Thursday, April 16, 2009

Blogging Killed the Print Media Star?


I read an interesting article on WWD today about the launch, and subsequent sell out, of Kanye West's trainers. The point was that the only media form that could result in that kind of activity, was the fashion (specifically street wear) blog.
“There was a time when magazines would bring us up to date once a month, but nowadays everything moves 10 times as fast and blogs serve as the only means fast enough to keep us on point.”
Now as an avid magazine reader, I think that there is place for both, for different reasons. Magazines are Sunday afternoon luxury, holiday entertainment and quality over quantity. Blogs are fashion compasses and the immediate dual conduit between the consumer and the designer/retailer.
If you can accept some truth in this, surely the designers and retailer, PRs, advertisers and marketing folks should be all over us style bloggers like a rash? You'd think. Add to this that online is an extremely cost effective mechanism that takes the advertising directly to the very heart of the target customer, with very little wastage, it seems like a no brainer. The article also said, “What we do is help marketers zero in on these tastemakers...What we offer is nanomarketing. Each of these specialized blogs has their own little specialty, or silo, with their own devoted group of followers.”
Any takers?
Photo not mine