Tommy Hilfiger Broadcasted Its First Live-Stream Shopping Event

Tommy Hilfiger RTW Fall 2020

UNITED STATES — Iconic American fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger has brought his spring collections directly to the consumer.

The PVH Corp. owned brand, broadcasted its first live-stream shopping event in Europe and North America last week, using its “see-now-buy-now” philosophy. The live selling event builds on the next generation’s increasing desire for more social and interactive digital shopping experiences.

“Over the past 35 years, engaging with consumers by creating experiences that surprises and excites them has been at the core of what we do,” Tommy Hilfiger said. “Today we must push our ‘see-now-buy-now’ philosophy even further to stay relevant with where, when and how consumers want to experience fashion.”

Michael Scheiner, chief marketing officer of Tommy Hilfiger global, added, “As a brand that welcomes all, we are continuously experimenting with new digital approaches that allow us to show up in new ways, times and locations. The forms that ‘see-now-buy-now’ can take are infinite — our live-stream shopping event is just one of these and we see endless opportunities for the near and long term. Ultimately, the consumer is boss and we must deliver the experience they are looking for within our brand DNA.”

The live-streamed event was hosted by Model Manuela Frey. She was joined by actress Zoë Pastelle and other guests to share their style inspirations for spring 2020 Tommy Hilfiger, Tommy Jeans and Tommy Sport collections. Those watching the event were able to interact with the host and guests to ask questions, vote on certain pieces of content and participate in pop-up trivia games. They were also able to add their favorite styles to a virtual shopping bag to purchase immediately after the broadcast.

Hilfiger sees this as a turning point in the company’s “see-now-buy-now” approach.

According to Scheiner, the whole idea of live-stream selling, the rise of e-commerce and knowing where their consumer is spending their time is something they wanted to try. “Think of it almost as a commercial way to create a brand experience that the consumer can engage with and purchase if they’d like to,” he said.

The event showcased influencers, models and different people coming in and out. “The benefits with shooting it live is you can interact with the influencers and hosts,” he said.

Does he feel this will replace fashion shows?

“At the end of the day, fashion shows have been around for a long time, and we want that to evolve. I don’t think there’s one thing that replaces it. What we’ve done with the Tommy Hilfiger experience, it’s probably a lot of things. This is just definitely one of the ideas that we’re excited to launch to evolve the ‘see-now-buy-now mentality,’” he said.

As for how frequently they plan this, Scheiner said the consumer will tell them how many times they will do this. “Consumers are looking for new content, new excitement, new experiences, sometimes every second,” he said. The frequency could be as often as the consumer has an interest in seeing it, he added.

During the live-stream, the host, influencer and models explained the looks, which were mostly focused on women’s. “The beauty of it is it really can evolve. To me, the takeaway after tonight, will be what’s the consumer’s interest level and how do they want this to work? This can take different shapes,” he said. Today, it’s a host with an influencer, and it can be Tommy talking about clothing from his own closet, he said.

Today’s live-stream took place with a few influencers in a studio in Switzerland, and an influencer in the U.K. “It might not go as planned. That’s the beauty of it,” Scheiner said.

Tommy wasn’t featured in the first live-stream.

“He’s not in this one, but definitely down the road,” Scheiner said.

Photos Credit: Giovanni Giannoni 

Source: WWD