Raise your hand if you’re obsessed with J. Crew! I’ll put both of my hands in the air for good measure. It seems that I’ve caught the J. Crew fever and I’m not the only one. A once tired and lost brand has been completely revamped and is sweeping the nation.
Sales have doubled in the last seven years for the company in spite of the recession and an expansion plan overseas is in the works. Vice President and Creative Director of the company, Jenna Lyons, is a genius in my opinion and continues to move J. Crew forward with designs that customers love. She’s also taken bold moves to set the company apart from others. One of those bold moves includes debuting the recent Fall Collection via Pinterest.
I am an avid Pinterest curator (yes, curator) and was ecstatic to discover that J. Crew would be debuting their Fall Collection on the social platform. Needless to say the night before the launch (August 18) I dreamed of merino wool skirts, peacoats and cashmere sweaters.
Pinterest is so interactive and allows users to pin things they want and revisit them later. The pins never disappear off my boards so I’ve come to think of them as my fashion sticky notes- reminders of outfit inspirations for a later date. As with a lot of boards on Pinterest, items are aspirational which is a category J. Crew would love to be in. What brand wouldn’t want to be on someone’s little luxaries board?
From an advertising stand point, a perk of debuting a collection on Pinterest is the fact that you can see immediate response from customers. It almost acted as a focus group because the company could see what would be the best-sellers and receive real-time feedback and that wouldn’t be the case if they had simply rolled out the collection on their website.
Other brands are catching on and are debuting collections via social media. Late this summer Oscar de la Renta debuted their collection via Instagram.
What do you think of brands beginning to roll out collections via social platforms?
2024 Predictions
Thanks to everyone who responded to our 2024 Predictions survey last month. While the sample size wasn’t quite the size of a Pew or Nielsen,