Tony Bianco's director Anthony Bianco, marketing manager Danielle Truter and PR manager Simone Marshall talk to Imogen Bailey about the changing nature of campaign shoots, content creation and the importance of storytelling for a brand.
You've been looking at implementing smaller shoots into your marketing campaign rather than traditional, bigger shoots, tell me more about it.
Simone: It's actually going to be our first season of it.
Anthony: It's funny we've been toying with the idea for probably two and a half years and I said to Sim let's do these mini-content shoots and then I backed out at the last minute and said 'no I don't think I can do it.' Because it was a big change, moving away from that beautiful shoot – the traditional marketing thing, and I did that to Sim for probably two seasons in a row. Then when I met Dani [new marketing manager] and interviewed her and in the interview it was like, 'that's what we've gotta do,' and since then, [she] came on board and that's been the change this season. Fingers crossed, if it fails, at least I can blame Dani [laughs].
Danielle: You get a little bit nervous doing it but you've got to give it a go, otherwise we won't know the outcome.
Anthony: And it's funny we were talking to someone in Sydney yesterday – a digital guy – and he was telling us that Burberry are doing the same thing; they're getting a model, and getting a photographer and then saying 'go away,' they give them a location to go to and just shoot whatever happens on the day. So with no full set, no nothing, so even the big brands are doing it which is interesting.
Danielle: And from a strategic point of view, you look at the engagement you get from a campaign perspective, you put a campaign image up on Instagram and it gets nothing.
Anthony: Like 500 likes, 600 likes they're not engaging with it.
Danielle: Yep, and if you put something up that's just been created from one of these content creators, it performs so much better because the consumer can relate a little bit more. So it just makes sense from a strategic and investment standpoint.
What is the strategy for the smaller campaigns?
Danielle: We're breaking it up in to four key trends – so we're going to partner with a content creator for it [and for] I think each one, we're going to get the same amount of images as we would on our bigger campaigns.
Anthony: If not more.
Danielle: You know, four times what we'd naturally produce out of one campaign.
Anthony: And then we can do what we call, mini-mini campaigns, where it's like a smaller thing we want to push or a shoe, or even get a micro influencer and do that as well. I suppose the other thing [is], it gets us closer to the mark of what's working. So back when we used to do the campaign shoot, I would have to pick all the shoes now, that are going to go on six months worth of campaigns, so I'd have to try and pick the right shoes for six months of looks. Now we can sort of say, 'ok, if something's on, if something's on fire, let's shoot a mini-campaign in the next week and push this look,' so that's a real plus.
Danielle: And [we can] identify the content creators that speak to whatever trend we're trying to talk to or whatever our key messages are and partner with them, which is really exciting, because they can kind of be a part of that whole conversation and bring their audience in to our brand as well.
Tony Bianco is a well-known Australian brand, why do you need to keep making content?
Anthony: I suppose the last three to five years since the whole Instagram thing has really been the forefront of all of this, we see direct sales and the growth is phenomenal. The amount of girls that come in to store and say 'oh have you go this?' or if we're posting something and that shoe the following week just goes bananas or if it's on Kim Kardashian or whoever we've got these shoes on, the sales have just gone through the roof. So we get all this data.
Danielle: Content is key too, you have to have it. It goes back to storytelling as well, we have to constantly have a running dialogue.
Anthony: And the results are there. It's so evident to the point where now that shoe we post this week can sell an extra 50 pairs on the week before on sales. That's the power of it.
And internationally, what it's done for us internationally. In terms of our US business, now with Nordstrom, Revolve – we just launched in Nordstrom stores last week – so I think, just because it's working.
The Tony Bianco Instagram utilises the new shopping feature, what are the reasons for implementing this?
Danielle: We're still kind of tracking it, but I think it's important that we put it in there so that we can figure it out.
Anthony: I thought it was going to be stronger, I thought that, but yeah it hasn't been as big as we thought. It's early days still, with that. I think with us here, as I said before, in this space, you really have to be trying, you have to be innovative and trying stuff, you can't just wait any more. So anything that's new, you've got to be having a go, really.
Simone: And also, with the strategy on the Instagram, prior to the shopping coming on board, we implemented very early on that within the hashtags we'd always put the style of the shoe or the boot in, so it became an opportunity for the consumer to go and search that shoe online. From that, we did see a really big increase in the specifics of shoes being googled, so then what we were able to do from that over a period of time through our SEO's, was start targeting specific shoe names. So for instance when our Kiki shoe was really big or our Diddy boot, they were ones that girls now know by name. So it was really important for the brand to have that as a strategy, before the shopping links were there, so that we could educate the girls on the styles and the best-selling styles and the ones that they absolutely had to have.
Has the footwear industry ever seen consumers knowing style names before?
Anthony: No I haven't seen it as much as I do today. Go back prior to this, no – I mean a little bit, but not people knowing the names of our shoes to this level – this has definitely opened that up a lot more. We track, like Sim said, on the website people keying in the names, like each week it's Kiki, it's Diddy, Brazen, Bello, they're keying in those shoe names into our search [bar] on our website, definitely seen an increase there.
You can't deny it, it's very powerful. And that's why we want to lead in this area. And I'm really excited about this season to be honest, you know we're going to have constant newness, constant different shoes, constant different looks each couple of weeks, it's really exciting.
Simone: And [it] allows us to showcase a lot more of the footwear through these mini-shoots. You know, when you do a normal shoot you have to pick your 10 best styles, like Anthony was saying before, now we're picking 10 every month, and creating a look. Like Dani was saying before, we've got trends now, so instead of just picking the best one of that trend, we're now picking the top five to 10 of that trend and really giving it a really big push, across the content.
Anthony: We live by the motto, it's about speed. They're wanting it now, they're not going to wait six months, if it's on now, it's on now. This [social media] gives us the ability to say, 'Sierra shoe's on, can we get a little mini content shoot done, whack it on Instagram, get the order, deliver it, bang.'
Simone: And then be able to make really quick decisions about re-ordering. We do little testers in our Melbourne Central store as well, bringing it in to retail. So if Anthony's got a style that he can bring in for just 12 pairs to just test it, he puts it in Melbourne Central and that will give him a read from a retail perspective as well, to say 'we need to back this one more than we have.'
Anthony: It's not the big that eat the small, it's the fast that eat the slow.
Looking at us now, and the amount of things we're doing, whether it's here or internationally, we need more and more content to the point that we've actually just finished building our own in-house studio, that's how serious we are about it.
This article has been edited for clarity and brevity.