Marketing Case Study: K-Fashion That Captured the World's Attention—What's the Success Formula?

Global Success Strategy of K-Fashion Through Case Studies

Hello! I'm Luna, a marketer at Spray, bringing you various marketing insights.

As creator platforms gain influence, marketing utilizing influencers is being actively deployed across various categories including beauty.

You can easily find brand cases that achieved notable results through influencer collaborations.

In this article, we'll take a look at some influencer marketing cases from fashion brands.

How Did K-Fashion Enter the Global Stage?

K-fashion has actually been attempting overseas expansion for a long time.

In the past, when starting overseas exports, being "Korean-made" didn't work as a strength, so it was often hidden during the export process.

While Korean fashion received positive evaluations, these were only temporary reactions, and it remained difficult for Korean fashion brands to establish themselves in mainstream markets.

However, the Korean Wave and K-pop's global popularity provided K-fashion with a cultural foundation to gain attention on the world stage.

As K-pop stars and Korean Wave actors wore or promoted Korean brand clothing, Korean fashion was naturally exposed to global consumers.

The development of SNS and digital platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok further accelerated K-fashion's global spread.

In the past, fashion trends were only spread through magazines or collection photos, making it difficult to reach global consumers due to spatial and temporal limitations.

Now, fashion trends are shared in real-time through influencers' SNS content, and Korean fashion is rapidly spreading to consumers worldwide.

In the next content, I'll delve deeper into these success factors of K-fashion and the challenges facing fashion brands.

Case Study 1: Matin Kim

Trendy fashion brand 'Matin Kim' collaborated with over 400 influential local influencers across 4 countries including the US and UK, deploying marketing campaigns centered on TikTok and Instagram.

As a representative example, Matin Kim collaborated with American fashion influencer 'Gavin Magnus (@gavinmagnus)' to introduce hats. The video recorded over 7 million views and more than 240 comments, generating significant response.

Additionally, influencer 'Nicole Sahebi (@nicolesahebi)' created an OOTD video introducing Matin Kim products, which recorded 2.5 million views and over 22,000 likes, effectively promoting the Matin Kim brand to local consumers.

Matin Kim collaborated not only with mega-influencers but also with numerous micro-influencers across the 4 countries targeted for overseas export.

As a result, website traffic increased by an average of over 98% after the campaign, and overseas sales surged by approximately 121%.

Case Study 2: Not Your Rose

Women's romantic casual brand 'Not Your Rose,' launched in 2017, was still an unfamiliar new brand to overseas consumers but successfully entered global markets using the K-pop boom as a springboard.

Particularly leading the 'balletcore' trend, it has shown remarkable growth in overseas markets recently.

So what was the driving force behind this growth?

Brand awareness rapidly increased as numerous K-pop idols including aespa's Karina, BLACKPINK's Jennie, and IVE's Jang Wonyoung frequently wore this brand's clothing.

Particularly by directly producing and sponsoring NewJeans' stage costumes, they promoted the brand to global K-pop fans. Photos of idols wearing the clothing spread through SNS, leading to interest from consumers worldwide.

Subsequently, Not Your Rose focused on targeting Asian markets including Japan and China.

They expanded touchpoints with global consumers by collaborating with influential local influencers.

Through partnerships with influencers that harmonized with the brand image, they maintained their unique character and effectively imprinted the brand on consumers worldwide by presenting over 130 high-quality content pieces monthly.

Not Your Rose further maximized marketing performance by repurposing this high-quality content.

Case Study 3: Mardi Mercredi

Mardi Mercredi started online in 2018, built its unique identity, then distinguished itself in Asian markets through aggressive overseas expansion.

Particularly in the Japanese market, they quickly achieved results with localization strategies utilizing influencer marketing.

During Japanese market entry, they collaborated with local mega-influencers to present limited products and deployed various influencer marketing including creating lookbooks with fashion influencers.

Since influencer recommendations gain more trust than brand advertising in Japanese society, these strategies were highly effective for brand awareness enhancement.

A representative example is style pictorials worn by influencers spreading through SNS to attract young consumers' interest.

Through this influencer marketing, Mardi Mercredi effectively imprinted the brand on local consumers, achieving 1 billion won in local sales within 6 months of Japanese market entry, proving their potential.

They successfully established themselves in the Japanese market by generating 3 billion won in sales that year alone.

The Core Strategy of K-Fashion Chosen by Global Consumers?

Do you see the common strategy of fashion brands that succeeded in global market entry?

It's deploying marketing through collaboration with locally-tailored influencers.

These cases show that the most effective method for intentionally spreading brand products is collaboration with local influencers.

In most countries, consumers trust local influencer recommendations more than brand advertising.

This difference is particularly pronounced for overseas brands unfamiliar to local consumers.

Therefore, influencer seeding marketing is essentially a necessary strategy for successfully establishing in global markets.

However, many brands that actually implement influencer marketing often face difficulties due to the enormous time and effort required in the process.