I see a trend in how fashion brands communicate their content online. I see a tendency where the hardcore sale CTA is moving away from social media and the landing page. We go more and more forward to selling that dream, vision and inspiration then pushing for the sale.

As we know, Facebook and Instagram posts designed as ads or with a pushy sale message never get much engagement as a well-produced video/image post with great copy. The algorithm will kill it’s reach pretty fast. People tend to get really annoyed towards ads and the industry is responding.

A new trend emerging away from CTA

I must say I really like what the new trend is doing to our content and feeds. It raises the bar of quality, big time. Instead of relying on a pushy “buy me please” post we see more and more beautiful created content that does exactly what I think it should. It has evolved into to sell a persons dream. Being an inspiration for style and building the brand with the reason they started in the first place – to creating really good fashion and not just focusing on hardcore sales and numbers.

There is nothing new that all kinds of impressions in social media everyday bombard us. Cats, babies, GoT, Trump and everything else are filling our feeds. To see a post that urges me to shop something just to make a sale is just bad. The trend with great content and stories (yes, it’s an old saying, but it checks out) are what I believe is the right way to go. We need to push the level of content and how we communicate it.

Trendsetting leaders

The company, who is leading this trend today is not HM, Zalando or Zara, it’s Nelly.com. If you visited their website during Stockholm Fashion Week you were greeted with perfectly executed inspiration from streetstyle, interviews and videos from fashion shows and their influencers (as you where listening to Spice Girls boosting their 90’s trend campaign). They sell inspiration without being annoying.
In their look books they have the same approach. Beautifully crafted images where you can dream away and imbedded in the image you have the + sign where you see information and can buy the product (if you want). Subtitle and beautiful!

I wish more brands followed their lead and putt effort in doing more and better content with great UX design and rely on their vision and product to create great fashion without begging me to buy something. The sale CTA is dead. Lets be inspiring and sell that dream. The editorial has evolved into a visual inspiration heaven. And I like it.

Johan Ståhlberg, Creative Visualization at Fashion Stories