Traditional line between editorial and ads changing

The fashion industry might have been seeing numerous level of change over the past couple of years from the advent and growth of digital media, but now a number of upstart fashion media companies, targeting the Internet generation are taking

a dramatically different approach to content, platform and monetisation. Where the longstanding fashion media model has been based around physical magazines, which rely on luxury print advertisers to largely fund their editorial output, more and more the web has given rise to shifts in this approach, till now it is becoming ever harder for the traditional model to still function.

Infact research has shown that 2013 will see another 4 percent decline in print advertising revenue, where the web has become an easy and convenient way for brands and retailers to miss out on the cost of luxury advertising and engage directly with the consumer. Now, to the point, where the traditional model is being completely revised, and new media companies are launching with a new point of view.

Examples include, V-files, ‘a fashion entertainment platform, founded by former V magazine executive, Julie Anne Quay. Part publisher and part social media site, it’s described by Quay as a media company built by users for users. So the site is constructed around digital folders containing a mix of original content by experienced fashion editors and curated information from a team of leading industry figures including Nicola Formichetti, Tavi Gevinson, where users can watch, collect and contribute too.

The key behind V-files is that only about 10 percent is put together by industry figures and the rest from visitors, where engaging site users and a social community is looking to be a longstanding fashion media approach.

Other new media influencers gaining traction include the use of video, brought on by the popularity of Youtube and Vimeo, and is a easy way to successfully convey fashion through visuals and movement, as well as the sudden ascent of the presence of street style. Perhaps the culmination in this shifting approach was when longstanding and acclaimed fashion title, I-D, was taken over by global fashion company, Vice, who saw an opportunity to utilize the magazine’s great visual and editorial substance and combine it with Vice’s production capabilities to produce new online video material. “Fashion media has been slow to respond to the evolving media landscape and online video,” added Terry Jones, who founded i-D in 1980 and, along with his wife Tricia Jones, remains a minority partner. “The Vice media group have grown very rapidly with global facilities that would have taken years for us to reach without serious investment.”

And as for ways to bring in funds, these new models are are trading a dependence on traditional advertising for a mix of brand partnerships, retail and agency services. So Vice will expand their model into an arts channel and music focused video content with backing from key Internet broadband companies, V Files has partnered with major fashion retail partnerships to create huge marketing campaigns and by distributing small, niche labels through the V-Files retail channels.

Of course what these new models illustrate is a blurring between traditional model where ad revenue ensures editorial coverage. How these new fashion media companies fair in the long term remains to be seen, but they certainly imply the distinct divide between advertising and editorial of traditional print publications will continue to subside.