Chiara Ferragni's power to influence from social networks to the financial market

Chiara with her latest # Fendi look, Chiara with a design from her sister, with her son Leo, with her daughter Vittoria. Chiara with a green top that barely covers her torso. Chiara in her underwear. Chiara and her blue eyes. The nearly 25 million followers of Chiara Ferragni on Instagram receive between four and six photos a day of who is today considered one of the most important fashion influences in the world.

Its power also has an impact on the financial market. When Safilo announced on September 13 a contract "for several years" for Ferragni to design his own line of glasses under the brand of the Italian firm, the price of his share soared 8% at its highest value since September 2018.

The signature of luxury leather items Tod's went further, and in April he invited Ferragni to join his board. Tod's shares shot 14% to 32.2 euros, their highest value since March 2020. Since then, the stock has won another 42%.

There was one thing in common in the communiqués of both companies: the confession that the company with Ferragni was an effort to bring its brands closer to the "young public" or "contemporary".

Born in Milan in 1987, at the age of 34, she is part of the Millennial generation. But her aesthetics and that of her posts also bring her closer to Generation Z, regardless of her status as a married woman with two children. This speaks of a strategy to adapt his image to trends and generations, although Ferragni insists in every interview that everything he publishes is real and spontaneous, to which he attributes his success.

Literally, Chiara Ferragni is a case study. Harvard Business School dedicated one of her famous cases to her in 2015, after her blog "the Blonde Salad" became a multibrand millionaire in just six years. The document is mandatory for those who aspire to monetize their social networks.

A lot of vision and some ego

"at first there were no rules. It was like the old West. " This is how Riccardo Pozzoli, former partner and former partner of Ferragni, described the beginning of the Blonde Salad, the blog on which the Italian woman has built an empire that today includes her own line of clothing and accessories, talent agency, digital marketing agency and, of course, her CEO's millionaire contracts.

In 2009, in the pre-Instagram era and almost pre-Facebook, the young Ferragni posted photos with her looks on platforms such as Flickr. By then, Pozzoli during an internship in the United States, for his master in Marketing, had already noticed how companies were sensitive to comments that users left on the internet. Back in Italy, in October 2009, Pozzoli convinced Ferragni, a law student, to create his own platform for his passion for fashion.

"it can become something interesting in the future," he told him. He was right. In six months, the Blonde Salad already recorded more than 30,000 visits a day, and companies started knocking on the door to place ads on their website.

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"the idea was to play with the concept of the dumb blonde, and for the blog to be a mixture of things, that's why salad," Ferragni explained in an interview with Financial times, prior to the release of the documentary unposted, with which he celebrated 10 years of his brand.

Ferragni, who was not blonde, but adopted the look since her blog became massive, attributes her success to the authenticity of her publications, and by injecting a playful look into a fashion industry until then limited to magazines on Couche paper and snob air.

But playful doesn't mean amateur. The content of "the Blonde Salad" soon changed from Ferragni's "look of the day" to professional fashion publishers.

It is one of the highlights of Harvard's study, the early internationalization and professionalization of the blog, which included hiring veteran photographers and creative directors in the fashion industry. Ferragni and Pozzoli were the first to offer affiliated links, to launch a line of products (footwear) with the name of a blogger, to charge for Ferragni's appearance at events, and to show backstage of the couture parades.

"Chiara has been recognized as the most important influence in fashion, but it has also redefined the fashion business," says Moira Forbes, executive vice President of Forbes at Unposted.

The documentary perfectly summarizes how Ferragni has made herself her main product. "there is some ego in this," acknowledges the influence, who considers that what he does is not very different from the poses he faced in front of his mother's camera.

As Pozzoli explained, Chiara's interest in exploiting her image and not the Blonde Salad as the hub of the business was her reason for her departure from the company.

The difference is abysmal. The Blonde Salad, which is presented today as a digital magazine (in addition to e-market and marketing agency), has just a million followers on Instagram, making it clear that it is Ferragni as a person that attracts consumers. And she doesn't disappoint them.

His wedding in 2018 to Italian rapper Fedez (13 million followers) included three tailor-made dresses by Dior, a list of movie and fashion stars, and custom charter planes with # Ferragnez, the couple's hashtag, which recorded 67 million interactions on social media, in a larger audience than it attracted the wedding of Harry and Meghan, the Dukes of Sussex.

At the hand of Amazon, with whom Ferragni has been working since 2016, the # Ferragnez go to conquer another space: the realities. The couple will release their series in December, on Amazon Prime video. Why not? why not? The Kardashians left a void, the Ferragnez seem to want to fill it.