TOM FORD BLACK ORCHID: Social Media Monitoring Part 1

Introduction

In 2008, I got acquainted with the perfume Tom Ford: Black Orchid, and I couldn't forget it. And what is more, I've never expected to write a whole post about it and share it on my blog.

History

Tom Ford is a fashion designer who was the creative director of Gucci from 1994-2004. After French multinational company (Pinault Printemps Redoute) bought Gucci in 2004, Tom Ford resigned from the company. In 2005 he founded his own fashion company. Nowadays, Tom Ford International, LLC (is based in New York) designs menswear and womenswear, offers fragrances and eyewear for men and women, footwear, cosmetics, treatments, and private blend products. 

Black Orchid

Black Orchid is a luxurious perfume for women which was created by Tom Ford in 2006. "It's a dark and sensual fragrance, featuring notes of black truffle, dark chocolate, amber, and balsam". The bottle was designed by Doug Lloyd.

"This isn't so much about the fragrance, though it's a wonderfully heady scent, but the man himself. With any product developed by Tom Ford comes an air of drama and that glamorous quality women associate with both the man, and the brand"

Since it regards the name of the designer and the perfume "Black Orchid" as inseparable, I'll analyze the existing information about both of them, highlighting the key points of the Black Orchid promotion.

Social Media Overview

1. Website

Tom Ford International, LLC website is used to post the latest information about the brand. We can evaluate how stylish it is and how perfectly it underlines the vision of success, attractiveness, and mysteriousness. The website is intuitively simple, you can easily find the necessary information. For instance, I was looking for these buttons:

2. Facebook

Likes: 1,108,182
(Active since July 18, 2014)

The Facebook page of Tom Ford International provides both: the most recent campaign information and the archives.

3. Twitter
Followers: 47,900
Tweets: 356
Favorites: 18
(Active since February 18, 2014)
The official Twitter account of TOM FORD represents exactly the same content. The same powerful words and provocative photos.

4. YouTube
Subscribers: 13,908
Views: 2,445,919
(Active since July 25, 2012)

As it turned out, the official YouTube account of TOM FORD is designed for menswear and womenswear presentation, and I haven't found any information about the Black Orchid perfume. However, you can find a lot of Black Orchid video reviews provided by users.

5. Tumblr
(Active since May 1, 2014) 

So, you can find all the same pictures on Tumblr as you've already found on the rest social media.

6. Instagram
Posts: 364 
Followers: 1.2 million
Following: 0

People's hands holding the bottles of Tom Ford Black Orchid perfume is an example of a high level of engagement. And the fact that these amateur pictures were taken on cell phone cameras is (the "first hand" effect) is a very unifying and supportive force.

According to the picture above, the hashtag #tomford is more popular than #tomfordblackorchid, the  #tomfordblackorchid is more popular than #tomfordperfume, and finally, the #tomfordperfume is more popular than #tomfordfragrance. Again, it seems that "this isn't so much about the fragrance, but the man himself".

7. Pinterest

Pins: 539
Followers: 6,800
Following: 0
The latest fragrance update was 3 weeks ago. Tom Ford keeps reminding us that the Black Orchid perfume will be challenging and desirable forever. 

8. Weibo
Followers: 10,264

This microblog and the presence of Tom Ford's company on Chinese social media platforms is truly a great discovery for me. Tom Ford is expanding his business in China and he makes efforts to meet the needs of potential customers throughout the entire world.

9. Google+
Followers: 136,779
Views: 3,474,462

To everyone's amazement, TOM FORD International is very active on Google+.

In this picture we can see 4 posts on Black Orchid fragrance promotion which demonstrate the "reminder advertising" strategy. Probably, Tom Ford wants to keep the relationship between Black Orchidand customers intriguing and interesting, and less annoying.

Positive and Negative
The reviews are mostly constructive (it doesn't matter if it's a positive or a negative review), people tend to explain their point of view and even give recommendations. Once again, it proves the high level of involvement with the brand.

 Target Audience

Source: Fragrantica (an online encyclopedia of perfumes, a perfume magazine and a community of perfume lovers)

In this picture we can see that the Black Orchid perfume is in demand among women who have reached the age of 25 and older. What is more, this site gives us a lot of useful information about the customers' reflections on this scent. For instance, we've learned that Black Orchid is more likely to be the fall and winter perfume (so, customers will be ready to buy it during these seasons). In addition, the majority of people gave their votes for "night" scent.

Tom Ford describes his female customer:

"My customer has her own sense of style and knows herself well. My goal is to help women become the best version of themselves"

Tom Ford 

Current Metrics
1. Social Mention for "Tom Ford: Black Orchid"
The results are the following:
1) the ratios of mentions that are generally positive to those that are generally negative are 2:0, 1:0, and 1:0;
2) the number of unique authors referencing Black Orchid divided by the total number of mentions is 1 %;
3) a small group of very passionate advocates doesn't text about Black Orchid repeatedly, these people post images instead;
4) it's a very low likelihood that Black Orchid is being discussed on social media.

Social Mention for "Tom Ford"

1) the ratios of mentions that are generally positive to those that are generally negative are 2:0, 12:0, and 0:0;

2) the number of unique authors referencing Tom Ford divided by the total number of mentions is 62 % in microblogs and 38 % in images;

3)  some passionate advocates post about Tom Ford in microblogs repeatedly (50 % of passion, 31 unique authors);

4) it's a very high likelihood that Tom Ford is being discussed on social media.

As we can see, the creator is much more popular than his creation.

2. Google Trends
According to Google Trends, the searches for Tom Ford peaked in 2014. Regionally, searches came from New York, Los Angeles, Dubai, London, Sydney, Vancouver, Melbourne.

   3. Meltwater IceRocket

In conclusion, I'm beginning to think that TOM FORD INTERNATIONAL aims to reach all the existing social media platforms. And it doesn't seem to care a lot about the repetitiveness of the content. I guess even loyal customers who follow TOM FORD on every social media, one day will become really bored by this repetitiveness.