Last month, to coincide with the start of the FIFA World Cup, Nike launched a three-minute film called “Write the Future”, featuring football superstars like Wayne Rooney and Didier Drogba. According to web video analytics company Visible Measures “Write the Future” clocked a record 7.8 million online views in its debut week, underscoring the power of creating compelling digital content that consumers will voluntarily seek out and share with others.

Luxury fashion brands like Chanel have followed a similar strategy, creating their own digital content to earn attention and free media, and learning to think more like publishers in the process. But for all the recent buzz around “Write the Future,” Nike’s long-term digital strategy has focused less on marketing and communications initiatives and more on developing digital product and service platforms.

“Integrated digital technology will become what people expect,” said Mark Parker, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nike, in a highly insightful and wide-ranging interview with Berlin-based magazine 032c. Indeed, with online running platform Nike+ (which uses digital sensors integrated into running shoes to measure, analyse and share performance data) executives at the sportswear brand have moved decisively to make digital media an integral part of their core product offering.

Since launch, Nike+ has had a meaningful impact on the company’s bottom line. So far, more than 2.5 million Nike+ kits have been sold, many to people who also purchase new Nike shoes that have a special recess to house the digital sensor. But importantly, Nike+ has done more than drive sales; it’s helped Nike fundamentally recast the relationship between brand and consumer.

“The Nike+ story is about much more than the revenues generated from product and accessory sales. What is fascinating is how the new offering catapulted Nike from being relevant to just one aspect of the runner’s exercise regime to being at the very centre of it. For a Nike+ customer, the Nike brand is no longer about just the product attached to his or her feet; it’s about the total exercise experience,” writes Harvard Business School professor Elie Ofek in a recent article entitled “Are You Ignoring Trends That Could Shake Up Your Business?”

Significantly, at the start of the recent World Cup, alongside “Write the Future,” Nike launched a new football boot called the Mercurial Vapor SuperFly II. With techie-sounding product innovations like “Nike Flywire” and “Adaptive Traction Technology,” the shoes are designed to enhance player performance. But each pair of boots also comes with a code that unlocks access to Nike Soccer+, a digital coaching program — available via web, mobile internet or iPhone app — that helps players improve their skills with insights and instruction from world-class players and coaches.

“We are creating the best performance boots available today,” said Nike Soccer general manager Bert Hoyt. “But combining this technology with the Nike Soccer+ digital coaching program means you are not just buying a boot, you are buying a total game improvement package.”

In the fashion industry, Louis Vuitton made an interesting move into digital products, back in 2008, with Louis Vuitton Soundwalk, a unique experience that activated the brand’s heritage and dedication to “the art of travel.” Designed to be played on Apple’s popular iPod and launched just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Vuitton’s Soundwalk was a perfectly synchronised audio journey through the physical streets of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, narrated by three icons of Chinese cinema.

But while Nike’s digital platforms endure over time and complement the brand’s primary revenue driver — shoes — Louis Vuitton Soundwalk was a more tactical initiative that was never integrated into Vuitton’s primary product: their bags.

Louis Vuitton’s on-going “Journeys” campaign — which currently features football greats Zidane, Maradona and Pele alongside Vuitton’s monogrammed luggage — suggests that travel can be an emotional and personal journey of discovery. But what if Louis Vuitton was able to integrate digital technology into its travel bags to actually make this promise a reality, enabling frequent travelers who own Vuitton to turn routine business trips into meaningful journeys through luxury digital services?

In the market for luxury fashion, the dream is most important. But today’s affluent consumers live active and digitally-enabled lives. Increasingly, there is an important opportunity for forward-thinking luxury brands to leverage integrated digital technology to help their clients experience things, not just dream them.

Vikram Alexei Kansara is Managing Editor of The Business of Fashion

Manish Arora A/W 09, courtesy of Coutorture

Indian designers make their mark with craft (IHT)
During Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week, designers are making a mark through artisanship.

Nike realigns global footprint (Just Style)
Sporting goods giant Nike last week unveiled plans to reorganise its namesake brand into six regions with reduced management in a bid to make its operations more efficient and trim costs.

Tiffany’s Reports Sales Declines (Seeking Alpha)
“Tiffany’s has exceeded earnings expectations five of the last six quarters, which seems to suggest that analysts underestimate Tiffany’s ability to sell in a tough consumer spending market. However, the declines in sales are serious and a real cause for concern.”

H&M and Zara top Retail Best Brands list (H&M)
According to an Interbrand report, H&M & Zara are in the top 5 of most valued retail brands.

Inflation surprises and jumps to 3.2% (FT)
“Inflation as measured by the consumer price index rose to 3.2 per cent in the year to last month, up from 3 per cent in January.”

A difficult balancing act

Karl Lagerfeld Discusses Luxury Internet Sales with European Commission (WSJ)
“The explosion of online retailing leaves fashion houses with a difficult balancing act between exclusive image and exposure.”

Fashion Sees The End Of The Runway (Forbes)
“The catwalk’s diminishing presence doesn’t come as a major surprise considering how much the role of the runway has changed over the years.”

Inside a Fashion Label’s Scramble to Survive (WSJ)
The Wall Street Journal profiles Five Four, a menswear label that is, “scrambling to survive.”

Nike’s ongoing restructuring (Just-Style)
Nike’s 1,400 job cuts are due to its restructuring plans rather than the economy.

Bill Blass, photo courtesy of Bill Blass.

Bill Blass Couture to Close (WSJ)
Once the go-to house for American socialites and Hollywood elite, Bill Blass Couture will close.

Nike picks ups its pace  (Just-style)
Strong performance in international markets has helped the sportswear giant achieve a 9% profit increase in the second quarter. 

Max Azria: The Show(s) Must Go On (WSJ)
Although the BCBG Max Azria Group has taken a financial hit like so many other fashion companies, the company will still stage three runway shows in New York.  

Chanel Cancels Mobile Art Tour (WWD)
Due to the bad economic climate, Chanel cancels costly traveling Mobile Art exhibition.

BEIJING, China – My first glance at Beijing’s brand new airport (BCIA) was also the first sign of China’s stylish transformation since my previous visit here 7 years ago. I couldn’t take my eyes off the ceiling, which seemed to go on forever, as I zoomed through immigration and retrieved my bag. I was in and out in less than 30 minutes.

When I commented on the airport’s breathtaking design and efficiency to locals, they proudly informed me that BCIA was completed in only 4 years and has run without a hitch from day one. This is particularly notable when compared to the disastrous opening of London Heathrow’s Terminal 5, which opened around the same time as BCIA, but took 6 years to build and is still not running as expected. And, the success of BCIA also provides the perfect analogue for China’s nascent fashion industry.

First, it must be noted that the Beijing airport was designed by the UK’s Foster and Partners. So, whereas the Chinese are in the midst of a full-on architectural boom, their own design aesthetic is still in its infancy. For now, they must borrow design-savvy from the West, and combine it with local resourcefulness and entrepreneurship.

The fashion business here works very much the same way. Well-run Chinese factories churn out beautifully made, high-quality garments that are designed and sold in the West by fashion brands that we all know. Local Chinese retailers hire European and American designers who act as consultants and bring an advanced design sensibility to their collections. And, department stores like Lane Crawford employ fashion-savvy Westerners who up the style and sophistication quotient, while also educating local staffers on how to achieve international standards in luxury customer service and experience.

Beijing’s new Lane Crawford emporium, for example, is amongst the most sophisticated, well-curated specialty stores I have seen anywhere in the world. Six hundred brands are creatively mixed together in a welcoming and innovative environment designed by Canadian design agency Yabu Pushelberg. American department stores in particular could take a page out of the Lane Crawford book to bring their stores up to this world leading standard.

And, while there are certainly logo-happy Chinese looking for Gucci and Louis Vuitton, there are also sophisticated locals who are willing to spend serious money on world-class design. To wit, at the Walpole Luxury Seminar held in London in May, Bonnie Brooks, President of the Lane Crawford Group, noted that the very first item to sell after the Beijing store opened was a $45,000 Alexander McQueen dress. The second item to sell was the only other $45,000 McQueen dress that the store had ordered.

The other highlight of my first 24 hours in China was a visit to Beijing’s Danshanzi 798 Art District, currently home to noteworthy exhibitions by Maison Martin Margiela and Nike, two brands which have smartly planted their flags in this fertile ground for local contemporary art and design. The budding creativity in Dashanzi shows the promise for fashion design from China in the years to come. I don’t think the Chinese will be importing designers forever.

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Lane Crawford (courtesy of Lane Crawford)

798 Art District – Martin Margiela

798 Art District – Nike