H&M's High-end Marketing Tactics

Cara Delevingne at H&M's Fall/Winter 2013 Collection photographed by Stephane Fugier
Source: H&M

It's always interesting to see the different marketing tactics and employed by a label to re-image itself and the resulting successes and losses.

When Swedish multinational retail clothing giant H&M held it's first fashion show in eight years at Paris Fashion Week. Eric Wilson described the retail giant as having "crashed" Paris Fashion Week (see: H&M Crashes Paris Fashion Week) and it was exactly that. Having previously hosted their last fashion show in Central Park Zoo featuring performances by Kanye West and having invited a crowd of mostly celebrities, the difference in both location and presentation were vastly obvious.

As H&M tries to infiltrate the high-end fashion industry, problems emerge as the most basic fundamentals of their brand are abandoned.


One of the most crucial problems with it's high-end approach to marketing is that the clothes shown on the runway in February will not arrive in stores until September as it is part of their Autumn collection. H&M is a brand built on it's fast approach to fashion, bringing the average consumer pieces inspired by the runways of Paris, New York, London and Milan at affordable prices. While the brand may still release pieces inspired by other designers through their other collections, the problem still remains that their own signature line will not be fast tracked rather delayed as a part of their high-end marketing strategy. More importantly, what consumers look for in a retail giant such as H&M is availability and affordability and while their Autumn collection may still remain relatively affordable, the accessibility has been completely ignored.

However the question still remains, does H&M really need to put on extravagant fashion shows to increase their revenue?

In the last few years, H&M has heavily invested in their advertisement to appear more high-end hiring photographers such as Inez and Vinoodh as well as models such as Daria Werbowy and Mariacarla Boscono. While also having collaborated with brands such as Versace, Stella McCartney and recently, Maison Martin Margiela, H&M's brand has become extremely progressive in that sense, merging the two markets of high-end fashion and fast fashion.

In an article written by Lisa Wang on Business of Fashion (see: Are H&M's High-End Marketing Tactics Paying Off?) she claimed that the tactics newly employed by H&M are merely news media opportunities for the brand and denied the brand of resulting economic successes. Of course, any fashion show or marketing ploy will result in media opportunities, however, the end result of it's high-end marketing will eventually lead to the brand being recognised in a different manner and attain a legitimacy in the high-end fashion industry rather than just fashion for the masses. Whilst H&M's net profit and operating margins have not grown as much as Inditex's Zara retail giant and may have even dropped, this does not simply equate to H&M not receiving their desired results from the high-end marketing tactics. It will be in the long run that H&M will start to benefit from it's high-end marketing tactics.