Fashion Week Supporting Sponsors: Diet Pepsi, DHL, Maybelline, TRESemmé, & American Express

As official hair and make-up sponsors of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, TRESemmé and Maybelline activated on-site, just outside the runway tents, with plenty of product samples to share with beauty-conscious show goers.

Maybelline's activation area included a comfortable relaxation lounge, while TRESemmé's featured a second story hairsalon. The hair salon gave TRESemmé a film set overlooking the FW scene from which to shoot promotional video segments. For now, hair-related how-to videos are being posted online, but perhaps we'll see a commercial or even a segment for a TV show come out of the activation down the line.

While the beauty brands' connection to Fashion Week is obvious, what does a shipping company like DHL have to gain in such a sponsorship? As it turns out, plenty.

Numerous businesses leverage FW as chance to host clients and vendors, so DHL's presence kept their brand top of mind for the many business men and women in attendance. For their activation, DHL's marketing team enlisted budding designers at LIM's school of fashion to create evening gowns -- that were made entirely of DHL packaging. The fun designs, displayed both on mannequins and live models, definitely caught the attention of passers-by.

Soft drink brand Diet Pepsi faced a similar challenge to DHL, in determining how to link its product to attributes of Fashion Week. Last year, Diet Pepsi took on the challenge indirectly by unveiling a new can design. Slender and sexy, fashionistas throughout the tents sipped Diet Pepsis and kept the brand in the eyesight of everyone present.

This year the brand went for direct alignment - saying, in effect, "we support fashion just like you." Their set, created by Jonathan Adler, featured a display of four outfits by up-and-coming American designers. The full collections had been unveiled at a Diet Pepsi-sponsored fashion show on FW's opening night. Both the show and the support of young designers created a press-worthy narrative for the brand.

Surrounded by the nods to fashion in each of the other sponsorship activations, American Express' lounge simply gave show goers a comfortable place to rest while recharging iPads and cameras between shows. A FW sponsorship reminded show goers of the brand's positioning as the card of the wealthy and well-connected while highlighting the elevated service it provides its customers.

In the end, a visit to Fashion Week isn't just about the scene and the shows. If sponsors have activated effectively, visitors will go forward touting the brands just as much as the looks that flowed down the runway.





Title Sponsor: Mercedes-Benz

As title sponsor, Mercedes-Benz had a very visible presence, but kept their staging classy and demure. Producers set the stage for brand interaction with three different activation areas, including two auto displays and an exclusive lounge.

Mercedes integrated their current ad campaign, Icons of Style, into an auto display set as a Hollywood photo shoot. The campaign itself features photographs of supermodel Lara Stone in a vast, barren landscape alongside her get-away car, the SL Roadster. The activation, then, included the actual car set against a similar backdrop and created a chic photo op for show goers. The wild landscape let viewers sense the freedom of a ride in a Roadster while linking the brand to the high style of Fashion Week.

A second auto display featured a Mercedes SUV against a backdrop of a designer boutique turned fine art gallery. Here, Mercedes displayed their paints and wood interiors using a series of multihued stilettos and chic wooden handbags. A finely etched placard directed visitors to a website where they could enter a sweepstakes after creating a Mercedes-themed Polyvore set. This was a great way to carry the activation beyond the event itself, as it engaged consumers in a design experience involving both FW Collections and Mercedes branding.

In addition to the auto displays, Mercedes welcomed fashion's elite into their intimate bar and lounge. The subtly marked entrance created an air of exclusivity that smoothly aligned with their brand positioning. This was the place to be and be seen, alongside celebrities like Kristin Chenoweth and Vera Wang. The space felt intimate and elegant, easily creating positive brand association for visitors who sipped Moet champagne and wooed over cupcakes featuring the Benz logo. Interiors created by a team of renowned designers and contemporary artist Stephanie Hirsch left visitors with the feeling that high fashion and the Mercedes-Benz brand go hand in hand.

2012 Fashion Week (Fall/Winter Collections): The Rundown

The pinnacle of chic design and savvy culture, New York's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week has been on the minds of many a trendsetter over the past month. For FW's official sponsors, this is a prime opportunity to build brand image and awareness. Brands who utilize this partnership effectively can powerfully augment their image. From sexy stilettos to salon services, here's a run-down of how brands activated this year under the big white tents.

The Fashionable Partnership

"You're wearing a sweater that was actually selected for you by the people in this room two years ago from what you call stuff..."

According to Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada", the fashion industry is so powerful that predetermined colors and styles are envisioned for the masses long before the latest trends hit the high end runway shows, let alone the magazines and mass marketed stores.

With power like this, combined with the fact that the fashion industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, you wonder why every product brand is not campaigning to every available fashion house to partner up. And the answer is simple, in fashion, it's all about the perfect fit.

Fashion partnerships are born with many goals in mind, most of which to entice and drive the consumer to crave and eventually purchase the product. Most of the successful partnerships have brought high end fashion names to a brand that is affordable and in line with every demographic. One of the first and most successful of these relationships was between Target and Issac Mizrahi in 2004. This collaboration brought the wild styles of the famed designer to affordable prices for the everyday consumer, the success of this merger lead to Target partnering with other high end brands including William Rast and most recently Calypso St. Barth. These relationships have given Target the results to put them ahead of their retail competitors.

In some cases a brand will look to a fashion partner for the name that will add a "luxury" factor to the product. Serta Mattresses accomplished this in 2006 when they partnered with Vera Wang to create a mattress that screams luxury before you even lay down on it. This partnership allowed Serta to re market their mattresses in new media outlets.

A strong example was their 2009 campaign "Comfortably Ever After" which they used bridal magazines and trade shows to market to the young women who are looking for the Vera Wang name, synonymous with the wedding industry, to sell the mattresses to.

With success stories like these you wonder what will be the next successful fashion partnership. As the fashion industry has taught us, just wait because the deal and launch has probably already been planned well over two years ago.

PRE FASHION WEEK

One of the events, we recently produced was the PRE FASHION EVENT, which was a retail showcase, fashion show and after party featuring up and coming designers.

Some of the designers included: Cloak & Dagger, Caycee Black, and loyale for the show and Mixology NYC, Magnes Sisters, Diana Warner, Cri de Coeur and Hello Robertson at the showcase.

The sponsors were great and truly helped us offsett he cost of the event. Some of them included:
Models: Models International
Hair & Make-up: Aveda
Alcohol: Bulldog Gin, Spaten Lager and Vogelzang Wine
Nails: Priti
Venues: Openhouse Gallery & Delicatessen
Others: Popchips, Think Cofee & Izze Sparkling Juice

Check out some of the press and pictures from the event.
http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=saluk+creative&init=quick#/pages/New-York-NY/Saluk-Creative/99521819177?ref=search&sid=503221394.2736088083..1

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TSooB_0t4g

FASHION WEEK PARTNERSHIPS

If any of you are actively or even peripherally in the fashion world, you are understand when we say this past week has been HECTIC. With 5-10 events every night, how in the world do any of these shows get the proper press coverage they deserve. Yet nonetheless, it is THE time for brands to get noticed and for fashion editors to whole heartedly pay attention to the industry and its trends.

While the designers, producers and editors organize and attend the events, sponsors become key to help them offset the costs and add a little something to the night.

And the sponsors can't complain, they are perfectly poised to get a key influencer demographic trying or experiencing their product during Fashion Week.

One sponsor who has truly blanketed fashion week is POP CHIPS. You are probably puzzled...chips in Fashion Week? But it makes perfect sense for this "pop"solutely stylish brand. They started on the West Coast (home of some of the most fanatical nutritionists) and have developed a STRONG following now on the EAST because it is low calorie and quite yummy.

This week we've seen them at almost every event, and every time people make a comment about how much they LOVE them. And even though everyone needs sponsors for an event, you want to have ones that "fit" with the event and that people will actually enjoy experiencing.