Discover the most recent and relevant industry news and insights for fashion professionals working in marketing, to help you excel in your job interviews, promotion conversations or simply to perform better in the workplace by increasing your market awareness and emulating market leaders.

BoF Careers distils business intelligence from across the breadth of our content — editorial briefings, newsletters, case studies, podcasts and events, as well as the exclusive interviews and conversations we have with experts and market leaders every day — to deliver key takeaways and learnings in your job function.

Key articles and need-to-know insights for marketing professionals today:

1. The Strategy Behind Louis Vuitton’s Viral Football Campaign

Released on the eve of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the Annie Leibovitz-lensed image of football superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi locked in a friendly game of chess exploded on social media. Louis Vuitton’s tweet of the image (captioned “Victory is a state of mind”) has been reposted over 55,000 times. On Instagram, Ronaldo and Messi both shared the image, clocking up a total of 65 million likes, the most in the platform’s history.

Louis Vuitton’s campaign deftly managed to tap surging interest in football ahead of the World Cup while sidestepping the controversies associated with the event, from Qatar’s ruthless treatment of LGBTQ minorities to its exploitation of migrant labourers. Louis Vuitton itself, which has produced a special trophy case for the event since 2010 […] as well as selling a World Cup-themed capsule collection, has posted about neither of those activations on Instagram — nor will it need to should the bad buzz on Qatar fail to subside. With the chess photo and resulting media coverage, the brand already garnered online buzz worth an estimated $13.5 million in just 48 hours, Launchmetrics said.

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Marketing Manager, 16Arlington — London, United Kingdom

Influence Apprentice, Vestiaire Collective — Paris, France

Influencer Marketing Manager, Skims — Los Angeles, United States

2. ‘Stop Lying, Stop Greenwashing’ — Key Messages From COP27

In Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, policymakers have tried to hash out a new agreement to [cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels] at the UN’s COP27 climate summit. In the midst of splashy corporate panels and announcements that have come to be expected at COP, the UN released a report demanding a “zero-tolerance” crackdown on hollow climate commitments from businesses, and detailing recommendations on how they should “walk the talk” on their net-zero promises.

“Using bogus net-zero pledges to cover up massive fossil-fuel expansion is reprehensible,” said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. “The sham must end.” Fashion has faced its own greenwash reckoning this year, with regulators in the UK, Netherlands and Norway taking aim at brands’ green marketing claims, and H&M now facing class action lawsuits in two US states. Companies increasingly need to sharpen their climate commitments — and how they communicate them to consumers.

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Senior Manager Marketing Insights, Burberry — London, United Kingdom

Global Brand Communications Manager, Tommy Hilfiger — Amsterdam, Netherlands

Social and Environmental Sustainability Intern, Hugo Boss — Stuttgart, Germany

3. What Social Media’s Meltdown Means for Fashion

Social media advertising isn’t what it once was, both in terms of cost and effectiveness. It’s more expensive than it used to be, but also less effective given restrictions in targeting. For that reason — as well as greater pressure from investors to show profitability early on — many brands, particularly DTC labels, have already pulled back from advertising on social media, contributing to the platforms’ woes.

The worse these platforms look, the greater the risk in advertising on them. And it’s rare to see a social media network in decline make a great comeback. MySpace, for example, never recovered, while even Snapchat, which saw its stock price multiply during the pandemic, is back in cost-cutting mode.

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Senior PR and Marketing Manager, Heliot Emil — Copenhagen, Denmark

Marketing and Communications Manager, Rosetta Getty — New York, United States

Marketing Intern, Ralph Lauren — Nutley, United States

4. How to Make a Difficult-to-Market Product Cool

In recent years, a new category that sits at the cross section of beauty and personal care has emerged to address concerns rarely discussed in the past. Megababe tackles thigh chafe and cleavage sweat. Fur makes a ritual of pubic hair grooming with hair oil and a serum for ingrown hairs, packaged in sleek round bottles. There’s also Truly Beauty, a TikTok-favourite skin care brand that makes items formulated for rear-end and breast skin. And also Love Wellness, which sells supplements and vitamins for everything from UTI prevention to restoring the pH balance of a user’s vagina.

By selling direct-to-consumer and upgrading the packaging to be more approachable — and more attractive — these labels are trying to turn once-taboo products into items worthy of front-row display in a medicine cabinet. The hope is that by labelling them as beauty products instead of consumer packaged goods, they will benefit from the deeper, long-lasting relationships beauty companies often develop with shoppers, not to mention the cool factor the category carries when compared with other consumer packaged goods.

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Retail Marketing Coordinator, Scotch & Soda — Amsterdam, Netherlands

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5. How Beauty Brands Can Take Advantage of TikTok Trends

TikTok has sparked countless beauty trends, […] sent drug store staple brands like CeraVe to the apex of the beauty conversation, and prompted a resurgence of products like Clinique’s black honey lipstick. But reacting to the app’s constantly-shifting trend churn is a tough task for beauty brands. Creating new products that perfectly fit into a trend is often unrealistic. Even with the most agile supply chain, products take time to develop, and TikTok trends are often limited by geography and age group with life cycles as short as a few weeks. It’s hard to predict what might go viral, and determine what will stay cool.

Still, ad hoc conversation on TikTok is a huge driver of beauty buzz, especially among younger consumers. Brands can build off of trends by understanding the wider tendencies they reveal, and tap into specific trends by using them to tell stories about existing products. They should also use TikTok to stay in touch with what consumers want and are talking about, and incorporate overarching themes into their assortments in a way that feels true to the brand’s ethos.

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Global Brand Marketing Manager, Dr. Barbara Sturm — London, United Kingdom

Social Media Manager, Ermenegildo Zegna Group — Milan, Italy

Associate Manager Omnichannel Customer Development, Coach — New York, United States

6. The Brands Convincing You to Buy an Engagement Ring Off Instagram

The past half-decade or so has seen the growth of a new kind of jewellery business, with a new generation at the centre. A cohort of mostly Millennial, mostly female founders are departing from industry traditions by taking the client relationship online. Even more radically, they’re putting themselves at the centre of their marketing. […] These start-ups have room to grow: Online fine jewellery sales are expected to reach 18 to 21 percent of total sales by 2025, up from 13 percent in 2019, and outpace the overall market by three times, according to BoF and McKinsey’s 2021 Watches and Jewellery report.

Just over half of Millennial women buy jewellery for themselves, according to a survey from market research firm MVI Marketing. These founders see that trend reflected in their own sales: Nicole Wegman, the founder and CEO of Ring Concierge said that 70 percent of Ring Concierge’s fine jewellery purchases are made by women. Stephanie Gottlieb, who owns an eponymous DTC fine jewellery brand, said the majority of her sales are also self purchases.

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Omnichannel Assistant, Tiffany & Co. — London, United Kingdom

Head of Digital Growth, Acne Studios — Stockholm, Sweden

Marketing Special Events Coordinator, Bloomingdale’s — McLean, United States

7. Los Angeles, the Fifth Fashion City?

This year alone, Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, Dior Men and Alexander Wang have all put on shows in Southern California — primarily in Los Angeles, the centre of the entertainment industry, whose red carpet culture is an increasingly important marketing tool for fashion brands. The city is also a homebase for many fashion industry-adjacent creatives, who consult for the likes of Celine or Tom Ford, or one of the dozens of mass-market companies based here, including SKIMS and GOAT.

[In December,] Hedi Slimane unveiled Celine’s Fall 2023 womenswear collection, months ahead of rivals. Showing in LA is a no-brainer at this time of year especially, when stylists are gearing up for awards season. […] It’s also a place people never seem to grow tired of visiting. For the ever-shrinking, but still-existing, cadre of editors who are flown out to attend such events, LA is an attractive proposition because they can often tack on unrelated work. And of course, the US market remains a huge priority for luxury brands, even as spending slows.

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Senior Marketing Manager, Zalando — Berlin, Germany

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8. What Fashion Needs to Know About Netflix’s New Ad Tier

While the streaming market is by some measures less crowded and competitive than social, it’s an increasingly popular space for brands, and Netflix is a late arrival to the ad game. Marketers say that Netflix’s primary selling point is its audience size, which topped 200 million at the end of September.

But some brands say they are hesitant to take the plunge […] in part because Netflix is charging more to run ads than competing platforms, but not offering the same targeting and measurement capabilities as its rivals. [However,] there is a benefit to being an early adopter on a new marketing channel before it becomes saturated with ads. “Being first to market and claiming the crown does have a halo effect,” said Sandra Abi-Rashed, vice president of client services at media agency Anagram.

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Digital Media and Marketing Manager, Deity — New York, United States