Dive Brief:
- Macy's announced in a news release that it's redesigned its Instagram feed and is adding a fresh group of fashion ambassadors to its Style Crew as part of its summer campaign.
- The @macys Instagram page has a new, modern look focused on street-style images and videos that are "in-the-moment," the company said. Macy's also launched an Instagram page dedicated to men's fashion, @macysmen. The retailer’s expanded Style Crew members, which now number more than 300, will offer unique takes on the latest trends in fashion, beauty and home. Fans can follow the brand ambassadors via both Instagram accounts using the hashtag #MacysStyleCrew.
- To support its summer marketing, Macy's also released a new commercial, "Spotlight," made with BBDO New York. The spot shows women shedding their winter attire for summer looks as they step into the sunlight and is set to the "Oogum Boogum Song" by Brenton Wood.
Dive Insight:
Instagram has become an incredibly popular platform for beauty and style influencers, and Macy's continues to try to tap into that trend with a redesigned page and by expanding a fleet of fashion ambassadors it calls a Style Crew. Beyond using social media as an awareness tool, the retailer is integrating more commerce elements into its marketing as well, including through an ongoing partnership with the creator network Tongal around shoppable videos for influencers to share online.
Macy's Instagram refresh for summer, combined with these shoppable elements, is a bid to turn its social pages into a sort of digitally-reworked catalog as it struggles to drive foot traffic into brick-and-mortar stores. The retailer appears to have seen some success with other recent Instagram efforts. For a spring push around its "Find the Remarkable You" campaign, it created a "hack" for Instagram's then-new live sharing feature that provided customers with outfit advice from Macy's influencers and stylists. The retailer at the same time created an Instagram challenge where influencers were asked to style the same article of clothing and then tag and challenge others to do the same.
By adding a separate men's fashion page, Macy's could tap into a luxury menswear market, which is growing faster than women's wear and is expected to be valued at $33 billion by 2020, according to data from the retail analytics company Edited reported by Digiday. Analysts attribute that growth to the role of social media in forwarding men's fashion and style and making it more accessible.
