LONDON — As conventional media shops wrestle with the challenges of monetizing content material and pushing product by way of e-commerce, two digital design creatives have give you their very own answer: an all-video journal with shoppable pages, livestream content material, style options and alternatives for manufacturers to showcase merchandise, and convert site visitors into gross sales.
VHF, which stands for Video Excessive Frequency, will go reside at this time with the debut of a quarterly video journal that includes magazine-style options and style spreads with merchandise from manufacturers together with Gucci, Prada, Dior Men and Versace that may be bought with a click on.
In a couple of weeks’ time, VHF’s cofounders, Fabio Merche and Elisa Silvestri — who met once they have been college students at London Faculty of Style, and who’ve each labored for Dazed — may also launch a TV-style feed to the platform with “curated, sourced and insightful breaking information” that will probably be up to date each day. The TV factor may also be shoppable.
The platform, which has been optimized for desktop and cellular, additionally includes a digital closet for viewers to gather and curate their favourite style items, and a social factor, permitting VHF’s customers to have interaction with manufacturers, influencers and one another.
In a Zoom interview, Merche stated he and Silvestri noticed a chance “on the intersection of style and video,” and devised the hybrid publication.
“We cherished the construction of a print journal, though for us it’s concerning the video journey, the interplay and the animation,” stated Merche, previously inventive director for the London-based Petrie journal, and founding father of VHF Digital consultancy, which has created inventive content material for style homes together with Fendi, MSGM, Vivienne Westwood and Kent & Curwen.
There are these, together with J.Okay. Rowling, who’ve traveled an identical video-media street previously. Who may overlook “The Each day Prophet,” the Harry Potter tabloid with the transferring pictures and dynamic content material?
In 2009, Net-a-porter veteran Sojin Lee turned fashion-as-entertainment into a web-based enterprise, launching Fashionair, an interactive, on-screen style journal.
Fashionair was a mixture of static photographs and video and in addition aimed to drive person site visitors to tons of of shops. It shut in 2010 after working into funding issues, and Lee has since launched Toshi, a b-to-b enterprise that goals to increase shop-floor and dressing room companies to any buyer’s dwelling.
Because the tech toolkit evolves, VHF has been capable of take all the things a number of steps farther.
Merche, whose title is editor in chief and artistic director, and Silvestri, who’s style and artwork director, stated with social media algorithms sometimes rating video content material larger than all different mediums in 2021, “VHF acknowledges the significance of making participating, interactive content material with high quality movies.”
To wit, VHF will take a look at all the things via the lens of video, and discover the house the place “style blends into digital,” whether or not that’s within the subject of textiles, sustainability, gaming, AR or different expertise.
The duo added that constructing an “participating person expertise” is on the forefront of the VHF platform and stated VHF customers will be capable of personalize every challenge of the journal by saving and sharing favourite merchandise and editorial options.
The debut challenge has a sole advertiser within the Italian label MSGM, and different advert offers are within the works, based on Silvestri. She stated VHF will probably be working very like a standard journal in regard to gross sales.
Going ahead it is going to be providing advert house contained in the entrance cowl of the quarterly journal, and double web page spreads. All manufacturers can have the chance to combine shoppable options into their video promoting. The day by day TV a part of the platform may also carry advertisements.
Silvestri, who has a broad expertise in promoting, branding, retail and editorial, stated the positioning wants to achieve a essential mass of readers — subscriptions are free — earlier than it could possibly begin earning money on click-throughs. Silvestri stated she’s concentrating on 250,000 subscribers within the first yr.
The positioning additionally plans to faucet into the facility of influencers, together with Johwska, Allanberger and Visualize Mee, who’ve greater than one million followers amongst them. VHF needs to attach them with manufacturers to drive engagement development to the platform.
Merche and Silvestri have additionally introduced on board Georgina Evans, a former style editor at ShowStudio, as head of options, and the publishing govt and founding father of Grey Communications, Nicky Grey, as industrial director.
