So Stefano Gabbana said something right: socials can’t guide the positioning of a brand. They can’t become its engine. If a brand becomes a wind vane, it does not go far. A brand – especially in luxury – should have the courage not to listen to the sirens of algorithms but instead to strengthen its identity, at the cost of losing a few numbers. The most memorable works and brands have always been born from courage and a bit of madness, not from fulfilling a list of criteria. Certainly not from the daily and somewhat toxic research of a (non) paying audience applause.
But what a brand can’t hope to do, coming out of the socials, is to avoid criticism, like the violent ones that hit D&G: even if our communication is born without looking at the socials and maybe it doesn’t exploit them for promotion, it will end up there anyway. Someone will record it, film it, share it. And in any case it will be analyzed, fragmented, parodied, remixed, or, at best, mythologized.
The rules are now these: we create original, brave and memorable brands. Then we put them into play.