Fashion media, undoubtedly, put their focus on shopping. And this is a great chance for fashion companies to advertise their potential customers via the internet. ASOS, a UK-based online fashion company, develops its business with its own publication, ASOS magazine.
Visited by 30 million netizens monthly, and 8 million customers in 200 countries, ASOS makes good use of magazine to build up the tie between e-commerce and media, giving traditional fashion magazines a new opportunity to survive under the popularity of online magazines and newspapers.
ASOS obviously knows that the model that other brand magazine, such as Mr.Porter, are competing with them. They have a lovely printed magazine to for customers to take a look at clothes or accessories every single month. What’s more, it also gives customers an online platform, allowing them to do shopping with the advice and promotion of their magazines. Each image has little squares in the corner labeled 1 and 2. Click on the 2, and you can see the remixed version of the first outfit, displaying how the set of clothes can be mixed-and-matched. Below each photo a list of items and the cost of them is also shown, which is convenient for customers to consider what they can buy.
ASOS also understands that celebrities, pop singer and actresses can be a huge attraction for their clothers or accessories. The likelihood of Taylor Swift, Jennifer Lawrence, and Blake Lively have all been invited for making the cover.
Both publishers and brands are realizing the positive impact by putting content with commerce together. Condé Nast, for example, recently revealed their plan an e-commerce platform of its own. Beginning in the UK, the project will expand to the U.S. and then to all markets working with Glamour, its highest circulation magazine, and others.
According to Chaffey, by merging the traditional printing media with the relatively lately advancement of online shopping, a bigger positive impact can be generated as they complemented with each other. (Chaffey, 2010) Moreover, the main age group using the internet is mostly teenagers under 25 so an online shopping platform will be able to work with a traditional printing media. (Kucuk, 2011)
However, it must be noted that the influence of traditional print media is diminishing and it will be more suitable for businesses to put their effort and money on the new way of digital marketing. For instance, ASOS developed its mobile application for customers to view and place order on the clothes or accessories by simply using their smart phones or tablets (Magrath & McCormick, 2013) The trend of using mobile applications as another way of marketing is also noteworthy.
References
Chaffey, D. (2010). Applying organisational capability models to assess the maturity of digital-marketing governance. Journal of marketing management,26(3-4), 187-196.
Kucuk, S. U. (2011). Towards integrated e-marketing value creation process.Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, 12(4), 345-363.
Magrath, V., & McCormick, H. (2013). Marketing design elements of mobile fashion retail apps. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 17(1), 115-134.