Some netizens think that the soil is unacceptable and even feel ridiculed; Some netizens think that such advertisements have a sense of humor, which reflects the brand's always sharp, grotesque and maverick pioneering attitude. Fashion culture lovers mostly belong to the latter, and Balenciaga's advertisements did not bring them much surprise. If mass consumers know Balenciaga as street-style old shoes, or as a decent and indifferent luxury store on the first floor of a shopping mall, then Balenciaga in the eyes of fashion culture lovers is a brand that is biased towards social media and keen on meme culture and many strange subcultures. This feature can be seen from the official Instagram account of Balenciaga. Balenciaga has completely broken away from the traditional operation mode of luxury brand social media. Instagram account does not publish product content or production process, but simply publishes amateur photos and inspirational pictures: people wrapped in garbage bags, models with elongated legs, photos of handstands, new products that form "people" on the road ... The Tik Tok account it opened also publishes many "nonsense" creative videos that seem to have nothing to do with products, and shows them to consumers in China in an imperceptible way.
After understanding the brand characteristics and the core of brand spirit of Balenciaga, and looking back at this series of controversial "local" advertisements, we will find that the so-called "mocking" and "local" advertisements are just an extension of Demna Gvasalia, the brand art director of Balenciaga, in the cultural context of China. If beauty and ugliness have relative public standards, then the concept of "soil" is not clear. Is Earth out of date or vulgar? In the transformation of Chinese and western contexts, we can't find a direct English word to express "soil". When people naturally use the word "local flavor marketing", they actually default to a preset-luxury brands are advanced, mysterious and distant, while "local flavor marketing" is to lower themselves to cater to the market. Then we have to ask, is this presupposition still valid? The reality is that this sense of distance has been completely broken after the emergence of social media. Demna Gvasalia's Balenciaga family obviously abandoned the traditional concept of creating social distance with flawless luxury image, but created aesthetic distance with avant-garde aesthetics. Confusion from the public is only a part of this aesthetic. From confusion to infatuation, it is a highly viscous process between consumers and brands.
The battlefield of Tanabata marketing has always had a strong commercial flavor, and luxury brands have launched carefully packaged Tanabata gifts suitable for gifts, with the aim of stimulating sales. It is at this time that such luxury brands concentrate on the competition between marketing means and media capital, and are also in the bottleneck period of excessive marketing of luxury brands Tanabata, which is difficult to continuously stimulate freshness. Instead, Balenciaga chose to show the most radical and closest image to the brand aesthetic form on Tanabata. Compared with all red items, Balenciaga at least tried to provide some new ideas in the tense but monotonous Qixi marketing war. Although the old photos in the studio are full of simple backgrounds, they often record the purest and sweetest feelings between people in the old days. However, in an impetuous society with complex emotions, people miss this emotion even more.
Some people say that the popularity of earthy flavor is an era when Internet culture tends to be saturated, and people will inevitably experience an aesthetic fatigue and aesthetic rebound. Netizens who have "seen the world" are eager to see something different-even ugly, as long as it is unique, it is better than boring beauty and uniform beauty. From the simplest market point of view, Balenciaga actually won a great victory this time. Unprecedented topic discussion brings the ultimate advertising effect, which is not only a great promotion of hourglass bags, but also a one-time promotion of hourglass bags previously limited to fashion lovers to the mass market. At the same time, this discussion is also a re-understanding of Balenciaga brand in the mass market, helping consumers to enrich their understanding of its image.