Comments on: Fashion 2.0 | Chanel Learns to Think Like a Media Company

By: Long Nguyen, Flaunt Magazine

Long Nguyen, Flaunt Magazine — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:58:04 +0000

It is remarkable to see a brand evolving its means of communication in an ever changing environment. Hopefully these will bring consumers to experience what really matter – the uniqueness of Chanel’s products.

This also begs the question of what should magazines be in the net-age.
Surely, magazine can only provide one thing the internet cannot deliver – the visual and pleasure experienced by the reader. But so many magazines have become so commercial that there is little need for them anymore as their content is already on the internet.

Pleasure, stimulating and interesting content that appeal to our sense of touch and feel is a critical part of the magazine experience.

After all, the internet can only convey information, not the actual pleasure that a magazine can convey (not the commercial ABC magazines)

I mean in the age of downloads, people still pay $ 300 for the real concert experience

By: Henry Scofield

Henry Scofield — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:58:59 +0000

Beautiful,
I’ve developed a blog focuses on Chanel like yours, and I hope we could share experience with each other.
http://www.myvogue.org
That is my blog, and I wait for your replay and hope you can give me some advice.
Thank you !!!

By: Mary

Mary — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:24:22 +0000

I do not really understand the latest come-back of flash, Ikea just launched their community, built in flash entirely… So I guess this is another agency stunt, where the decision makers at chanel just agreed on a well made pitch instead of being able to decide on their own.

though, chanel has been one of those who pretty early embraced the web – they were the first (high fashion) brand who invited bloggers (in 2007) and made quite a big deal out of it..

By: Republic

Republic — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:15:49 +0000

I haven’t had a moment to take a look at the site, but comment above staying that SEO isn’t possible with Flash hasn’t had much experience with the application. I am sure the site isn’t a UI that is going to win any awards but, flash has far more flexiblity that Open Sources jQuery —- but there are always sacrifices in all things, all the time.

By: jsBOCK

jsBOCK — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:10:46 +0000

great article! thanks BOF for the useful and interesting content posted everyday!

By: john stember.com

john stember.com — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:51:28 +0000

Thanks Vickram … bring it !!!

By: Vikram Alexei Kansara

Vikram Alexei Kansara — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:21:46 +0000

@AlistairAllan Your critique of the current technology implementation at Chanel News is very valid. Let’s hope that they address the issues with usability and sharability with the forthcoming relaunch. What I find to be remarkable about Chanel, however, is not the strength of their execution, but the smarts of the strategic direction they are taking: investing in unique digital content that consumers will happily carry, with the Chanel brand story, into the world. Indeed, much of the video content featured on Chanel News has also been passed around on YouTube.

By: Alistair Allan

Alistair Allan — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:15:28 +0000

I’m not sure what Chanel News’ future strategy is, but from what’s there at the moment I really don’t think it’s impressive at all, one blog posting per month is hardly embracing the web. I’m sure there is a lot of interesting things that happen at Chanel that could be made public to help reinforce the brand.

Swide.com (D&G site) seem to have done a rather good job of creating their own content site (and keeping it very fresh with new content almost every day), although a little heavy on the branding for my liking but, to me, it seems like they are clearly leading the pack with regards to Luxury Fashion Corporates creating funnel sites.

All of this is essentially old SEO funnel techniques, which are being implemented, which probably seems like a new idea in the fashion industry but not elsewhere I’m afraid.

By: Imran Amed, Editor

Imran Amed, Editor — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:44:10 +0000

@AlistairAllan: This is a very good point. My other qualm with the site is that none of the images are right-clickable, which makes the content harder to share. That said, the overall strategic approach for Chanel News is strong, though admittedly the execution could be better.

By: Alistair Allan

Alistair Allan — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:05:06 +0000

A news site completely buit in Flash? I turned my flash plugin off and I get a blank page. It won’t even work on an iPhone or other webkit based mobile browsers!

The main problem is that content contained in flash is unreadable by search engine bots. With jQuery (a javascript library which allows similar flash like animation and effects) there is no need to build sites like this in flash and comprimise on SEO. This is amatuerish at best. Even if they built this site in flash it should at least degrade gracefully but it doesn’t.

I am very disappointed by a very poor technical implementation, although this only reinforces my belief that the fashion industry cannot reliably outsource technical projects.