The Petit Bateau April’s Fool strategyDespite poor announcement timing, Hedi Slimane’s e
The Petit Bateau April’s Fool strategyDespite poor announcement timing, Hedi Slimane’s exiting Saint Laurent Saint Laurent wasn’t an April’s Fool. Few fashion brands hopped on the 1 April bandwagon this year. Two of my favourite were the Mark Zuckerberg x H&M collaboration and the Petit Bateau day-long digital campaign across email and Instagram. On Friday 1 April, the French ready-to-wear brand blasted an email announcing that after 10 years’ of R&D, they had finally perfected ground-breaking fabrics that could be eaten; grew at the speed of the wearer’s body; scared the rain away; repelled UV light and included essential oils. Since its first campaigns in 1920, Petit Bateau has placed advertising under the sign of humour and mischievousness. They sell to the child in all of us, with clothes existing from baby to large grown up size, and all sizes being expressed in age (XXS/12 Ans for instance). Their April Fool’s works because intelligent fabrics is a key research area for fashion. Earlier this year, WIRED UK claimed “the future of wearable is smart fabrics”, as opposed to devices like the Apple Watch, Google Glass and smartbands. There is something futuristic about the email, the way books used to imagine how we’d live in 2000. Playfulness isn’t for every brand, nor is making fun of one’s own DNA, an essential part of any April Fool’s humour. H&M has become as well-known for its collaborations as it is or its prices, so the Mark Zuckerberg capsule collection of seven grey t-shirts and one jean would only have been taking it one notch further. Petit Bateau also played what it is known for, as the email displayed bestsellers and classics: the white t-shirt, the white baby bodysuit, the stripy mariniere and the coated yellow raincoat. Each item clicked through the actual listing page on the website, with which hadn’t been updated for April Fool’s. It’s one thing to entice people to digital commerce through a joke, but then commerce took back over. The only issue with the Petit Bateau April Fool’s? I wish these fabrics existed. -- source link
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