3 Questions for . . . David Raichman, OgilvyOne Paris creative director and Ogilvy Lab director

After starting out in 1997 with America Online, David Raichman worked from 2004 to 2007 with the Hyptique Interaction Design Bureau, where he oversaw the creation of numerous web projects and interactive museum exhibits. In the beginning of 2008 he joined the OgilvyOne agency and worked on customer engagement and experience projects for the leading brands. In 2012 he was appointed to set up Ogilvy Lab Paris, a facility dedicated to using innovation in services, mobility, and smart objects for brands. He is OgilvyOne Paris creative director and Ogilvy Lab director.

How do you see French fashion brands today? What are their strengths and weaknesses?

French excellence has always bestowed an important aura on fashion brands. There is a certain French savoir-faire that’s still associated with fashion. The next question is how to reflect this in the different trends that appear. I’m counting on the youngest designers in particular. Though creativity remains a strong element in fashion, in contrast, the other two pillars ‒ quality and durability ‒ seem to have lost a lot of importance in the past few years.

Even artisanal expertise has less value, due to the practices and values promoted since fast fashion emerged. Fast fashion brands push the population to constantly buy. And that’s a real paradox in a context where warning signs about the environment incite us to consider consuming less or otherwise and with a more sustainable approach. Today, savoir-faire and quality are the domain of certain luxury labels. And throwaway products exist at the same time as the DIY trend. The “do it yourself” movement is very popular with younger generations; it lets them put together their own look and create their own style by taking elements from different sources. This trend also tends to undermine brand identity, since it’s made from a mix of labels. Brands, in fact, are suffering due to fast fashion’s short cycles.

How can digital technology be used as a growth tool for brands?

The world has become post-consumerist. Now we are more interested in experiences than in ownership. Today, digital technology is part of consumers’ daily lives. Those consumers have demands and expectations concerning brands, spending money, and the experiences involved. From now on, brands must systematically think about the triptych of product, service, and customer relations. And the subject of personalisation can be approached from several angles. More and more sites makes customisation accessible to everyone. These brands have found industrial processes that personalise products at a low cost; before, personalisation was essentially an option in the luxury sector. And finally, brands now have to be “always on”, while before they had a specific time frame for communicating. You have to understand that young generations born with Internet can’t be reached with a magazine page or a commercial.

What Balmain’s Olivier Roustaing does with Instagram, however, is a hit with younger audiences. He has a relationship with his fans, who are certainly not all clients. He is constantly communicating by sharing everything: his private life, his work, and his collections. And if we take a look at his reputation, we see it works! Brands really have to listen to consumers, and that’s only possible with digital technology.

Can a fashion brand completely bypass digital communication in 2016?

The important words in this question are “communication” and “digital”. Do Uber and Airbnb communicate? For a long time, they didn’t. They may be able to avoid digital communications, but they can’t avoid using digital technology. Numerous web start-ups, now giants in a range of sectors, became successful through word of mouth, because their services or products met a need and even solved problems. And yet their communication budgets where minimal ‒ they didn’t have the means to communicate when they began. If a brand disrupts its sector, if it creates a new way of working, that’s stronger than communication and the brand can sidestep digital communication