Juicy Couture is a fashion brand for women targeted mainly to a younger audience of around 16 to 24. It exploded in 2001 when they dropped their tracksuits, the main face of them being Paris Hilton. The brand was huge for awhile but eventually died out and was sold to a Authentic Brand Groups in 2013. All US Juicy Couture stores were then closed by the end of 2015. Many people still saw value in the brand, how could something that was once in the closet of every teenage girl now be worthless? Therefore, the brand has recently tried to make a comeback. They have done a UK partnership with Urban Outfitters and still have their website up and are quite active on social media. Designer Jamie Mizrahi relaunched the brand at this years NYFW and revealed the brand will be much more upscale with higher pricing. The brand is slowly dropping more clothing but it is being sold on the website FarFetch, which can be confusing for shoppers. Three social media platforms I noticed Juicy Couture uses are Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. They do not have a snapchat, the have an LinkedIn page that is inactive and they have a Facebook page with over 2 million followers and likes. Through the eyes of someone in their target market, I do not think their social media is good at all. I can see they are trying and are at least posting consistently and showing their product, but they are not doing anything to help their sales. With Juicy Couture being passed around by different companies as well as being produced and sold at different places it has been lost on the customer where they can even purchase the brand. The website just directs you to two of their collaborations (the Urban Outfitters one is not even available in the U.S.) and sells their beauty products. The brand is showing off apparel all over social media but it leaves the customer confused. The brand relaunched this year on FarFetch, but this is not mentioned on any social media and it seems its taking a toll on the brand, as everything on the website by Juicy Couture is marked down. Juicy Couture definitely needs to switch up their social media and solidify how they are selling their product to customers if they want to maximize their benefit from social media utilization. Overall, Juicy Couture uses social media to appeal to their demographic through utilizing social media influencers wearing their clothing to gain customer interaction and increase sales.
One social media platform Juicy Couture uses is Instagram. The average company utilizes Instagram because of its insane popularity especially with the younger demographic. Juicy Couture is no different, as stated before their targeted demographic is females aged 16 to 24. It can be assumed that those in this grouping utilize Instagram. Juicy Couture has 731,000 followers yet at times struggles to even get 1000 likes on a photo, this ratio is not good and leads one to believe the majority of their followers are bots. An average post for them includes a social media influencer wearing their clothing, sometimes the photos are professionally done other times it is simply a repost from an influencer who shared a photo in Juicy Couture. The posts from influencers are most likely sponsored, meaning the brand pays them to post a photo in their clothing. I do not think this is a bad tactic, this is how a lot of fashion companies work to sell product modern day. Social media influencers have a big pull with younger females and having them model the clothing can help draw an audience. It seems that the main purpose of the Instagram account is marketing and promotion. On some posts they utilize the shopping feature where you can press on the item of clothing and be directed to the website where you can purchase. It appears this is only done for their UK line, though. This is confusing since some of the social media models are from the USA, yet the clothing line has no website available to US residents that is directly owned by the brand. The photos posted are all similar in nature teen to young adults females are shown wearing Juicy Couture, typically their iconic track suits. The brand also uses Instagram highlights which is great on their part. Instagram highlights have gained a lot of popularity on the app and allow followers to never miss a story and go back and see different evens and promotions the brand has had.The brand pretty much posts everyday in an effort to keep up engagement and keep their page prevalent on peoples timelines.
Another social media platform that Juicy Couture is active on is Twitter. The brand is a verified account with around 137,000 followers. They have a link to their website but once again the website does not sell clothing and only has links to their collaborations that are not even available in the USA. The only product that can be purchased is their perfumes and makeup collection. This is even more confusing because the brands location on Twitter is California. They are a company located in the USA yet have no way for residents to purchase from them? This is obviously confusing and looks bad for the brand. Similar to Instagram they are active on Twitter almost daily. In another similarity to their Instagram page they have over 100,000 followers yet at times do not even get 20 likes on a tweet. Above all, their Twitter is simply them posting the same exact photos from their Instagram and they even use the exact same captions. The Twitter obviously serves the same purpose as the Instagram, marketing and promotion. The Twitter is lack luster and provides no diverse content from the brand. You could follow Juicy Couture on Instagram or Twitter and get the same exact content meaning you are not missing anything from the brand this is likely why they have so many less followers on Twitter. Twitter is also a chosen platform because it is also used heavily by younger generations, but compared to Instagram it is not as popular. Having both allows the brand to broaden their reach, but by posting the same content it makes the brand look lazy and as though they are just copying and pasting the same thing across platforms.
A third social media platform the brand uses is TikTok. TikTok has exploded and used by virtually everyone regardless of age. TikTok gives everyone equal opportunity for exposure with the “For You Page” feature where everyone’s content is streamed. Juicy Couture has a verified TikTok account with 12,000 followers and they collectively have 23,000 likes across six TikToks. They use a similar tactic as they do on Instagram, having social media influencers post short videos of them doing popular dances wearing their clothing. Juicy Couture has managed to get pretty big TikTok influencers on their page, including Addison Re who has over 30 million followers and Loren Gray who has 42 million followers and was up until recently the most followed person on the app. It appears that these posts are all reposts and were not made specifically for the account. The brand has not posted for a month, but prior to that they were posting nearly daily. It seems this is a common trend for the brand, posting daily to gain traction with followers. Their first TikTok actually got 15,000 likes when they do not even have 12,000 followers. Once again using influencers attracted attention from the younger audience and directed people to their page. They average about 1,000 likes a post, the number going up when a bigger influencer is used. TikTok is their most successful social media platform in terms of ratio and they seem to get the best response. It is unclear if they have abandoned the app or if they are taking a break but it would be a huge mistake for them to stop using the app. They could easily reach their target audience and gain popularity very quickly if they properly use the app.
Juicy Couture’s social media needs a lot of improvement. The brand easily relates to my demographic, the target demographic, through creating cute and comfortable clothing. They especially relate to my demographic because we all know of Juicy Couture’s history and would be the ones most likely to bring it back. Juicy Couture could first improve their Instagram by finding a way to increase engagement. As mentioned they have over 700,000 followers yet at times cannot even get 1000 likes. The brand needs to find a way to interest followers more in posts, this could be done through interactive caption that ask questions, giveaway or using more popular influencers. The bigger the influencer the bigger response the post will get, as shown through their TikTok page. While it might mean spending more money, having bigger influencers means getting a bigger reach. Bigger influencers also have more popularity and as a result there is a bigger chance that people will follow their lead above all else. Juicy Couture could also improve their Instagram through creating clear directed links to where their clothing can be purchased. They should utilize the “shopping” feature on every post so that people who are interested in the clothing can then be directed to where they can purchase. Juicy Couture has an Instagram to market and promote their brand and to do so, they need to make it clear where people can support their brand. One last way Juicy Couture could improve their Instagram and increase engagement is by doing giveaways. When brands do giveaways on Instagram they have people enter through having them follow their account, tagging friends in the comments and reposting their post on their stories. Giveaways bring in thousands of people and will result in a ton of promotion. A giveaway will direct more people to their page and will create more awareness of the account resulting in higher engagement and an increased following.
Juicy Couture needs to entirely reinvent their Twitter. Currently their Twitter is boring and is simply a word for word copy of their Instagram posts. This makes their Twitter useless resulting in a much smaller following compared to their Instagram. Juicy Couture could use Twitter for news and tweet out important updates on their brand and what is coming up for them. They could also increase engagement by once again doing some sort of giveaway where to enter people must follow and retweet their tweet as once again this will create a ton of traffic to their account and increase their followers. They also could utilize live tweeting. A new Juicy Couture line was released at the recent New York Fashion Week and such big events like this should be live tweeted by someone watching the show who can take photos, video and give their input on what is happening and being shared. Live tweeting will not only keep followers up to date, but it will give them the feeling that they are there and getting the true experience. Juicy Couture needs to differentiate their Twitter from their Instagram if they want to have a following on both. When the two platforms are posting the same content, it makes it pointless for followers to engage with both. Twitter allows for a ton of interaction with retweeting and quote tweeting and Juicy Couture needs to take advantage of this. Whether its tweeting out questions for followers or asking followers to share their questions, Juicy Couture should focus on Twitter as being a more personal way to connect with consumers and to give the brand more of a personality.
Juicy Couture has had a great start on TikTok and seems to understand what works for them. Through using big influencers Juicy Couture quickly raked in likes and followers. Juicy Couture simply needs to be more active on TikTok in order to keep up with their following and hopefully increase their reach. If they continue to have popular influencers create content while wearing their clothing, it will result in better engagement and sales for them. People in their target audience, teen to young adult females, really focus on trends. If they see their favorite TikTok influencer wearing a Juicy Couture track suit they will be inclined to purchase from the brand. Having a big influencer support your brand means you will quickly gain support from their viewers. Due to TikTok’s popularity this is the perfect place to target influencers who arguably have more pull than influencers on any other app. Overall, it seems Juicy Couture has an idea of what works on TikTok they simply need to be more active.
Two social media platforms that Juicy Couture should join are Snapchat and VSCO. Juicy Couture does not have an official Snapchat page. Snapchat is a huge social media platform that is definitely used by their target market. Using Snapchat to share behind the scenes footage, information on the brand and updates could be huge for the brand. They could create an account that allows subscriptions and post daily to keep followers engaged. They could also create their own filters for their followers to use to help promote their brand and announce big events. Another social media platform Juicy Couture should join is VSCO. VSCO is similar to Instagram in the sense that you post pictures, but it is used more to show an aesthetic. There are no likes and you cannot see anyone’s amount of followers which makes it unique. There is an option to like and repost, although no one can see who liked the post except the person who posted. Reposts are heavily used and are added to ones “Collection” which can be viewed by anyone. VSCO is very popular among Juicy Couture’s target market and creating an account would make the brand seem up to date and with the times. Creating accounts on Snapchat and VSCO gives Juicy Couture to expand their reach and gain a bigger following while creating a better image.
Overall, Juicy Couture has a decent social media presence but definitely needs a bit of an upgrade. Their Instagram has a ton of followers yet their engagement is low. They have the right idea of using social media influencers modeling their clothes as this is one of the best marketing techniques current day. Their Twitter posts the same exact content as their Instagram which makes it boring and pretty much useless. Both accounts lack links to where people can purchase the clothing making it confusing for consumers. One more active social media account for Juicy Couture is TikTok. Juicy Couture showed great success on TikTok in a short amount of time through using some of the most popular influencers on the app to promote their clothes. They simply need to continue what they are doing and post more frequently to gain better traction on TikTok. As a whole Juicy Couture’s comeback could have a great backbone with social media, they just need to do better with their utilization of it. Over time Juicy Couture can really make a difference in their brand if they better their social media marketing.
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