In 30 seconds:
- Younger audiences are flocking to TikTok, and they’re becoming increasingly receptive to luxury brands.
- Marketing strategies that capture this group’s attention and inspire Gen Z will have a valuable audience whose opinions can make or break brands online.
- We’re taking you through the best performing luxury brands on TikTok – and what you can learn from them.
At first glance, you may not spy the opportunity for luxury brands on TikTok – a social media platform often misunderstood as a dance app for tweens. There’s a perception that Instagram is a more natural choice, given its polished aesthetic.
But in 2022, TikTok and luxury brands are a match made in heaven.
Firstly, TikTok’s 1.2 billion active user population is 70% Gen Z. Gen Z currently has $143 billion in total spending power, and by 2025, millennials and Gen Z will contribute 130% of the growth in the personal luxury goods market.
They also hold influence across what their family purchases, too.
Secondly, luxury brands should be at the forefront of brand experiences. Over recent years, digital has become even more important to create luxurious touch points for brands.
Lockdowns have prevented many consumers from engaging with products in real life. TikTok offers luxury brands the opportunity to engage with their customers on a deeper level. TikTok’s short-form videos are an excellent channel for immersive storytelling.
These 5 luxury brands are great examples of how to leverage TikTok to connect with new, younger audiences.
Luxury Brand #1: Moncler
For Moncler‘s viral #MonclerBubbleUp branded hashtag challenge, the brand worked with the platform’s most followed TikTok users, including Charli D’Amelio. The challenge videos featured Moncler’s signature padded coat and encouraged users to recreate the look with found items: a sleeping bag, fluffy robe, or even soft toys.
The videos were set to the song Bubble by 24hrs, feat. Ty Dolla $ign, which features the line, “all up in a Moncler bubble”.
In paid ad versions, influencers first created the Moncler puffer coat with random objects, then transitioned to modelling the actual jacket. With over 6.5 billion TikTok views, this challenge successfully introduced the Italian high fashion brand to Gen Z on TikTok.
Moncler’s success on TikTok uses three tried-and-tested successful TikTok marketing strategies. Firstly, they featured an easy-to-recreate challenge: anyone can wrap themselves up in a blanket. Secondly, they used a catchy, trendy song: an important factor for engaging videos on TikTok. Finally, they strategically used top TikTok influencers, ensuring high reach and deep engagement from their huge followings.
Luxury Brand #2: Gucci
Fashion house Gucci was one of the earliest luxury brands on TikTok. Gucci leveraged both paid and organic marketing.
Their #accidentalinfluencer campaign was their first foray which promoted their vintage-inspired Gucci Tennis 1977 sneakers with videos featuring bespoke choreography for TikTok, bringing in 2.5 million views (and counting).
The brand also benefited from the organic #guccimodelchallenge. TikTok content creators started dressing in the brand’s style, using items they already owned. This was inspired by Gucci‘s fashion show aesthetic and influencer marketing.
When this ‘Gucci model’ meme started growing on TikTok, Gucci tapped into it early on, creating their own version of the funny challenge. The result? The video was received so well, its viral success was covered by British Vogue.
Gucci also reposted the user-generated content from the trend onto their official TikTok profile. That’s not all – they also mentioned in their captions that some of these users would be part of an upcoming project with Gucci.
Luxury brands can learn from Gucci‘s example of keeping an eye out for organic content. Gucci were able to leverage trends and memes to keep the brand relevant on the platform. They demonstrated a fun side, leaning into fashion industry comments about their brand aesthetic. Finally, their videos were edited using native TikTok effects and trending audio, meaning they blended naturally into people’s feeds instead of looking like sponsored ad content.
Luxury Brand #3: Fenty Beauty
Fenty Beauty takes a disruptive approach to TikTok: they started the first branded TikTok house in early 2020. Fenty’s TikTok strategy has seen the luxury beauty brand produce unique, often viral content that communicates the brand’s values and personality.
This edgy beauty brand is fronted by Rihanna, who often makes an appearance on the brand’s page. But she’s not the only face you’ll see: Fenty Beauty features models and influencers of many ethnicities. Diversity and inclusion are core to the brand’s proposition, and this extends to all Fenty Beauty’s marketing efforts.
Fenty Beauty’s videos are produced by ‘in-the-know’ Gen Z influencers, who use trending audio and reference pop culture trends. The content looks and feels fresh and relevant. Additionally, these TikTok influencers have the inside track on how to create the most engaging videos and hack the TikTok algorithm to send their videos viral.
Gen Z find user-generated content helpful for learning more about products. They are more likely to purchase from brands who feature diverse models. They trust influencers more than more traditional forms of marketing.
It’s a powerful recipe. Fenty Beauty comes across as genuine, likeable and trustworthy on TikTok. At the time of writing, they have 1 million followers on TikTok .
Luxury brand #4: Burberry
British fashion house Burberry are unafraid to take risks on TikTok, opting for creative campaigns that harness what Gen Z loves about the social media platform. For brands trying to understand this, we wrote about what you can learn from Gen Z‘s relationship with TikTok here.
Burberry has seen success on TikTok through both spurring user-generated content and campaigns that demonstrate an affiliation with the Gen Z mindset.
In 2021, Burberry challenged TikTok content creators to create short videos in the style of nature documentaries (think David Attenborough), to promote its collection inspired by the British countryside. The brand worked with TikTok influencers to spread the word, who were each styled in pieces from the collection.
The audio for the challenge features a voiceover, “slowly, they emerge from their winter den and rejoin the world outside. Watch as they tread carefully into the wild and see what they discover.” The commentary provides room for comedy and relatability, as everyone has been shut inside over the pandemic.
More recently, Burberry has focused on introspective campaigns, including the #AreYouHappy TikTok campaign that explored mental health. We dug into why this was so impactful in our article here.
Luxury Brand #5: Dior
Dior was also one of the first luxury fashion brands to embrace TikTok. The French fashion house took their SS21 fashion show live to TikTok, using the social media platform to communicate with a young audience in real time.
Dior joined Saint Laurent, JW Anderson and Louis Vuitton in holding TikTok fashion shows, as London, New York, Paris and Milan Fashion Week had to take a boldly different approach.
While it was undoubtedly safer, the move also makes strong business sense.
China is an integral market for luxury fashion houses, and TikTok had 400 million active Chinese users at the time (and even more now). Secondly, McKinsey and The Business of Fashion report that digital fashion shows have become essential to brand survival since the pandemic. Chinese customers are incredibly receptive to livestream (two thirds of Chinese consumers bought via livestream over the last year). Thirdly, TikTok’s social commerce support means brands can expect not just awareness, but actual sales from digital shows held on TikTok.
Entering the competition
Luxury brands on TikTok should embrace the challenge of communicating on this new platform to be at the forefront of trends, create high-end experiences, communicate authenticity, brand stories and values.
This is a great time for luxury brands to be on TikTok. Especially as TikTok is increasing its internal shopping features. TikTok’s social commerce potential is set to explode this year.
For luxury brands entering the space, there’s much to learn from its best-performing players. We listed 5 above, but we’ve got more to share.
Our report on the Luxury brands on TikTok breaks down the luxury campaigns of TikTok‘s top players – and shows you what you can learn from them. It’s free to download – you’ll find it here.
Alternatively, you can Get in touch to find out how we can help you today. Fanbytes are leaders in capturing Gen Z’s attention, and have skyrocketed luxury and challenger brands on the platform.
Looking for more information on how to market your luxury brand to Gen Z? Check out these links below:
