John Lewis has recruited a leading YouTuber to help take its menswear message to online audiences.
The department store, an Elite retailer in the IRUK Top500, said today that it had struck a partnership with “fashion journalist, style guru and YouTube star” Jim Chapman – who has a YouTube audience of more than 2.5m subscribers, along with a presence on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. He’s married to super-vlogger Tanya Burr and is a contributing editor at GQ.
Over the next six months he’ll be acting as a style curator for John Lewis, choosing and styling clothes from its menswear collections. Shoppers can share their finds through channels including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google+ under the hashtag #CHAPMANXLEWIS. The proof of the success of the partnership will no doubt be seen in the growth of menswear sales – currently running at 4.1% up on the same time last year.
The move represents a fresh foray into social media from a retailer that scores highly in the InternetRetailing Brand Engagement Performance Dimension. That research shows the retailer scoring highly for its followers on channels such as Facebook, but also following its customers as they look to social media channels including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest – and now YouTube – for social media inspiration.
