In the tedious, sometimes annoying and, above all, endless parade of celebrities dressed in the latest fashion on catwalks along the current gala carpets, the algorithm is king. Not just any algorithm, mind you, it is the most diabolical of the metrics developed to date. Because it finally translates the old advertising strategy of fame, once subject to unquantifiable cabals, into money. No, it’s not (black) magic, just computerized mathematical operations: by analyzing and comparing quantitative and qualitative data, the program in question calculates and gives an economic value to these star appearances based on their public performance. How many publications, printed or electronic, have echoed it; how many times they have been shared on networks, what type of interactions they have given rise to, in which markets they have had the greatest reach, those things. The new ghost in the machine now also monetizes us for the benefit of others. A tool of marketing Very useful, true, but it is already altering the social and cultural perception of fashion as we knew it. Media impact value (MIV), they say. And there is no brand, large or small, of luxury for mass consumption, that is not subscribed to it.
In the beginning, of course, they were influencers. So that fashion, beauty and lifestyle firms could truly determine the economic return they obtain by employing those now known as content creators, between 2018 and 2020, the American computer and information technology services company Launchmetrics developed an algorithm capable of analyzing/determining the performance of their marketing and public relations actions in terms of visibility, coverage in the different channels, market impact and active audience participation (engagement).
Once the measurement is done, the program values the result, that is, the profitability of the investment, which does not directly return to the coffers of the brands as money, but in exchange it offers them an indicator to know the value derived from appearances at events and posts in networks of the digital personalities with whom they collaborate. At a time of maximum tension between the journalistic old guard and the then emerging online gurus (Suzy Menkes lives, the fight continues), the discovery was celebrated with enthusiasm, especially after it was learned that the mere presence of the blogger turned influential interior designer Aimee Song on the catwalks of New York and Paris in 2019 generated almost two million euros in media impact.
Seven years later, the MIV is law in an industry, the clothing industry, that has surrendered to its power. “All the rankings, all the lists, from what has been the best collection to what has gone viral on social networks, are measurements provided by Launchmetrics. Although the most important role is to provide organizational support to the events held during fashion weeks: 95% of the main brands use our software”, says Alison Bringé, marketing director of the company, which is now billed as the first brand performance predictive artificial intelligence service in the cloud and offers greater assistance in visual content management (see its digital showroom), comparative analysis with the competition (the so-called benchmarking) or guest planning and confirmation of attendance at parades and parties.
All in all, the big headlines remain for the valuations of its algorithm. For example, those of the last Met gala, estimated at just over 1.2 billion euros generated just 48 hours after a red carpet that Louis Vuitton won by a landslide with around 50 million euros for this purpose. Or those of the last Paris fashion shows with the flood of debuts in the creative directions of luxury, with a media impact estimated at close to 1,000 million euros. An increasing figure that is still below the revenue that fashion obtains by walking through a film festival.
With the predictive algorithm on their side, the point is that brands already know in which baskets to put their eggs to maximize strategies that, until not long ago, could only be intuited as earned media (earned media value), that is, the publicity that a firm obtains organically, without investment in its own ads or channels (they are called “earned” because their value results from good work in terms of actions, narrative or reputation, and not from the purchase of advertising space).
An abstract and unreliable measurement that no longer works with new generations of consumers: 69% of young zeta and alpha people say they trust influencers and friends more when purchasing than in direct brand communication. The MIV now helps them beat the game, at a time when celebrity dominates the sociocultural conversation. The conclusion is obvious: how are they not going to go crazy about dressing the celebrity on duty if uploading a single photo to their Instagram profile is going to generate a return/global impact estimated in millions? That of the actress and singer Rebecca Armstrong, alias Becky, in Matthieu Blazy’s debut at Chanel, one and a half million euros. That of Jisoo, a member of Blackpink, anticipating Jonathan Anderson’s Dior, almost 1,300,000.
The consequences have not taken long to be noticed. The most obvious, this current mania of advancing the work of designers at festivals, premieres of audiovisual artifacts and save parties before they are seen in the relevant seasonal fashion shows, fostering expectation, yes, but also burning ships. The most bloody, turning the collections into vehicles for showbiz stars, with garments that seem destined to be worn for a while on red carpets and not in the daily lives of ordinary mortals. You can read in many of the posts of those users who talk about fashion on networks: “Looking forward to seeing so-and-so in that dress” or “How good that would look on zutana” or “It’s the stuff of dreams for awards season.” Perhaps because saying “I would buy everything if I could pay such prices” shows the precariousness of the majority, in addition to indicating the unbearable levels of elitism. The virtual disappearance of conventional models in the latest advertising campaigns in favor of idols from cinema, television and music (that of Dior’s spring-summer 2026 is an outcry) finishes drawing a panorama, to say the least, disturbing. Because the question that remains in the air could not be more disturbing: are all these labels still highly desirable due to the exquisiteness of their manufacturing, the innovativeness of their design or even the absurdity of their prices or only because of their marketing campaigns? Do we want their products for themselves or because we have seen them from (insert name here)?
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