PARIS — Launchmetrics is integrating two of its bestselling products to allow brands to optimize their sample trafficking.
The data research and insights company for fashion, luxury and beauty said on Wednesday it was merging its Samples and Discover tools to help companies track and measure the impact of their samples by connecting sample activations with media placements, using its Media Impact Value measure.
Based on a proprietary algorithm, it estimates the value of coverage across social networks and in the media. Brands already refer to the metric when measuring their campaign efforts.
“This integration enables them to monitor relationship effectiveness, streamline workflow, and optimize ROI with real-time analytics,” a spokeswoman for Launchmetrics said.
Sending samples is traditionally costly and time-consuming and can result in products getting lost. The new tool is meant to allow brands to evaluate the efficiency of their strategy by calculating the MIV generated from their sample movements by criteria including season, collection, publication and even stylist.
They can then prioritize their sample sendings based on the most impactful publications, which can help to reduce quantities and minimize waste.
Launchmetrics’ oldest product, Samples was introduced in 2006 with the launch of FashionGPS, a platform for brands and industry professionals to streamline sample trafficking and digitally manage events and fashion shows. In January 2016, Fashion GPS and marketing firm Augure merged to become Launchmetrics.
The Samples tool, which now manages more than $5 billion in product value per season, helps more than 1,000 brands save an average of 35 hours per week, reduce losses by up to 95 percent, and fulfill four times more requests, Launchmetrics said.
During a recent event in Paris, Arnaud Roy, chief strategy officer at Launchmetrics, said that as the company continues to build and integrate data assets, it is increasingly leveraging AI algorithms to review and confirm suggested media placements.
“Artificial intelligence is not only about developing algorithms, it’s also about having a system that allows these algorithms to be put into products, to put them into production as they say, to scale them so that they don’t cost too much, so that they can manage as much data as possible,” he said.
“To that end, Launchmetrics has put in place processes, tools and governance over the last six years that allow us to achieve this type of result,” Roy added.
