Boss scores social media success with digital-first event for Russell Athletic capsule

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Oct 12, 2021

Hugo Boss has claimed something of a social media and marketing coup, saying that its new growth strategy of boosting brands and targeting younger customer groups is paying off big time. It saw huge success for a Boss x Russell Athletic mega-event late last week that was carefully staged to maximise its social media impact and reach out to the Gen Z and Millennial consumers it’s now targeting.

The event marked the launch of the second capsule collection for Boss with Russell Athletic and was staged in a baseball stadium in Milan. 

The company said the event was “designed to be a ‘postable’ moment at every twist and turn. With global streaming across the Boss channels, all customers were given a digital front row seat”. 

But importantly, the “cast and the audience were strategically selected based on their Instagram or TikTok profile and status”.

That’s one of the clearest statements yet from a fashion business that it’s not only a model’s or celebrity’s look or fame that gets them a place on the runway or on the guest list, and that social media followers are what really count these days.

The event included models Gigi Hadid, Irina Shayk, Joan Smalls, Cindy Bruna, Alton Mason and Adut Akech; plus athletes Alica Schmidt, Trenten Merrill and Race Imboden; as well as K-pop star Big Matthew and TikToker Khaby Lame (@khaby.lame).

Lame’s inclusion is significant as he actually made an exclusive appearance to close the show and is one of the most successful TikTok creators with 113 million followers. Boss said it was the first fashion brand ever to be posted on his channel. 

Posts on the event were also shared by big names such as Chiara Ferragni, Fedez, Fai Khadra, Avan Jogia, and Benji Krol.

It was the largest social-first event in the firm’s history and CEO Daniel Grieder said it’s a “benchmark for what we will deliver as an experience to customers around the world as of today”.

In terms of the firm measuring its success, it said it saw a total of 3.9 billion impressions achieved in four days and over 25 million engagements achieved across all social media channels within the same timescale.

Within the first few days, there were 2.2 billion views of the Tiktok #BOSSMOVES challenge where thousands of TikTokers created content to try to win prizes.

And perhaps most importantly, social engagement increased by nearly 1,600% on the Boss Instagram account.

The company said that “besides the Boss brand’s strong position on social media before the event already, the dedicated TikTok and Instagram campaigns are an important element in further boosting the brand and reaching out to new and younger customers”.