DKNY – a Fashion Brand Personality. Brands are rapidly transitioning from the rigid campaign-based model of advertising (one-way communication via traditional channels), toward embracing (or at least learning to) – the power of Social Media. This ‘means of interaction’ has created new opportunities for brand-related, but consumer-driven online interactions to take place. Widely recognised as an early adopter of this transition, is fashion brand DKNY.
DKNY – a Fashion Brand Personality
DKNY, a fashion label of New York fashion designer Donna Karen, was founded in 1989 to expand the brands’ offerings around a younger and more affordable diffusion line. Donna Karen took inspiration from her daughter Gaby, keen to meet the needs of a new generation of women (and men), aspiring – as she calls it: “…fast fashion with an urban mind-set…” This concept proofed so popular, that other brands and labels came about: including DKNY Jeans, DKNY Active, DKNY Underwear, DKNY JEANS Juniors, and even DKNY for Kids. Today, Donna Karan International has an excess of one hundred company-owned and licensed free standing Donna Karan Collection, DKNY, and DKNY JEANS stores; there are 5 DKNY stores here in Hong Kong, China).
DKNY – Hong Kong (Photo: Club21)
Perhaps the most fundamental driver behind fashion labels learning anew how to communicate with their consumers – is the realization that the power of ‘voice’ has shifted from ‘brands’ to ‘consumers’, placing social media at the heart of the exchange. Recognizing this transition early is Donna Karen’s SVP of Global Communications, Aliza Licht. Instead of adding social media as yet another channel of communication to push ‘brand-controlled messages’, Licht may well have foreseen the motive and power behind social networking, opting to converse with aspirational consumers via its very own ‘brand personality’ – the DKNY PR Girl.
The real DKNY PR Girl (caricature by Dallas Shaw)
DKNY PR Girl entered social life in April 2009, introducing herself via Twitter @DKNY. The idea quite ‘social’ – DKNY PR Girl set out to establish a rapport with customers and followers who are passionate about fashion, engaging with them in conversations relevant to the audience, acting ‘human’ and being highly responsive to tweets. Setting it apart from other brands, DKNY and its PR Girl occasionally offered rare treats and behind-the-scenes prevue into the fashion industry, giving customers and consumers a sense of conveying with a real ‘personality’.
DKNY’s clever use of social media expanded quickly across other platforms; the DKNY Tumblr blog was launched shortly after, adding to DKNY’s presence on YouTube and Facebook. It wasn’t until October 2011, that DKNY PR Girl’s true identity was revealed via a YouTube video: aka Aliza Licht, DKNY’s very own brand personality. With nearly 450,000 followers on Twitter, and over a million ‘likes’ on Facebook, DKNY PR Girl lives a busy social life, taking full advantage of mobile and web-based technologies through which individuals and communities share, co-create and discuss user-generated content. Hence not surprisingly, it is the online community that is helping the fashion brand’s personality to pick a new 2013 Fall look.
DKNY – a Fashion Brand Personality