Final Newsletter

https://www.smore.com/gw3cx

Social Media Monitoring Part 2

Last time, we talked about social account of supreme, and reviewed it generally.In this post I would like to visit the campaign and go further in depth to see how their social media presence and public relations can be assessed and how it can be improved.

Just like Apple, Supreme do a bad feedback with its customer. But, what we read in our textbook, it had been saying that, there should be genius companies that make some different. Steve Jobs had said that customers do not know what they want, but I will design it. 

Every Thursday, Supreme will release a new wave of clothes through online stores and international retail stores (Japan is every Saturday), but they never say what will be released next. This allows Supreme to gain brand power and organic traffic every week through the viral community and large websites, because fans want to know what's next.

Supreme's limited supply strategy created a demand frenzy, so that when New York stores sold Supreme Foams shoes, they were not allowed to be sold by the New York City police due to public security concerns.

There is a limited and strategically limited release of goods, manufacturing rampage.

Supreme's products are extremely provocative, and the UGC content surrounding the brand is enough to allow Supreme to maintain an “underground” marketing status without having to pay large marketing costs.

Supreme's closest advertising content is the behind-the-scenes video that can be seen on the site.

Supreme’s official website is very different from most retail official websites in the world. You will notice that Supreme uses a concise web site theme that combines minimalism with the style of too cool for school, allowing visitors to explore more, rather than bombarding them with convoluted information. Moreover, Supreme's website design has not changed since 2006. This is a signal that supreme want you to pursue their brand not they pursue you.

Celebrity Endorsement

Supreme's celebrity endorsement actually started with cooperation with musicians. In the 1990s, Supreme began to cooperate with different musicians to promote its products. The real relationship with the musicians makes the brand gain more influence.

It goes without saying that Supreme has a storied history of collaborations: be it with sportswear giants like Nike; contemporary artists like Damien Hirst; industrial design brands like Braun; or filmmakers like David Lynch and Harmony Korine, the downtown Manhattan powerhouse has built and maintained strong creative ties across all areas of culture.

Three 6 Mafia, 2012

Supreme has always had hip-hop’s swagger and street sensibility in its DNA, so a collaboration with Memphis rap’s godfathers and Academy Award winners Three 6 Mafia came as a match made in heaven. In addition to a much sought-after graphic tee featuring DJ Paul and Juicy J in full Supreme regalia (including a box-logo double-cup), the group also contributed a smoked-out video teaching viewers a chicken wing recipe.

Lady Gaga, 2011

Mother Monster was at the peak of her powers in 2011 and Terry Richardson’s steamy photoshoot and resultant campaign—which showcased Gaga clad in little else but a soaked box logo tee— was nothing if not instantly iconic. While no t-shirt was produced from this campaign, Richardson’s lurid shots of Gaga ended up wheat-pasted all over downtown New York and proved to be an instant hit, in both branding and guerrilla marketing terms.

When you find that an advertising marketing approach works, then you keep doing it.

Corporation with Other brands

In May 2013, Supreme released the first Ins post, selected pictures from the Lookbook, and highlighted the partners. The Ins post that was most liked in history was a collaboration with LV.

1998: Sarcastic

1999: GOODENOUGH

1999: SSUR-Plus

2001：WTAPS

2001: Union NYC

2002: A Bathing Ape

2005: John Smedley

2006: NEIGHBORHOOD

2006: UNDERCOVER

2006: aNYthing

2007：FILA

2007: Futura Laboratories

2007: Nike

2007: The North Face

2008: visvim

2008: OriginalFake

2009: Hanes

2009: APC

2010：Thom Browne

2010: Champion

2010: Stussy

2011：Adam Kimmel

2011：Levi's

2011：Liberty of London

2011: Schott NYC

2012: Comme des Garçons SHIRT

2014: Brooks Brothers

2014:Stone Island

2016: Jordan Brand

016:Aquascutum

2016:Sasquatchfabrix

2016:Timberland

2017: Lacoste

2017: Vanson Leathers

2017:Louis Vuitton

SWOT:

a) Howsociable

Aforementioned, videos on Youtube are the closest advertisement of Supreme, so there is no doubt that the Youtube are high. 

Wealthsimple, an investment company in New York, found that if you resell 149 Supreme products, each product's average profit is 67 US dollars, then you can get 10,000 US dollars in profits each year; if you invest 10,000 US dollars each year, the market grows on average each year 5.5%, then you can become a millionaire in 35 years.

It is true that most e-commerce companies cannot replicate this approach because business models lack scarcity and consistency. Here we can look at Supreme's pretty business growth curve:

b)Google Trends:

In  the upper two pictures, we would say that they are basically in same trend. We examined 12 month and 90 days on the trend, and when implementing on Youtube research, Palace has a peak on May 6th. It is because it opened their second store in New York. 

c) Social Mention:

It is showed apparently that Palace is not as popular as Supreme. 

Palace is the top 1 skateboard brand in UK, and target market are basically the same. In the 17th THE NORTH FACE joint of Supreme 17 Spring and Summer, GORE-TEX® protective outerwear from the series of THE NORTH FACE Trans Antarctica Expedition (through the Viet Nam) was used, in addition to the star-studded flag and color scheme, GORE-TEX® Words have become extremely obvious.Coincidentally, PALACE also used GORE-TEX® to create a “shop-qualified” waterproof jacket at the just-opened New York store. Of course, the same situation still existed in conjunction with THE NORTH FACE in the Fall 16 and the PALACE 17 spring series.

 Supreme has chosen an artist/musician to fill his brand's “cultural territory” almost every quarter since its birth, such as GUCCI MANE, Morrissey, Neil Young, or rumoured king Michael Jackson. PALACE seems to have begun to apply similar designs to single products in recent years, such as 2pac in the previous quarter and Elton John in this season.

PALACE (at least for now) has no plan to create a topic with joint products.

They also have an incredible limited supply mechanism, which is a good way to increase the value of the brand's secondary market.PALACE is more modern and more reliant on the Internet and diverse media.

Although this is a bit tricky - James Jebbia wouldn't skateboard when he set up Supreme; Lev Tanju might be skateboarding when he built PALACE. 

So if you look at this "misunderstanding" extension clue, Supreme's kernel is more like a tribute to the skateboard (street) culture, and for the PALACE brand's kernel, skateboarding is life.

Target Market:

The target audience of Palace and Supreme are basically young Individuals. 

Suggestion:

 After examples showed of Palace, I have several suggestion for Supreme. Although the simple design of website are cool,  but maybe too old fashioned in nowadays. There should be more interesting things that demonstrate the brand. More engaged into social groundswell would be better and focus more on positive feedback to customers. 

Conclusion:

Focus on the growth of one or more social media channels. You can't take it all on all channels. You can find ways to spread the information that target users are most interested in and focus on the input.

Increase investment in the most effective advertising method. Supreme has insisted on photo T-shirts and poster marketing for more than a decade. They did not switch back and forth between the various marketing channels, and they still insisted on the old methods. Find the marketing method that best suits your business and stick to it.

Use these two e-commerce rules: scarcity, persistence. By limiting the number of products and regularly updating them, then the formation of a continuous product sales rule.

What do you think?

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