Gucci Eyeweb v's Burberry Art of the Trench

In recent weeks, two major luxury fashion brands, Burberry & Gucci, have taken the plunge and launched social networks built around their brands and products. It’s not a new idea by any means – But it is the first time luxury fashion brands have used social media in this way. Indeed, both Gucci and Burberry heavily promoted these sites at last week’s IHT Techno Luxury conference in Berlin (hosted by the Suzy Menkes - All tweets on http://www.wednesday-london.com/)

Burberry focused on ‘The Art of the Trench’ and partnered with well known Fashion blogger, Scott Schuman from ‘The Satorialist’, (one of my favourite blogs) to create a collage of photos specifically all about the trench. The site is interactive, fun and features their customers at the fore front of their brand. By launching this site, Burberry further cemented ownership of the luxury trench.

Gucci Eyeweb debuts Gucci's newest eyewear collection, as well as an online tool for users to share their party photos and comments. With sections for New York, Barcelona, Milan, Paris, Tokyo, Berlin and London, the uploaded photos are shown reflecting in the lenses of a pair of revolving sunglasses. Personally, I found it really difficult to see why on earth I should go further than the homepage – I found it difficult to navigate, clunky and actually quite insincere. The site is populated with a mix of sometimes tacky images that seem to have nothing to do with the Gucci brand at all. It leaves me asking myself - what is the point in this ?

Burberry definitely outshines in this instance, but they need to create reasons for users to return. They say this will be achieved by bringing in new curators and creatives to populate the site with interesting content. We shall have to see what Burberry works on next for the 'Art of the Trench'. Gucci may want to consider what exactly it is hoping to achieve, and go back to the drawing board.

I think this represents two very distinct outcomes with social media : Gucci heard about something called social media whereas Burberry remixed and embraced it. Personally, I really hope that usability is the next “thing” for fashion websites - For every good Burberry site, there are a hundred Gucci sites that require you to think entirely too much for something that should be entertaining.