【Luxury Brands and SNS】
Twenty years of transforming branding from a "medium" to an "experience"
For luxury and designer brands, SNS is not just a promotional platform.
Since the late 2000s, it has been incorporated as a "brand experience design device" that brands themselves tell stories, showcase, encourage participation, and sometimes lead to purchases. Here, focusing on verifiable historical events, we organize how SNS has changed luxury branding.
【1 The earliest turning point】
In 2009, brands began creating their own "social experiences."
Before SNS became the main battlefield, an iconic example was Burberry's "Art of the Trench." Launched in 2009, this project collected portraits of people wearing trench coats and functioned as a digital platform based on posting and sharing. It was designed not as brand advertising but as user-participation editing to cultivate "iconic culture."
Around the same time, Louis Vuitton attempted to live stream runway shows on Facebook. It was reported that in 2009, they live-broadcasted a ready-to-wear show on Facebook, making it an early example of luxury expanding the "show scene" online.
What was happening at this stage was not just increased exposure but a reorganization of the "order of viewing," which was the source of the brand's authority.
【2 Real-time shift】
In 2011, shows began to be released on SNS beforehand.
In 2011, Burberry held a "Tweetwalk" at London Fashion Week, posting photos of looks just before hitting the runway on Twitter. It was reported that online followers saw the new collection before the audience at the venue.
What was established here was a shift in the value of fashion shows from "viewed only by a select few" to "topics trending simultaneously worldwide." SNS became the engine that news-ified and spread brand announcements.
【3 After Instagram】
The birth in 2010 shifted luxury expression towards a focus on images.
Instagram is organized as having been released in October 2010.
Since then, luxury brand communication has been reorganized around "visuals that can stand alone" rather than text. Campaigns, backstage footage, snippets from shows, close-ups of craftsmanship. Visual editing has become the brand's storytelling style.
【4 The evolution of SNS in the Chinese market followed a different trajectory】
WeChat became a "customer contact point" before it became a "public relations" tool.
In China, SNS has become increasingly important not only as a public platform but also as a closed customer contact point. WeChat launched its official account feature in 2012, and in November of the same year, Louis Vuitton is said to have opened its first official account in China.
This means that for luxury brands, SNS has expanded from being a "broad dissemination platform" to also being a "platform for maintaining individual relationships."
Furthermore, in 2016, Dior sold a limited edition Lady Dior on WeChat, reported as the first example of directly selling luxury handbags within an app.
In 2018, Dior (Beauty) was also reported as the "industry first" for conducting live streaming sales through WeChat's mini-program.
Here, SNS has become a vessel not just for advertising media but directly for sales and customer experience.
【5 The Impact of TikTok】
Around 2020, brands were forced to adapt to short videos and UGC.
Around 2020, TikTok rapidly expanded its influence in fashion, being discussed as a new circuit for brands to reach younger audiences through live streaming of shows. Vogue summarized how TikTok changed fashion, including the ways multiple brands broadcast and spread their content.
Additionally, the hashtag culture related to Gucci, such as "Gucci Model Challenge," became a hot topic, and it was reported how the brand engaged with phenomena on TikTok.
What is important here is that the structure has become visible where the brand's worldview expands not only through "videos created by the brand" but also through "videos imitated and reproduced by users."
【6 Three roles that SNS has brought to luxury】
Changes in branding visible from historical facts
When organizing this series of flows based on historical facts, the roles that SNS has played can be summarized into three major points.
Firstly, the brand itself becomes a media entity that edits content.
Like Art of the Trench, speaking of icons as cultural accumulations rather than advertisements.
Secondly, the simultaneous announcement and newsification.
Like Tweetwalk, where the buzz arises outside the show first.
Thirdly, the integration of customer contact points and purchasing.
As demonstrated by official account operations on WeChat, limited edition sales, and live streaming sales, SNS is increasingly approaching store functions.
The relationship between luxury and SNS should be understood not as a simple story of "exposure increasing," but as a reorganization of the era where the device for conveying brand value could no longer be limited to print and stores.
In conclusion: thoughts as MOOD
For MOOD, SNS functions more as an entry point to reading material rather than a place to complete the story.
Create interest pathways with reels and posts, then guide them to the web, carefully preserving background, historical facts, and context. This is the basic flow of the design.
SNS moves quickly, and information flows rapidly. On the other hand, the value of archives and luxury is characterized by increasing clarity when read multiple times, rather than being consumed in a short duration.
Therefore, MOOD provides an entrance in videos and grounds and resolution on the web. By doing so, we aim to deliver messages that are built up not just as impressions but as convincing understandings.
