Creative Ambition vs Excessive Consumption
Where should marketers, influencers, and writers draw the line?
I’ve been watching Vera Bradley, a nostalgic accessories brand from the 80s that’s known for its playful patterns, attempt a grand comeback that captures today’s youth, ever since their rebrand announcement back in July. So far, their not so generous marketing budget has been spent on influencer campaigns, a couple of exclusive drops designed in collaboration with Urban Outfitters, an IP deal with Wicked, and a travel activation set up in major national airports for the holidays. At first, I was excited because Vera Bradley made its way into my world through creators, like Harry Hill, digging up fun archival pieces on eBay and Depop. Selfishly, I thought getting involved in bringing a brand like this back into the zeitgeist could be fun as a marketer, and I am sure, many influencers perked up their ears for a new potential brand partner. But the more I thought about it, the more I started to question whether the youth that’s already obsessed with Baggu, Beis, and Uniqlo crescent bags needs yet another reusable tote to be aggressively pushed on them.
The truth is, the projects that marketers love working on the most — brand campaigns, collaborations, and talent partnerships — are also the most ambiguous when it comes to our responsibility for encouraging excessive consumption. There were times in my career when I made otherwise unremarkable products desirable by wrapping them up into elaborate creative campaigns and putting them in the right hands at the right time. Other times, I used captivating visuals and stories to spin up basic products into something new over and over again, filling in the gaps in the production schedule and keeping the brand top of mind for people in the absence of any substantial launches. I did it to stay engaged in otherwise boring jobs and fulfill my creative ambitions in places that stifled creativity. But looking back, I wonder where I should have drawn the line between keeping myself entertained and growing professionally and the harmful impact that applying my talents in the wrong places can create. Caitlin Mayance, the founder of a creative agency Nouvôt, shared similar stories from her time as the content strategy and curation lead at a mass European e-tailer Zalando: “It would be something like the buying team bought an exclusive collection with, I don’t know, Tommy Hilfiger, and it’s the least exciting, unsexy thing in the world. And we’re gonna come up with a snappy headline, and we’re gonna shoot it on this model and in that location…and here is how it’s going to roll out, so hopefully, people will actually want to buy this thing that nobody really needed to make. It’s fine if it’s a once a year sort of thing, but it happened every single week.”
What complicates the situation even further is that even if you work for brands whose products matter in a functional or cultural way and limit the physical outputs of your projects, they can still spiral out of control and multiply consumption in unpredictable places. The most obvious example of this is the hysterical consumer behavior that unraveled out of making once quite boring, responsibly made products from companies like Stanley and Baggu, visually appealing, fun, and trendy. A few years ago, Baggu started dabbling in limited drops and collaborations which muddled the waters on how sustainable the company’s practices are, and Stanley’s superfans began hoarding their products in large numbers and causing disruptions in local Targets to get their hands on the Barbie and Wicked Quenchers.
But perhaps the most terrifying effects of successful marketing are much sneakier. The very concepts of limited collaborations, drops, and brand-forward products that justify price hikes emerged out of financial and operational constraints in the once niche fashion subculture that exploded globally into what we know as streetwear today. Making graphic tees, writing about rare sneakers, and keeping a small shop stocked with clothing by breaking down full collections into weekly releases weren’t intrinsically bad actions in the early 2000s. But once the streetwear scene grew into the beast that it was at its peak and penetrated every industry imaginable, its genius marketing tactics were leveraged to multiply the volume and speed of global consumption and turn it into a culture-defining and identity-building activity. “If limited edition releases turn shopping into a game that we need to win, then collaboration turns it into culture, something that we need to constantly practice in order to live interesting and fulfilling lives,” writes Alec Leach, fashion editor turned sustainability strategist, in his book The World Is On Fire But We Are Still Buying Shoes.
There were times when I considered wiping my hands off and leaving all of this behind. I saw a photo of my classmate who stayed back home and became a heart surgeon, and winced at the realization of how different the impact we create day-to-day must be. But I’d be lying if I said that when the pieces fall right, what I do isn’t the funnest job in the world. I respect people’s creative ambitions and I love helping them spread the word about something they are deeply passionate about. I understand that a certain level of consumption is necessary and enjoyable and I don’t plan on purging all of my belongings any time soon, but I do want to understand how to grapple with the fact that multiplying consumption is one of the top success indicators for people in my line of work.
“One of the good things that I worked on at Zalando was an adaptive fashion collection - clothing designed with and for disabled customers,” Caitlin explained. “That was the first kind of light bulb moment of “ok, I can actually do this work and make an impact that makes me feel good, and I am actually really excited to work more, and I get goosebumps when talking about what we are working on because it actually has significance compared to something like “we changed the tag to orange and now it’s an exclusive.” A few months ago, she started her own consultancy where she hopes to work with sustainable, circular fashion brands that are leading the positive change but still struggle to compete with flashier, sexier mass market brands. “Long-term, like intergenerational long-term, growth of a good solution vs a Shein or a Temu, makes me feel okay. If smaller companies can grow and take the market share of the bad actor, then that’s a good thing overall,” Caitlin concluded. “That’s at least what I am telling myself.”
It also helps to remember that marketing only really became the ultimate rat race towards virality when large consumer companies in fashion, beauty, and hospitality adopted tech lingo, investments, and explosive growth targets. Since then though, even the tech giants realized that cutting corners and throwing large amounts of money on paid growth is unsustainable and cut their headcount and marketing spend. There is an obvious difference between companies, like Vera Bradley or H&M, that are resurrected in pursuit of a very specific business opportunity and companies, like Ganni, that have been steadily pushing the same sustainability-forward agenda, investing in innovative materials and practices, and sharing transparently about the mishaps and learnings along the way. Whether you are a marketer, an influencer, or a writer, convincing thousands of people to buy or do something is both a great power and responsibility. But the moral obligation that comes with it, differs greatly depending on what type of products and ideas you choose to apply it to.
IN THE MARGINS
A whole lot of additions to Busy Corner this week:
Four new shops in the Independent Retail list
Seven more magazines in the Indie Media list
And a bunch of new references in the Reference Bank, including a photo book collector’s archive, a juice shop whose ginger shot recipe includes a dash of fashion, some really weird photography, and impeccable styling.
Tom Baker at Highsnobiety wrote a really great piece that frames the decline of corporate and mainstream interest in streetwear as a positive for its core community and an opportunity for rebirth:
“A lot of luxury brands appropriated what streetwear is: they took the aesthetic part of it and even some of the business model stuff around collaborations but they used it as a trend, even though it was a longer-term trend,” says Morency. “It was a bit more of a movement with people like Virgil Abloh and Demna, but luxury [fashion] never really got to the gist of what streetwear is — which is for the community, by the community. And that still rings true for streetwear today.”
Luxury brands and high-street fixtures are now ransacking every last piece of the quiet luxury buzz to make a quick buck. Suddenly, the same mall brands pushing out cringe-worthy graphic tees and cargo pants only a few years ago are hell-bent on bringing fine tailoring to the masses. And even the gaudiest of high-end brands, like, say, Moschino, are joining in the act. But by and large, they are leaving streetwear alone. Streetwear has been pushed back to the periphery of the fashion industry.
Whatever may happen in the future, it’s clear for now we’re entering an interim period where brands are going back to the culture’s roots and building hype in their local community. “It was a rebellion in the ‘90s, and now it's becoming a rebellion once more,” says Nolde, who has watched the streetwear scene grow since then.
Streetwear isn’t fashion’s flavor of the month anymore, it’s become an acquired taste. Again.”
This is so so interesting, and something I think about constantly as an in-house marketer, having worked on the agency side, but also as a creator. Just fascinating to have experienced it from so many sides of the coin.
There's also an interesting reaction to what you're talking about with companies greenwashing/virtue signalling to wash their hands of any responsibility. People are so eager to put blinders on to appease themselves. It's a great conversation to keep being reminded of (for me too! I am no saint!).
Great read and a topic I’ve been ruminating on too 💗 Like imagine if all the amazing brains that currently market things people don’t need instead worked on tackling systemic issues