Forbes: How Technology Can Save Retailers

Forbes writes recently about how the fashion industry can benefit from understanding and adopting new mediaopportunities, including virtual worlds.

‘For the fashion industry, traditionally a late adopter of technology, it has been a particularly steep learning experience even though pre-teens and teens directly and indirectly control billions of dollars in purchasing power.’

Creating deeper and more emotive based relationships with this hard to reach demographic (such an over-used term – apologies) is the key and this means going way beyond the TV spot.

‘Today, Stockholm-based Stardoll features more than 330 dolls and tens of thousands of virtual garments and accessories. It is also the No. 1 site worldwide for pre-teen and teen girls, according to comScore. The site has over 7 million unique visitors per month and 16 million registered users from 200 countries.

Compare these numbers to TeenVogue, Conde Nast’s magazine that targets the same demographic and has less than 3 million readers. TeenVogue’s mission statement says: “Style-conscious girls everywhere know there’s only one source for relevant fashion and beauty news communicated in a sophisticated tone with the power of the Vogue brand. In a time of expanding media choices, true authority is irreplaceable–and unmistakable.’

This story echoes the recent Adweek article about how ad agencies also need to get up to speed.

Related: K Zero Luxury Brands case study

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