3 questions for . . .

Alicia Birr, Senior Strategic Planner Luxury and Fashion, Google France   

A graduate of Sciences Po University (Paris Institute of Political Studies), Alicia Birr worked for 13 years in different creative industries such as music, special events, and fashion. In 2009 the Parisian founded her own company, a fashion consulting agency to help young designers develop as brands. She has also been Fashion Editor for Glamour’s online magazine. In 2012 she went back to school, to the IFM (Institut Français de la Mode) for an MBA in Global Fashion Management. Her thesis on “The digital revolution’s impact on the organisation of fashion businesses” was a turning point for her. In 2014 Ms. Birr, then in her 30s, joined Google, the American technology services company.  

What are your responsibilities at Google?
I have two missions. Overall, I help players in the French ecosystem, especially fashion brands, in their digital transformation process. For example, I teach them about the digital impact on the customer journey. More precisely, Google is an online advertising company and my role is also to make sure that fashion brands make the best use of our platforms to reach their goals. Google is, first of all, seven platforms with over a billion users monthly. The Google and YouTube search engines provide advertising space (sponsored commercials). I work with the Google sales teams so that fashion and luxury brands have the best possible advertising strategy for these platforms. As a strategic planner, I give brands insight so they can get the most of these spaces according to their objectives. For example, I give them information comparing people’s interest in a brand or product category using search engine queries or measuring the effect a YouTube advertising campaign has on a brand’s reputation.  

What has been the major change in your profession. And what is its future?
The conversation has changed. In the past, brands were interested in what we call performance, meaning the direct results advertisements have on consumer behaviour, like purchases on an e-commerce site. Today brands have understood that they can also cultivate their image and reputation online, especially through YouTube videos. In fact, the strength of online advertising is its ability to target users with great precision. With a television in a home, everybody is exposed, at the same time, to the same commercial. Online, a user’s navigation history lets us deduct a certain amount of facts about the person who’s connected, and we can target advertising content that really interests her. And therein lies all the power of digital technology.  
Another core topic today is the effect of online advertisements on physical store sales. Today everyone is connected. And when you know, for example, that 75 percent of luxury purchases made in physical boutiques were first researched online, it becomes clear that luxury houses would do well to be present on the web. For this topic, we still have a lot of convincing to do. That means helping brands understand that online advertising has a very important influence on traffic and sales in stores. And the fact that clients have done research before coming to buy in a store also affects how much they’ll spend when they get there. Better prepared and better informed, consumers naturally have more confidence in the brand.  

What is luxury brands’ attitude to digital technology? How do you see fashion in the future?  
Digital technology is a sector that evolves very rapidly, and numerous brands are somewhat behind. Why is that? There’s a fundamental tension that exists between internet and the luxury sector. The web, by its very nature, is open to all, while luxury represents a certain idea of exclusivity. In the beginning of the 2000s, it was this loss of control that kept the big fashion names from investing in internet. Since then, they’ve become convinced about the effects of digital marketing.   The first reason why some people don’t buy online is that they can’t try on or touch the product that interests them. And that is the big challenge for the future. Augmented reality, virtual mirrors, etc. are now being created to resolve this. Numerous technologies are being developed to break through this problem of trying on garments. I am, in fact, really curious to see if, one day, we’ll solve the problem! This is one of the reasons that physical stores won’t close, no matter what is said. In fact, a lot of brands that first opted for an online concept go on to open a physical boutique.