Social Club, the guy made it. With crappy designs and not high quality materials. There website sucks too.

But a celebrity wore it and well thats where all the value came from. I don't think if a celebrity wore ASSC, it would be dead like any other.

 

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[DST]

I don't really like the question "why is this worth $xxx" because people will rationalise and come up with shit excuses that a lot of other brands also have but doesn't really say much about the reality. People will either buy it or not, without much conscious thought, especially in something like a $300 shirt. And its also an art component to it, and I can't really wrap my head around most of expensive art out there.

Luxury brands can have high quality, but high quality usually isn't the reason for why we choose it. People don't buy Louis Vuitton bags because they are going to last after wear and tear. In fact they're usually very cautious of its use.

Back to 2-iconic. Pricing is the most effective marketing tool. A $300 shirt puts you in a very small minority segment few are usually willing to pay for. Most likely, no marketing efforts you can come up with will make me buy it for instance. You should find those who're more potent and might be willing to do so. I'm gonna guess you can't find somebody willing to pay that much who haven't done it previously, because its seen as high risk purchase (risk as in you don't get any acknowledgement for its high price). People who buy for that price probably want acknowledgement for it. So maybe try to find others who have previously bought clothing in that price range and see how you can appeal to them.


As for the items itself. I'm somewhat aware of the niche subcultures who use this type, but it still looks cheap and screams kitsch (which is 2-ironic since you worried about ads being cheap). If you paid a designer money for those designs you'd probably be dissatisfied. But just because you did them yourself you think its worth a lot. Its sellable for some, but maybe not for that price yet.

 

[deep singh]

Recently, I have reached the marketing stage for my brand.

Hi Kase,

Have you got to the "selling" stage for your brand yet?

If not, do that first.

Work on the brand, the following, the legend that is 2-ICONIC later.

First see if you anyone will buy it.

And you do that today, by walking out of the door and in to a clothing store.

Do it by hand, and then work on Instagram and Facebook stuff later.

You say that "there is the easy and popular option of Instagram/Facebook adds". While entering the market via IG and FB is easy, gaining traction isn't because EVERYONE is on there doing it.

Forget influencer marketing now, and try selling one of your t-shirts today.

Here is a tried and tested strategy by either Daymond John or Stussy or The Hundreds. I can't remember who. Maybe they all did it. You do it too.

1 - Get a friend (ideally an attractive woman) to walk into a store and ask for your brand by name. Do that today.

2 - Do it again with another friend next week.

3 - On Friday of the second week, walk in to the store with some samples, and ask if they'd like to take an order, sale of return.

4 - Take the order and then order the shirts.

Reply to this thread and tell us what happened.

And by the way, I think your stuff looks good. Nice one.

 

[Kase]

You must insert the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service in the footer and organize everything a bit better so it looks nicer visually. As for the logo, I don't think the barb wire blends in nicely with the letters. The name gets lost and it's hard to even read. The name should be the main element, and the barb wire should be the supporting element. Again this is just in my opinion.



Brand awareness ads are paid promotions that will expose your brand to new people. You're not selling anything through them. They are just there to get peoples attention. Something in the lines of people wearing your clothes and doing something random/cool. Another example would be cool graphics with your logo somewhere in them. You're not pushing your products but you're making people aware of them. Maybe they like the picture, they check out your account and follow you. They can become buyers later on.

You can do this organically by using hashtags and liking, commenting and following other accounts but it will take much longer.

You can do a combination of both paid and organic reach.


I am not very familiar with specific trademarking rules.

UX is short for User eXperience. Get some books or read articles on e-commerce UX design. You can learn how to design your website and product pages that will guide the user to purchase something.


You have no info at all and no size guide. Check out this Kenzo sweatshirt description.

A classic wardrobe piece, this sweatshirt Tiger KENZO is made elegant with its sleek lines and refined finishes. Versatile, it enhances any outfit with its smart yet sporty style. For a casual chic look, wear it with graphic printed trousers and black boots.

Long-sleeved sweatshirt.
Round neck.
Tiger embroidered on the front.
Ribbed collar, cuffs and hem.
100% cotton.
Size Guide (link to size guide table with detailed info on sizes)

Thank you again Chris25 for your response! Working on implementing these changes and making note of your advice!

 

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[Kase]

IMO, just forget about the luxury part and just focus on the streetwear part if you're adamant on going this route.
Doing luxury + streetwear is basically fighting two gigantic world wars at the same time at this point.

Also, if you want to build nice, beautiful websites, learning from those streetwear websites like that Heron Preston site, is a bad idea. Most streetwear labels have ugly clothing designs and ugly site designs. Not sure if they deliberately designed it that way, but they can all get away with it because they already have great connections (read: celeb backing).

One thing I realize about the whole underground streetwear culture niche, is that it's hard to succeed unless you've "street cred". Meaning you're a rapper / some kind of celeb / grew up in the "hood".
If you hang around enough on the Reddit /streetwear forum, you'll start to notice a pattern in terms of demographics.

Put it in a more obvious way, if you're a preppy white-collar executive working at a 9-to-5 job who goes home for dinner with his family every day, well, you likely lack the "street cred" that these streetwear brands have.

I agree with your comment regarding "street cred." I think influencer marketing is crucial to advertise a street wear brand.
Thank you Xeno!

 

[Kase]

I

Anti Social Social Club, the guy made it. With crappy designs and not high quality materials. There website sucks too.

But a celebrity wore it and well thats where all the value came from. I don't think if a celebrity wore ASSC, it would be dead like any other.

I agree with you, the trick is getting them to wear it.

 

[Jonny Blaze]

Hello Fastlane,
I am new here. For the past 5 months, I have been working on a clothing brand called 2-ICONIC. Recently, I have reached the marketing stage for my brand. My product is finished and currently being produced, now it is time for me to create a marketing strategy. Today, there is the easy and popular option of Instagram/Facebook adds. My experience with these adds as a consumer has made them unattractive for the reasons that follow: brands that use Instagram/Facebook adds have a feel of "cheapness" to them. One of the advertisements may be a bracelet that is free, all you have to do is pay for shipping. Multiple advertisements like this create a cheesy worn out strategy that leaves the market full of cheaply made dropshipped products. Several of these adds pollute the general quality of products within that specific advertising market, making the advertisements somewhat unofficial for other brands and grouping them with the dropshipped products.

Influencer marketing interests me but seems unfeasible. In this circumstance, it is highly probable other aspiring entrepreneurs have the same idea. It is posted on almost any "learn how to market," thread. The problem with this is it creates a flood of product an influencer receives. Wasting your product and time.

My question: What is a realistic way to attract attention to my brand/media to expand through market strategies and advertising?

Website Address for more INFO on brand: 2-iconic.com

THANKYOU!

I think againstallodds hit this pretty spot on: if you're not passionate about this shit, and just want to make money you need to stop worrying about what your friends will think and just cut your losses early. This isn't the best type of business for making a lot of money in little time, you're trying to make art into a business, which is two separate realities and it seems like the two of them converging may be confusing you a little bit.

Either you have a lot of money and can pay people to do the work for you, or you do the work by yourself. That is a business. There is a lot of shit you need to be doing when it comes to running a clothing brand. Marketing and creating product should be taking up 90% of your time. From the looks of it, you're probably like 19? Right? You don't have the product to keep up with the amount of marketing you need to be doing to stir up business, so let me tell you what you do have. Alot of time. How do you get more product? Money. I'm not sure what you do with your time, but if it's not making you money and getting you closer to your goals, cut it out of your life.

If you're really passionate about your clothing brand, you should be working 2-3 jobs so you can have enough money coming in to pay your rent (move out ASAP if you haven't), put food on your table, put a little aside for a rainy day, and to buy product. Maybe those are fast food jobs, or bussing jobs, so F*cking what. This is what I'm trying to get at if it's your goal to have a successful clothing brand than the way you get there is BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.

People get bored really quickly in today's times. Especially with clothing brands who post the same F*cking shirt 10 times in 2 weeks. You need to constantly be dropping shit (IN SMALL QUANTITIES) so more and more people are seeing the product and you're testing what people like. I get what you're saying about supreme and limited availability, but that's not you. You should do small quantities so you're not sitting on the product for too long and so you can get right back to creating your next piece. Think of your Instagram as a resume. If people look at it and only see 2 pieces, they're going to look at you like a small-time brand and you won't get any attention. But if people look at it and see 50 pieces, maybe now they'll give you the time of day depending on how cool your shit is.

The best advice I can give you is: create. Keep making shit, whatever doesn't sell just give it away, make money at your jobs, buy more product, drop more shit, rinse and repeat. Always sharpen the axe and take in information that will make you smarter (like this wonderful forum)

You need to stop comparing yourself to other brands or looking at the strategies that other brands are using. You are competing with other brands creatively, people can tell when you're just dick riding or copying someone else's shit. You need to be creative. If you're not, I don't know why you're even trying to start a clothing brand. You are NOT off-white or even anything relevant for that manner. Drop the ego, and your ego is very prevalent in the price you are charging. Are you serious? I bet you if I bought that shirt, I would receive a Gildan shirt in a USPS envelope.

Now is there anything wrong with printing on Gildan shirts? No. Is there anything wrong with shipping in USPS envelopes? No. Is there something wrong with this and charging a customer $200+? Yeah. The brands that are charging that much per shirt ARE doing shit like that to enhance the customer's experience and also make their product stand out ESPECIALLY in terms of the quality of the product. They have employees traveling all over the world sourcing the best materials. You do not have that. You have a wholesale website with blanks and a screen printer in your local town, so the high price you're putting out is total bullshit.

You also have no cred dude. You're trying to fly before you can even walk. Some brands that are new can get away with this, mainly because they're dick riding off of one of their famous friends. But im guessing you don't know anyone, or else you wouldn't be on this forum. Charge normal prices so you can attract more customers, stop being so F*cking greedy. Shirts: $20-30 Longsleeves: $30-40 Jackets/Hoodies/Sweaters: $45-60

Also what the hell is your message? There's no story, no goal, no purpose, its just clothes. Like the other thousands of brands on Instagram running ads. Shit stands out to people when they can relate to it, and I can't relate to anything that doesn't have a description or any purpose. There is plenty of content on youtube for you to consume about this.

Hope this helps a little, I'm about to head out to my bartending job so I cant go much deeper into this. If you can't tell, I have been in your shoes before. Stop being a little bitch and make something happen with your hustle is the advice I would have given myself. You have thepotential dude, but potential doesnt make shit happen, drive does.

 

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[Jeff Noel]

I won't go into suggesting changes as others with way more experience than me did it already.

I only wanted to salute your attitude in this thread. At first I was expecting you to answer defensively, but you kept the discussion going and took every bit of advice with an open mind. Whatever you do, keep that attitude. People that met success already have gave you a ton of suggestion already, so take good note of those !

Keep it up and I wish you the best !

 

[Kase]

I don't really like the question "why is this worth $xxx" because people will rationalise and come up with sh*t excuses that a lot of other brands also have but doesn't really say much about the reality. People will either buy it or not, without much conscious thought, especially in something like a $300 shirt. And its also an art component to it, and I can't really wrap my head around most of expensive art out there.

Luxury brands can have high quality, but high quality usually isn't the reason for why we choose it. People don't buy Louis Vuitton bags because they are going to last after wear and tear. In fact they're usually very cautious of its use.

Back to 2-iconic. Pricing is the most effective marketing tool. A $300 shirt puts you in a very small minority segment few are usually willing to pay for. Most likely, no marketing efforts you can come up with will make me buy it for instance. You should find those who're more potent and might be willing to do so. I'm gonna guess you can't find somebody willing to pay that much who haven't done it previously, because its seen as high risk purchase (risk as in you don't get any acknowledgement for its high price). People who buy for that price probably want acknowledgement for it. So maybe try to find others who have previously bought clothing in that price range and see how you can appeal to them.


As for the items itself. I'm somewhat aware of the niche subcultures who use this type, but it still looks cheap and screams kitsch (which is 2-ironic since you worried about ads being cheap). If you paid a designer money for those designs you'd probably be dissatisfied. But just because you did them yourself you think its worth a lot. Its sellable for some, but maybe not for that price yet.

That is a good point, they are high-risk purchases because my brand doesn't have recognition yet. To obtain recognition it falls back on the original question: how to market and advertise.

Thank you for the feedback!

 

[Kase]

Hi Kase,

Have you got to the "selling" stage for your brand yet?

If not, do that first.

Work on the brand, the following, the legend that is 2-ICONIC later.

First see if you anyone will buy it.

And you do that today, by walking out of the door and in to a clothing store.

Do it by hand, and then work on Instagram and Facebook stuff later.

You say that "there is the easy and popular option of Instagram/Facebook adds". While entering the market via IG and FB is easy, gaining traction isn't because EVERYONE is on there doing it.

Forget influencer marketing now, and try selling one of your t-shirts today.

Here is a tried and tested strategy by either Daymond John or Stussy or The Hundreds. I can't remember who. Maybe they all did it. You do it too.

1 - Get a friend (ideally an attractive woman) to walk into a store and ask for your brand by name. Do that today.

2 - Do it again with another friend next week.

3 - On Friday of the second week, walk in to the store with some samples, and ask if they'd like to take an order, sale of return.

4 - Take the order and then order the shirts.

Reply to this thread and tell us what happened.

And by the way, I think your stuff looks good. Nice one.

Just made note of the 1-4 steps! Thank you Deep Singh for the suggestions and motivational comment.

 

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[Kase]

I won't go into suggesting changes as others with way more experience than me did it already.

I only wanted to salute your attitude in this thread. At first I was expecting you to answer defensively, but you kept the discussion going and took every bit of advice with an open mind. Whatever you do, keep that attitude. People that met success already have gave you a ton of suggestion already, so take good note of those !

Keep it up and I wish you the best !

I appreciate anyone who takes their time to help me with this project, can't get mad at them for that! I appreciate it man.

 

[Kase]

I think againstallodds hit this pretty spot on: if you're not passionate about this sh*t, and just want to make money you need to stop worrying about what your friends will think and just cut your losses early. This isn't the best type of business for making a lot of money in little time, you're trying to make art into a business, which is two separate realities and it seems like the two of them converging may be confusing you a little bit.

Either you have a lot of money and can pay people to do the work for you, or you do the work by yourself. That is a business. There is a lot of sh*t you need to be doing when it comes to running a clothing brand. Marketing and creating product should be taking up 90% of your time. From the looks of it, you're probably like 19? Right? You don't have the product to keep up with the amount of marketing you need to be doing to stir up business, so let me tell you what you do have. Alot of time. How do you get more product? Money. I'm not sure what you do with your time, but if it's not making you money and getting you closer to your goals, cut it out of your life.

If you're really passionate about your clothing brand, you should be working 2-3 jobs so you can have enough money coming in to pay your rent (move out ASAP if you haven't), put food on your table, put a little aside for a rainy day, and to buy product. Maybe those are fast food jobs, or bussing jobs, so f*cking what. This is what I'm trying to get at if it's your goal to have a successful clothing brand than the way you get there is BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.

People get bored really quickly in today's times. Especially with clothing brands who post the same f*cking shirt 10 times in 2 weeks. You need to constantly be dropping sh*t (IN SMALL QUANTITIES) so more and more people are seeing the product and you're testing what people like. I get what you're saying about supreme and limited availability, but that's not you. You should do small quantities so you're not sitting on the product for too long and so you can get right back to creating your next piece. Think of your Instagram as a resume. If people look at it and only see 2 pieces, they're going to look at you like a small-time brand and you won't get any attention. But if people look at it and see 50 pieces, maybe now they'll give you the time of day depending on how cool your sh*t is.

The best advice I can give you is: create. Keep making sh*t, whatever doesn't sell just give it away, make money at your jobs, buy more product, drop more sh*t, rinse and repeat. Always sharpen the axe and take in information that will make you smarter (like this wonderful forum)

You need to stop comparing yourself to other brands or looking at the strategies that other brands are using. You are competing with other brands creatively, people can tell when you're just dick riding or copying someone else's sh*t. You need to be creative. If you're not, I don't know why you're even trying to start a clothing brand. You are NOT off-white or even anything relevant for that manner. Drop the ego, and your ego is very prevalent in the price you are charging. Are you serious? I bet you if I bought that shirt, I would receive a Gildan shirt in a USPS envelope.

Now is there anything wrong with printing on Gildan shirts? No. Is there anything wrong with shipping in USPS envelopes? No. Is there something wrong with this and charging a customer $200+? Yeah. The brands that are charging that much per shirt ARE doing sh*t like that to enhance the customer's experience and also make their product stand out ESPECIALLY in terms of the quality of the product. They have employees traveling all over the world sourcing the best materials. You do not have that. You have a wholesale website with blanks and a screen printer in your local town, so the high price you're putting out is total bullshit.

You also have no cred dude. You're trying to fly before you can even walk. Some brands that are new can get away with this, mainly because they're dick riding off of one of their famous friends. But im guessing you don't know anyone, or else you wouldn't be on this forum. Charge normal prices so you can attract more customers, stop being so f*cking greedy. Shirts: $20-30 Longsleeves: $30-40 Jackets/Hoodies/Sweaters: $45-60

Also what the hell is your message? There's no story, no goal, no purpose, its just clothes. Like the other thousands of brands on Instagram running ads. sh*t stands out to people when they can relate to it, and I can't relate to anything that doesn't have a description or any purpose. There is plenty of content on youtube for you to consume about this.

Hope this helps a little, I'm about to head out to my bartending job so I cant go much deeper into this. If you can't tell, I have been in your shoes before. Stop being a little bitch and make something happen with your hustle is the advice I would have given myself. You have thepotential dude, but potential doesnt make sh*t happen, drive does.

First off, Jonny Blaze, thank you so much for the message. "Marketing and creating product should be taking up 90%." Totally agree with you on this point, you have to build recognition for people to see your product. That is why I made the post originally about marketing, I was looking to get some advice on how to market and advertise.

"This is what I'm trying to get at if it's your goal to have a successful clothing brand than the way you get there is BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY." So true...

"sh*t stands out to people when they can relate to it." Working on this now I believe it is somewhat unclear too.

Thank you again man. I will get these changes implemented soon!

 

[Scot]

First off, Jonny Blaze, thank you so much for the message. "Marketing and creating product should be taking up 90%." Totally agree with you on this point, you have to build recognition for people to see your product. That is why I made the post originally about marketing, I was looking to get some advice on how to market and advertise.

"This is what I'm trying to get at if it's your goal to have a successful clothing brand than the way you get there is BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY." So true...

"sh*t stands out to people when they can relate to it." Working on this now I believe it is somewhat unclear too.

Thank you again man. I will get these changes implemented soon!

You should go find @Jonny Blaze thread. He's been down this road and has documented a lot of it here.

 

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[ZCP]

@Kase proud of you for taking positives from all replies and for taking the step forward to begin with...... your attitude says you will do well! Rep+

 

[Jonny Blaze]

First off, Jonny Blaze, thank you so much for the message. "Marketing and creating product should be taking up 90%." Totally agree with you on this point, you have to build recognition for people to see your product. That is why I made the post originally about marketing, I was looking to get some advice on how to market and advertise.

"This is what I'm trying to get at if it's your goal to have a successful clothing brand than the way you get there is BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY." So true...

"sh*t stands out to people when they can relate to it." Working on this now I believe it is somewhat unclear too.

Thank you again man. I will get these changes implemented soon!

First off, Jonny Blaze, thank you so much for the message. "Marketing and creating product should be taking up 90%." Totally agree with you on this point, you have to build recognition for people to see your product. That is why I made the post originally about marketing, I was looking to get some advice on how to market and advertise.

"This is what I'm trying to get at if it's your goal to have a successful clothing brand than the way you get there is BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY." So true...

"sh*t stands out to people when they can relate to it." Working on this now I believe it is somewhat unclear too.

Thank you again man. I will get these changes implemented soon!

We were put on this planet to CREATE and to EVOLVE. This applies to everything.

Don't give up, you're 0.5% of the way there. You got this.

 

[Nova]

I don’t understand where the $300 price has come from. The markup must be insane. I’ve read the thread but seen no justification apart from “I’ve only had a few printed so it’s exclusive.”

 

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[windchaser]

A lot of issues I was thinking of have been addressed so I will skip and focus on piece of advice from my own brand (I launched a kids fashion brand a year ago) and also suggest you another brand (this is streetwear) that I think could inspire you.

My own experience: my brand is not luxury, but it is definitely high end with excellent quality/price. I started my customer base through my networks and with Instagram (organic and ads) and I have obtained excellent traffic from them (so I dont believe my target audience felt they were "cheap" at all), I have also done collaborations with microinfluencers and influencers but I have never paid for a post or story so far (they were happy to collaborate in exchange for the product), so dont worry if you dont have a budget, if your product is good it should mot be difficult to find microinfluencers to feature you. Actually microinfluencer collabs had the best results, at least for me. Another thing I did was collaborations with similar brands selling complementary products.

Check out BlueBananabrand, these guys have created a lot of hype for their streetstyle clothing line selling it as a way of life and adverture and they are doing an amazing job, they also use the incluencer and brand ambassador approach managing a lot of amazing user generated content that is consistent to what they sell. They don't sell clothes, they sell emotion and a way of life, and I find it a very good way to differentiate in such a competitive space.

Hope this helps!