Some have never heard of it, for others it is hype that has long passed its peak. We are talking about the phenomenon of the so-called ‘content houses’. This term is used to describe a flat share in which several creators live together for an indefinite period of time and produce content for their social media channels day in and day out. Especially since the rise of TikTok, this format has steadily grown in popularity.
The reason: ‘Content houses’ are a hit with the Generation Z audience and therefore also offer enormous potential for fashion brands. While the launch of a fashion brand was only recently accompanied by an advertising campaign in glossy magazines, a big party and lots of gifts for celebrities, today several creators are invited to a ‘content house’. They are given parts of the collection and let them present them to the public.
Brand launch via ‘Content House’
A good example of this is provided by the start-up fashion brand Finesse, which opened a ‘content house’ in Los Angeles for nine TikTokers from April to July 2021. In addition to attracting attention for its launch, the company aimed to make visible that its clothing is intended for everyone – regardless of origin or gender identity. For this reason, the creators exchanged the looks with each other, and the audience could vote on it at the weekend.
Despite the comparatively short duration of “The House of Finesse”, its TikTok content was viewed around 12.9 million times. With long-term ‘Content Houses’, the range potential is increased many times over. The Hype House, founded in 2019, has an impressive 21.3 million followers and 797.7 million likes. Added to this is the reach that the creators achieve through their own channels. The best example of this is Hype House resident Charli d’Amelio, who currently has 147.9 million followers and 11.2 billion likes. Through this format, she achieved such a reputation that she currently ranks second in the ranking of most followers worldwide. For a long time she even held first place.
Content creation in teamwork
While ‘content houses’ used to be primarily organic, with influencers who were friends moving into a shared home, they are now increasingly being developed by agencies and brands. Nevertheless, they still offer already successful creators the opportunity for growth. True to the motto “Elevate others to elevate yourself”, collaboration is at the heart of every ‘Content House’: people help each other to create content and advance their careers.
Living together creates a constant flow of content ideas that inspire each other. The creators always have a helping hand for good lighting or on-site editing. Or enthusiastic protagonists for a spontaneous challenge. The well-equipped premises also make it easy to take professional photos and videos. Best conditions to create and publish content around the clock!
For fashion brands, this means the opportunity to reach an audience that is as large as it is interested and highly committed in the shortest possible time. In addition, it is usually much easier to work with an influencer collective to generate organic content around the products than to manage a complex set of individual relationships with influencers. In addition to market launches, ‘Content Houses’ are therefore also the perfect accompaniment for other occasions.
Hugo content squared
Hugo, a brand of the Metzingen-based fashion group Hugo Boss, initiated two ‘Content Houses’ as part of the world-famous Coachella Festival in April 2022. A boutique hotel in the center of Palm Springs was transformed into the Hugo House for three days. High-profile TikTokers such as Markell Washington, Benji Krol, Nils Küsel, Noen Eubanks, Desi Lundoloki and actress Chloe Cherry each received their own room here, furnished in a style typical of them.
From here, she and a select number of guests headed to the exclusive Hugo x Soho Desert House in the middle of the desert. As the only fashion partner of the Soho Desert House, Hugo and Safilo, Hugo Eyewear’s lifestyle accessory partner, provided exclusive entertainment. This gave VIPs the opportunity to choose their favorite style from the current Hugo Eyewear collection. Huge Hugo sunglasses with LED lenses served as the perfect photo background.
Made in Germany
German ‘Content Houses’ formats have already been able to successfully demonstrate their potential. Above all, the “House of Carmushka”, which took place in March 2022 for the second time. The influencer Carmen Kroll, who has more than a million followers on Instagram under the name Carmushka, invites ten young women to a great location for a week. Your candidates experienced exciting workshops, creative challenges and special activities.
This year, numerous fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands once again took the opportunity to present themselves in this format. The special highlight: the one-day campaign for the jewelry brand Pandora. In addition to awareness of the brand and new customer relationships, 32 postings and 11 reels with 1.5 million views were generated. The company also saw a 33 percent traffic uplift in its e-commerce division.
And the numbers for the entire Summer House are impressive: 85 reels were produced in four days, which recorded 12.6 million views. The participants had up to 50 percent follower growth, the live streams of the workshops had 57,000 views.
Conclusion: Better long-term than short-term
The projects realized by fashion brands in the form of ‘Content Houses’ have so far mainly been campaigns or pop up character. Long-term engagements with creator collectives in particular are able to generate great value for brands. A concept in which brands create a content house as a firmly established place to invite various creators and have content produced on changing topics promises to be particularly effective. If this is accompanied by additional media and implemented as a ‘reality streaming’ show, brands will probably end up with more content than they could ever use.
Written by Christian Schmidt. He is managing partner of the OPEN digital group as well as chief creative officer and co-founder of the digital agency Interlutions. In this position he has been developing brand appearances and campaigns for national and international clients since 1999. Interlutions works in the fashion sector for Young Poets (formerly tigha), Preach, ic! berlin, Ulla Popken, unique, Laona and MyTheresa.