In some ways, Marc Jacobs seems to be the victim of too much TikTok success.
The luxury lifestyle brand recently found itself in “chase mode” when one of its bags went viral on ByteDance’s popular video-sharing platform. The problem, Marc Jacobs chief merchandising officer Robert Rizzolo told Fashinnovation Worldwide Talks attendees in Manhattan last week, is that the LVMH maison lacked the inventory to back up the sudden clamor for a product that was “not necessarily the biggest investment.” That’s because a brand ambassador—what the bougie bag brand calls store employees—had shared the catchall on their personal TikTok account, inspired by the leeway they’re given to promote “authentic” content that inspires Gen Z to stop mindlessly scrolling and engage with the video at hand.
It’s not the worst thing in the world to have this kind of problem, Rizzolo admitted. “There’s instances like that where these authentic approaches to promoting bags can have financial implications,” he said, adding it’s crucial for brands to be in alignment with consumer demand or risk missing out on sales.
Still, TikTok is making the chase better than it’s ever been, said Rizzolo.
“I think that any opportunity today is an opportunity—even if it’s one that you didn’t think was there,” he said.
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Marc Jacobs is finding TikTok to be a gold mine of actionable customer insight. When a bag launched in three colorways, Rizzolo said a TikTok user who asked for the product in pink racked up 5,000 likes. The merchandising team went “straight to design with that live feedback,” he said, floating out a roadmap to deliver the rosy color for fall.
“That’s something that we’ve never done before,” Rizzolo said. “We’ve never had real-time data from the consumer on new arrivals.” TikTok spews new-product insights in just three to six days instead of the three-to-six-week norm, helping Marc Jacobs maximize sales and identify white space.
The executive explained that the brand validates this feedback with sales data before committing to a new purchase order. “We’re able to make a hypothesis that if a customer is asking for this bag in pink, and pink is working and this bag is working, then there must be [an] opportunity to bring these two things together,” Rizzolo said, sticking with the pink bag example.
And thanks to the TikTok-driven feedback, Marc Jacobs will have its factories put new chases into production when they reboot after the Lunar New Year holiday.
While Marc Jacobs encourages employees to drive sales and engagement on TikTok, Farah Maloof, the platform’s head of fashion and luxury partnerships, sees advertisers using the social app to rebrand themselves, drive omnichannel awareness and reignite creator-led commerce, an “oldie but goodie.”
Instead of trying to hawk products and markdowns on TikTok, brands should focus on clearly communicating their story. “You’ve got to build awareness for your product across the entire ecosystem,” Maloof said. She added, “You have to lay that foundation to familiarize people with your brand at a fairly high frequency so that they’re inspired, they love the vibe, and then they’re eventually making that part of their overall discovery journey to eventually purchase.”
TikTok recently created a ChatGPT-style tool using generative AI to guide brands that might need help starting their first campaign on the platform or influencers cooking up branded content. Called TikTok Creative Assistant, Maloof said the feature helps ignite the “creative spark” and lowers the “barrier to entry for brands and for creators on the platform.”
When you’re at a loss for where to start, she said, AI-based chatbots and generative formats “really help get you there.”