Photo: Courtesy of Ralph Lauren.Pssst, Ralph Lauren — and you too, Fendi, Louis Vuitton, and Michael Kors. People are, like, totes talking about your totes. The New York Times’ Vanessa Friedman explains the “Online Brand Momentum Index — Handbags,” a means of tracking shifts in shopper's preference, put together by Credit Suisse.
During the last 27 months, Credit Suisse collected data from more than 200 million English-speaking news sites, blogs, and chatrooms, and studied “not only brand mentions, but intensity of feeling among chatters (‘love’ for a bag, for example, gets weighted more than ‘like’),” Friedman reports. And, Ralph Lauren, Fendi, Louis Vuitton, and Michael Kors comprise the four most name-dropped, and LV is oft described as “gorgeous” and the “best.” On the other end of the Momentum Index: Hermès, Marc Jacobs, and Kate Spade — twist! — indicating those brands aren’t so hot right now.
However, Friedman makes two particularly good points. First, there’s no guarantee the data will turn into corresponding sales for at least six to nine months. Second, it’s “unclear whether the people who chat about the bags and write about the bags are actually the people who buy the bags.” Plus, we don’t how really like-liking a purse, but having an overall fear of commitment affects the index. (The New York Times)