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The Most Wholesome Collaboration In Fashion Yet
Benjamin Peterson | April 8th, 2022
What do a luxury brand, an outdoor lifestyle brand, a former streetwear blog, and a surprisingly wholesome British trainspotting TikToker have in common? People were trying to wrap their heads around the collaboration that happened between The North Face and Gucci on January 17th. All these brands came together to disrupt the market, and it worked tremendously.
The Reason?
TikTok.
Background
From owning a tiny leather and canvas shop in the early 20th century to having celebrities flock to his store in Florence, Italy, Guccio Gucci founded one of the most recognizable luxury brands ever. After the founder’s death, his sons took the luxury with them worldwide, spreading the brand internationally, helping it grow to the standard in high end fashion. After the assassination of Maurizio Gucci, the parent company, InvestCorp, helped revitalize the brand for the 21st century. Now, Gucci is one of the largest luxury brands ever and has become a common household name. Their products include belts, slides, handbags, cologne, and even headbands, appealing to the hyper-consumerism trend of the 2010’s, and its popularity is still rising. Gucci’s brand has a history of working with very popular celebrities, such as Harry Styles, Lana del Rey, and Jared Leto to name a few. Now, Gucci has spread its reach to lesser known influencers who have massive followings on their respective social media platforms. Gucci is known for making big statements, but this collaboration is different because it sparked so much attention due to the star of the show, Francis Bourgeois.
Though his real name is Luke Nicholson, this 21 year old British TikToker surprised everyone on TikTok from this The North Face x Gucci collaboration. His early videos were shot from (quite possibly) the most unflattering angle on his face, so landing a modeling gig with one of the biggest luxury brands out there made no sense at first. But then, people started to love Francis for being the face of the collaboration largely due to the advertising campaign’s tone. The aesthetic of a train conductor, vintage clothing, and the foggy outdoors was a backdrop that captured people’s attention, and the reason why Francis became one of the most loved personalities on TikTok. His trainspotting videos show him reacting with pure joy as the trains go past. Viewers love his videos because they’re wholesome, and he’s a very likable charismatic figure. With the rise of an increasingly negative view of social media algorithms, people are increasingly drawn to content that pokes fun at overworn tropes, or features creators showing their weirder, more imperfect, or otherwise more “authentic” selves. There is quite possibly no other TikTok personality better suited for what The North Face and Gucci wanted to convey in this collaboration.
Founded in 1965, The North Face started selling premium-grade backpacking and climbing equipment. The outdoor lifestyle brand grew, until it was bought for $62 million in 1994. After going public in 1996 and then having record sales in 2000, The North Face became one of the biggest outdoor brands in the world. They’ve partnered with many athletes, but this is the first time that a TikTok personality has partnered with The North Face. They sell almost anything related to the outdoors, but they are known for selling their jackets, which was a major focus of the products promoted in this collaboration. According to The North Face, what exploration offers is nothing short of a vehicle for personal transformation. This phrase is under the “2020-Now” section of the “Our History” page on The North Face site. It also aligns with “eccentric exploration,” which is one of the themes of the social media campaign spearheaded by Highsnobiety.
Former streetwear blog in the 2000’s, turned immensely successful multimedia production agency, David Fischer has grown Highsnobiety into one of the most sought after brands in fashion and pop culture. Since 2010, they have centered their focus on the flagship site and their biannual magazine. They also produce advertising content for other brands and celebrities, similar to this collaboration. In 2017, Highsnobiety across all platforms was garnering around 500 million monthly impressions.
Campaign Goals
For this social media advertising campaign, Highsnobiety brought some new ideas to the table, as well as focusing on TikTok promotion. The North Face and Gucci noticed TikTok as an advertising opportunity to “disrupt the market,” so to speak. TikTok’s algorithm is special because any video can randomly be selected and accrue millions of views in a matter of less than a day. Traditional media doesn’t always necessarily offer the chance for an unlimited number of people to see a company’s ad, so TikTok is an opportunity not to be taken lightly. By choosing TikTok as a platform, they also chose a main target audience, largely composed of Gen-Z and millennials. Fischer of Highsnobiety says, “We build campaign ideas that resonate with the next generation of tastemakers.” They’re clearly focused on younger audiences because younger people are now the driving force of social media and their primary market. If a company were advertising targeting people above 60 years old, they simply wouldn’t advertise on TikTok. This campaign conveyed a certain aesthetic and tone through the products, promotional videos, and the videos produced by Francis Bourgeois that made this campaign truly unique. He brought a wholesome relatability that helped lighten the tone of the campaign. It worked immensely as well, leading to a 1,351% increase in searches for the partnership – and the new puffer jackets in particular. Also, with the focus on TikTok as the platform, the social media campaign solidified its media in the video format. The advertisement that Highsnobiety released on the 17th of January was the main promotion, lasting on TikTok for a little more than a week after the release. Highsnobiety also introduced new concepts into this campaign. “Eccentric exploration,” a term coined by Highsnobiety for this campaign, relates to the luxuriously vintage and free-spirited, dream-like lifestyle that is portrayed.
Campaign Methods
The main strategy used in this campaign focused on influencer marketing. In fact, it was the only strategy that prompted Gucci, North Face, and Highsnobiety to place their bets on Francis Bourgeois. Being somewhere between a mega-influencer and a macro-influencer, this was the perfect balance for a campaign focused on TikTok. On the platform, Francis accrued a staggering 2.3 million followers, technically classifying him as a mega-influencer, even though he’s not a household name like Beyonce. On TikTok, he is a mega-influencer in the sense that he is one of the most well known and loved influencers on the platform. His name is thrown around amongst other TikTok personalities such as Charlie D’Amelio, Khaby Lame, and Charlie Puth, who all actually have far more followers. Despite that, most everyone loves his videos because he is so genuinely passionate about trainspotting. The angle of his videos help provide a sense of authenticity that is rare in the whole social media market at the moment.. With all of this in mind, these companies chose Francis because of three reasons.
When looking at any external monetary flow for an influencer, such as a brand or merchandise deal, there are three key criteria that need to be addressed in order for the endeavor to provide the best results. These criteria were derived from the YouTubers “Colin and Samir,” who cover the creator economy extensively. The first of these is scalability, meaning the potential that a business endeavor can grow in the future. For this collaboration, Francis has demonstrated that this campaign is already scalable. Since the January 17th launch of the Gucci x North Face x Highsnobiety x Francis Bourgeois campaign, the famous TikToker already collaborated back with Gucci for three separate posts that were unrelated to this campaign. It looks like Francis could be one of the main influencers specifically representing the TikTok market for Gucci for the indefinite future.
The second piece of criteria is authenticity. In the whole span of TikTok, it is extremely easy to say that Francis has one of the biggest followings while still being genuine and authentic, leading to a more dedicated following. This type of following is far more valuable than say someone like Addison Rae or Charli D’Amelio, who have huge followings (100+ million), but with fan bases that can be extremely toxic, polarizing, and particularly hateful towards every business decision they make. Gucci and The North Face could not have collaborated with someone that does not have Francis’s aesthetic and personality. He provides an old-fashioned and regal English feeling for the campaign that lends itself perfectly to the theme and clothing they produced for this Gucci x The North Face collaboration.
The final piece of criteria for this is shareability. Were these TikToks worth sharing? The short answer is yes, but it’s more complicated than that. The reason that Gucci and Francis’s post got the most shares out of any post is because nobody expected this to happen. Nobody saw it coming, which ended up shaking up the market. There have been many designer brands and TikTok influencer collaborations that have flown under the radar, such as Noah Beck and Balmain during Fashion Week in Paris during October of 2021. But this collaboration quickly became the only topic in the TikTok spotlight, even if it was a short-lived campaign.
Social Media Breakdown
TikTok:
TikTok was the main focus for this campaign, though it technically started on the 17th of January, when Highsnobiety posted the initial advertisement on their Instagram page. There were four posts on Tiktok that were published by all of the individual collaborators’ accounts on the 19th of January. Gucci, with a following of 1.8 million on TikTok, ended up performing the best with the same video, but that could also be attributed to TikTok’s promotion feature for creators on the app. Whether or not digital content promotion comes into play with Gucci, Francis’s post was the second best performing post, with just under one million views.
The most surprising event on TikTok because of this occurred when a random account made a video explaining the importance of the collaboration. While only having 515,000 followers, she was able to amass 8.7 million views, 1.9 million likes, 7,000 comments, and 22,700 shares/saves/favorites. That performed better than all of the posts that Gucci, The North Face, Highsnobiety, and Francis did combined! There were around five other well performing posts by random accounts that also sought to explain the collaboration. TikTok had the most secondary posts out of any other platform, which may reveal some of the pitfalls of marketing on the other platforms.
Sample Comments:
Instagram:
The start of the campaign was on Instagram, with Highsnobiety’s advertisement promoted from January 17th to the 24th. This post performed well, but was also overshadowed by Highsnobiety’s extreme upload schedule, severely leaving the video in the dust of other posts even made that same day. The other two posts on the platform about this were reposts of the videos from TikTok, but only on Highsnobiety and Francis’s Instagram pages. These also performed well, but nowhere near the results from TikTok.
Facebook:
There were only three posts on all of Facebook regarding this social media campaign, and they were all made by Highsnobiety from the 17th to the 22nd of January. These posts did not perform well however, only amounting to 645 likes on the top performing post. It was clear from the beginning that Facebook was not the focus with this campaign.
Sample Comment:
“He’s so Gucci, Perfect, Whoever form Gucci found him needs a medal”
Twitter:
Four posts were made on Twitter about this campaign, and none of them were videos. Highsnobiety reposted the same picture of Francis waving down models in the trainyard two times, while Gucci only posted a photo, and none of them performed well at all. Barely any impressions were made on Twitter, when there could have been a greater impact.
Analysis
Strengths of the Campaign
The Gucci x The North Face collaboration had many successes during its short-lived timespan. The performance and overall number of impressions made on one platform alone was astounding to see, considering how hard it is for brands to get organic views nowadays. The most successful part was that all the companies were able to work together and foster an influencer deal that was a win for everyone involved. Regarding Francis, it boosted his modeling career and launched future brand deals with Gucci, giving him more monetization strategies as a new full-time TikTok creator. The nature of The North Face and Gucci product mashup is it also appeals to a greater audience. Lots of people wear The North Face, but not necessarily Gucci, so the awareness that Gucci is able to collaborate with a company that appeals to the masses shows an opportunity in the future of high-end fashion itself. On top of all that, this campaign revealed that even influencers on TikTok can become involved with large established companies, leading to endless possibilities regarding brand deals in the future, as well as proving that TikTok is a platform that is here to stay with many brand opportunities.
Weaknesses of the Campaign
That being said, there were pitfalls to this campaign as well. This campaign was far too short, lasting only for a week’s worth of promotion, then disappearing from the public’s mind. The campaign’s impact was big, but was not consistent, especially across each platform. If Gucci and North Face wanted to have each platform perform as well as TikTok, all they had to do was post all the same content on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. They could have even posted the advertisement on YouTube, but when conducting research, no videos were live for this specific campaign.
Also, while marketing towards the TikTok audience (Gen-Z mostly), it doesn’t make much sense for a designer brand to run a campaign targeting people who are young and don’t necessarily have lots of disposable income. The products sold out quickly, but they were still very expensive, even while collaborating with The North Face. One would hope the prices would be lower, but this was not the case.
With such potential, they could have done much more for this specific campaign to keep relevancy and boost it even more for a longer period of time. It’s possible that their budget was fully expended by the end of the first initial week.
Final Thoughts
The overall consensus of this campaign is that it was successful, even if short-lived. The decision to bring in Francis Bourgeois, one of the most endearing personalities on all of TikTok, ended up being a great choice by Gucci, The North Face, and Highsnobiety. This partnership tremendously enhanced the perception of all of the brands involved, while providing an avenue for future partnerships with Francis. With Highsnobiety producing the whole social media campaign, Francis becoming the face of the campaign, and Gucci and The North Face providing the product to be sold, there isn’t much more one could ask for regarding a successful structure to launch a campaign. Even if the length of the campaign only lasted a week, the companies made a big impact, especially on TikTok. This shows that any influencer, if they play their cards right, can land the most perfect deal that compliments their brand, as well as the brand they sign the deal with. All in all, even during a brief campaign, the trainspotting 21 year-old from the United Kingdom inspired the world for what is truly possible from making videos.