Luxury fashion and beauty brands have long faced the challenge of measuring and comparing the impact of different marketing initiatives across disparate channels. With marketing budgets in the tens or hundreds of millions, CMOs have struggled to determine optimal allocation between PR, influencer partnerships, celebrity endorsements, and owned social media.
A magazine feature might generate prestige, but how did its impact compare to an Instagram post by a celebrity or a TikTok campaign with micro-influencers? Without a common measurement framework, decisions were often based on gut feeling rather than concrete evidence.
Enter Launchmetrics, a software, data, and insights company working with more than 1,700 brands worldwide, including the powerhouses of LVMH, Kering, Richemont, and Estee Lauder, as well as notable brands like Jacquemus, Jimmy Choo, and Manolo Blahnik. Purchased by publicly traded French company Lectra in January 2024, the company has developed tools that quantify what was previously unquantifiable: the precise value of press coverage, influencer partnerships, and social media engagement.
“We’re harmonizing all of that data with your PR data, which is things like media impact value, and allowing our brands to be able to compare different marketing channels effectively,” explains Alison Bringé, the company’s Chief Marketing Officer. “As a CMO, it’s very hard to be able to compare an influencer strategy with a piece of PR strategy with my own social media strategy. PR was measured in earned media value. Social media was measured in clicks, shares, and likes. Advertising was measured in reach, and influencers and celebrities had to be paid.”
Launchmetrics has created tools that connect operational activities with strategic insights, allowing brands to make informed decisions about their investments across multiple channels and voices.
Media Impact Value
To address the measurement challenge, Launchmetrics developed Media Impact Value (MIV), a proprietary algorithm created in collaboration with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). This metric assigns a monetary value to every post, interaction, or article about a brand, enabling apples-to-apples comparisons across different marketing channels and activities.
“We worked with the CFDA to do this study. We looked at 400 fashion shows across New York, London, Paris, and Milan. We looked at what brands were paying, we looked at who they were inviting,” Alison explains. “We basically took all of this historic data we had to build an algorithm to allow us to assign a monetary value—a dollar amount, a euro amount, a pound amount—to every post, interaction, or article coming out of Fashion Week.”
For the first time, luxury brands gained the ability to directly compare the impact of a magazine editorial with an influencer collaboration or a celebrity appearance. MIV has since become “the standard of the industry for people to be able to benchmark their initiatives, their activities, their activations with other brands,” according to Alison.
The value of this universal metric extends beyond individual campaign analysis. By benchmarking against competitors, brands can identify gaps in their strategies and opportunities for growth. “I can tell you your show is worth 10 million. But if you don’t know what other people are generating, how do you know if that’s good or bad?” Alison points out.
Brand Performance Cloud
Launchmetrics’ approach to the measurement challenge comes in the form of its Brand Performance Cloud, a suite of six products that link day-to-day operations with analytics. This system grew from the company’s beginnings as Fashion GPS, which Alison joined in 2014 before it merged to become Launchmetrics.
“When we started Fashion GPS, the company was primarily focused on software for event management,” Alison explains. “Today, we are still working with about 85% of the major fashion shows across New York, London, Paris, and Milan.” This operational base includes tools for sample tracking—which still accounts for approximately 50% of Launchmetrics’ revenue—as well as contact management and digital asset sharing.
The Brand Performance Cloud is organized into two main categories: Launch and Metrics.
The Launch side focuses on operational tools, including Events for managing fashion shows and brand activations, Samples for tracking product prototypes globally, Contacts for managing relationships with editors and influencers, and Galleries for sharing virtual lookbooks and product images.
The Metrics side delivers analytical insights through Discover for monitoring daily press coverage and Insights for benchmarking against competitors across regions, channels, and voices.
The company’s shift from operational tools to analytics was driven by a recognized gap in the market. “What we realized is the gap came down to data,” Alison says. “If I have this jacket and I have to decide if it goes to Harper’s Bazaar or Lady Gaga, how do I know? If I have the data—how much impact does Harper’s Bazaar generate versus Lady Gaga—and I can see that on paper, even if I’m the intern or the sample coordinator or the junior PR, I can make that decision.”
Deep Analysis of the Creator Ecosystem
Launchmetrics also focuses on gaining a deep understanding of the various voices that influence luxury consumers. The platform goes beyond surface-level metrics to provide nuanced insights into different types of creators and their impact.
“We’re looking at all of the voices that impact the customer’s path to purchase,” Alison says. “We’re looking really deep into the data to understand, is it a micro-influencer? Is it an all-star influencer? Is it a mega-influencer? What channels are working?”
This granular analysis extends to understanding regional differences and cross-border influence. “If you think about these key opinion leaders coming out of China, they have their Chinese platforms, but then they also have Western platforms. And brands want to understand, too, how an influencer that’s Chinese impacts a consumer in the United States?”
This depth of analysis is particularly valuable in the creator economy, where influence is increasingly fragmented across multiple platforms and voices.
From Quantitative to Qualitative Insights
As the quantification of luxury marketing matures, Launchmetrics is now pushing into new territory: qualitative analysis. While quantitative metrics have been key to understanding where impact happens, brands are increasingly seeking to understand why certain collaborations resonate more than others.
“In this day and age, where you have to prove the ROI of every single dollar because the economic climate isn’t at its best, brands are trying to understand why it happens,” Alison explains. “Why is one product more popular than another? Why is one brand more popular than another? Why does someone have better luck when it comes to repositioning?”
To answer these questions, Launchmetrics is developing tools to analyze the qualitative attributes associated with brands and their partners. In their recent “Brand Ambassador Marketing Report,” they examined how celebrity and influencer ambassadors affected the values associated with luxury brands.
“What was really interesting is that 50% of the values generated in these collaborative campaigns were really thanks to the influencer,” Alison reveals. This finding highlights the impact creators have not just on reach and engagement, but on the fundamental values associated with the brands they partner with.
As Alison notes, this shift toward qualitative analysis is connected to a broader trend in the creator economy, where emotional connection and authentic alignment are increasingly recognized as key drivers of success.
“Customers are seeking an emotional, a deeper connection than just seeing your post and seeing it frequently,” she says. “You need more data, but different data to be able to understand how to engineer something that’s going to truly resonate, truly cut through the digital buzz.”
Therefore, Alison advises, “Don’t negate the value of investing in your future. I know it’s so easy to cut the marketing budget because it’s shiny and nice, and you feel like the marketing team is always selling dreams. But remember, you’re not just selling a dream today, you’re creating a future for your brand. The world is borderless. Customers can reach you on any channel, anywhere.”
David Adler is an entrepreneur and freelance blog post writer who enjoys writing about business, entrepreneurship, travel and the influencer marketing space.
Luxury fashion and beauty brands have long faced the challenge of measuring and comparing the impact of different marketing initiatives across disparate channels. With marketing budgets in the tens or hundreds of millions, CMOs have struggled to determine optimal allocation between PR, influencer partnerships, celebrity endorsements, and owned social media.
A magazine feature might generate prestige, but how did its impact compare to an Instagram post by a celebrity or a TikTok campaign with micro-influencers? Without a common measurement framework, decisions were often based on gut feeling rather than concrete evidence.
Enter Launchmetrics, a software, data, and insights company working with more than 1,700 brands worldwide, including the powerhouses of LVMH, Kering, Richemont, and Estee Lauder, as well as notable brands like Jacquemus, Jimmy Choo, and Manolo Blahnik. Purchased by publicly traded French company Lectra in January 2024, the company has developed tools that quantify what was previously unquantifiable: the precise value of press coverage, influencer partnerships, and social media engagement.
“We’re harmonizing all of that data with your PR data, which is things like media impact value, and allowing our brands to be able to compare different marketing channels effectively,” explains Alison Bringé, the company’s Chief Marketing Officer. “As a CMO, it’s very hard to be able to compare an influencer strategy with a piece of PR strategy with my own social media strategy. PR was measured in earned media value. Social media was measured in clicks, shares, and likes. Advertising was measured in reach, and influencers and celebrities had to be paid.”
Launchmetrics has created tools that connect operational activities with strategic insights, allowing brands to make informed decisions about their investments across multiple channels and voices.
Media Impact Value
To address the measurement challenge, Launchmetrics developed Media Impact Value (MIV), a proprietary algorithm created in collaboration with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). This metric assigns a monetary value to every post, interaction, or article about a brand, enabling apples-to-apples comparisons across different marketing channels and activities.
“We worked with the CFDA to do this study. We looked at 400 fashion shows across New York, London, Paris, and Milan. We looked at what brands were paying, we looked at who they were inviting,” Alison explains. “We basically took all of this historic data we had to build an algorithm to allow us to assign a monetary value—a dollar amount, a euro amount, a pound amount—to every post, interaction, or article coming out of Fashion Week.”
For the first time, luxury brands gained the ability to directly compare the impact of a magazine editorial with an influencer collaboration or a celebrity appearance. MIV has since become “the standard of the industry for people to be able to benchmark their initiatives, their activities, their activations with other brands,” according to Alison.
The value of this universal metric extends beyond individual campaign analysis. By benchmarking against competitors, brands can identify gaps in their strategies and opportunities for growth. “I can tell you your show is worth 10 million. But if you don’t know what other people are generating, how do you know if that’s good or bad?” Alison points out.
Brand Performance Cloud
Launchmetrics’ approach to the measurement challenge comes in the form of its Brand Performance Cloud, a suite of six products that link day-to-day operations with analytics. This system grew from the company’s beginnings as Fashion GPS, which Alison joined in 2014 before it merged to become Launchmetrics.
“When we started Fashion GPS, the company was primarily focused on software for event management,” Alison explains. “Today, we are still working with about 85% of the major fashion shows across New York, London, Paris, and Milan.” This operational base includes tools for sample tracking—which still accounts for approximately 50% of Launchmetrics’ revenue—as well as contact management and digital asset sharing.
The Brand Performance Cloud is organized into two main categories: Launch and Metrics.
The Launch side focuses on operational tools, including Events for managing fashion shows and brand activations, Samples for tracking product prototypes globally, Contacts for managing relationships with editors and influencers, and Galleries for sharing virtual lookbooks and product images.
The Metrics side delivers analytical insights through Discover for monitoring daily press coverage and Insights for benchmarking against competitors across regions, channels, and voices.
The company’s shift from operational tools to analytics was driven by a recognized gap in the market. “What we realized is the gap came down to data,” Alison says. “If I have this jacket and I have to decide if it goes to Harper’s Bazaar or Lady Gaga, how do I know? If I have the data—how much impact does Harper’s Bazaar generate versus Lady Gaga—and I can see that on paper, even if I’m the intern or the sample coordinator or the junior PR, I can make that decision.”
Deep Analysis of the Creator Ecosystem
Launchmetrics also focuses on gaining a deep understanding of the various voices that influence luxury consumers. The platform goes beyond surface-level metrics to provide nuanced insights into different types of creators and their impact.
“We’re looking at all of the voices that impact the customer’s path to purchase,” Alison says. “We’re looking really deep into the data to understand, is it a micro-influencer? Is it an all-star influencer? Is it a mega-influencer? What channels are working?”
This granular analysis extends to understanding regional differences and cross-border influence. “If you think about these key opinion leaders coming out of China, they have their Chinese platforms, but then they also have Western platforms. And brands want to understand, too, how an influencer that’s Chinese impacts a consumer in the United States?”
This depth of analysis is particularly valuable in the creator economy, where influence is increasingly fragmented across multiple platforms and voices.
From Quantitative to Qualitative Insights
As the quantification of luxury marketing matures, Launchmetrics is now pushing into new territory: qualitative analysis. While quantitative metrics have been key to understanding where impact happens, brands are increasingly seeking to understand why certain collaborations resonate more than others.
“In this day and age, where you have to prove the ROI of every single dollar because the economic climate isn’t at its best, brands are trying to understand why it happens,” Alison explains. “Why is one product more popular than another? Why is one brand more popular than another? Why does someone have better luck when it comes to repositioning?”
To answer these questions, Launchmetrics is developing tools to analyze the qualitative attributes associated with brands and their partners. In their recent “Brand Ambassador Marketing Report,” they examined how celebrity and influencer ambassadors affected the values associated with luxury brands.
“What was really interesting is that 50% of the values generated in these collaborative campaigns were really thanks to the influencer,” Alison reveals. This finding highlights the impact creators have not just on reach and engagement, but on the fundamental values associated with the brands they partner with.
As Alison notes, this shift toward qualitative analysis is connected to a broader trend in the creator economy, where emotional connection and authentic alignment are increasingly recognized as key drivers of success.
“Customers are seeking an emotional, a deeper connection than just seeing your post and seeing it frequently,” she says. “You need more data, but different data to be able to understand how to engineer something that’s going to truly resonate, truly cut through the digital buzz.”
Therefore, Alison advises, “Don’t negate the value of investing in your future. I know it’s so easy to cut the marketing budget because it’s shiny and nice, and you feel like the marketing team is always selling dreams. But remember, you’re not just selling a dream today, you’re creating a future for your brand. The world is borderless. Customers can reach you on any channel, anywhere.”