{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"<iframe src=\"https://embed.acast.com/$/6355d904dd5e0e0012da88d1/6ab67f41bd67ce4b53503109?\" frameBorder=\"0\" width=\"700\" height=\"250\"></iframe>","title":"Feed Me's Emily Sundberg on How Fashion Underestimates Its Customers","thumbnail_width":200,"thumbnail_height":200,"thumbnail_url":"https://open-images.acast.com/shows/6355d904dd5e0e0012da88d1/1790344520167-bdadb08b-91e8-40c7-8dd4-5a4b342d7c1b.jpeg?height=200","description":"<p>Every weekday morning, a certain slice of New York opens the same e-mail. Lawyers, bankers, editors, restaurateurs: some of the city&#39;s most plugged-in people read Feed Me, the daily newsletter written by Emily Sundberg.</p><p><br></p><p>In a few short years, Sundberg has turned a newsletter she started at her desk into one of the most talked-about new media publications in New York. She has built it herself, with a paywall from day one and no outside investors. Feed Me now includes contributing columnists, reader events, merchandise and a podcast.</p><p><br></p><p>Her readers are exactly the people fashion brands are trying hardest to reach: smart, sceptical and very aware of how they are being marketed to. That makes Sundberg one of the sharpest outside observers of the industry today.</p><p><br></p><p>&quot;I just never underestimate how clued in and informed my audience is, and I never want to speak down to them.&quot;</p><p><br></p><p>Sundberg joins Amed to talk about building a media business on instinct, and capturing the attention of fashion&#39;s most sought after customers.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Key Insights:</strong></p><p><br></p><ul><li><strong>Fashion&#39;s customers know exactly how they are being sold to: </strong>Sundberg notes that when a strong campaign lands on Instagram, the compliment is increasingly about the marketing itself. &quot;They&#39;re in on the bit. They know that they&#39;re being sold to,&quot; she says. She tells brands to stop recycling the same models and copy, and to assume every campaign will be &quot;dissected, potentially dunked on, on X or Substack or Instagram.&quot;</li></ul><p><br></p><ul><li><strong>Pushing a single product can backfire: </strong>Sundberg has noticed brands putting all their marketing behind one hero item, such as J.Crew&#39;s pink shrunken sweater or a Free People coat she saw 20 women promoting on her feed. &quot;Why would I want to buy that coat if you&#39;re pushing it so hard?&quot; she says.<strong> </strong>Sundberg cites shoppers booking flights to buy Chanel&#39;s new collection as &quot;the best case scenario.&quot;</li></ul><p><br></p><ul><li><strong>Menswear is how fashion reaches readers who don&#39;t work in it: </strong>&quot;Almost half my readers are men,&quot; Sundberg says, and many of them &quot;actually geek out a lot about how they get dressed every day.&quot; Her male readers follow how their favourite clothing companies have changed through bankruptcies, investments and new creative directors. &quot;There&#39;s a way to talk about fashion and style to non-fashion people,&quot; she says. &quot;And that has become really important.&quot;</li></ul><p><br></p><ul><li><strong>Fashion media lacks the independent, authoritative voices that other fields have: </strong>Sundberg has trusted experts for restaurants, tech and books, but says: &quot;I don&#39;t feel like I have as many of those voices right now in fashion.&quot; She worries that people starting Substacks and podcasts aren&#39;t being edited. When Amed says fashion media sits too close to the brands it covers, she agrees that too much of it runs on the &quot;same press releases&quot; and is &quot;scared of advertisers.&quot;</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>Three Books Emily Sundberg Recommends:</strong></p><ul><li>Scribble Scribble: Notes on the Media, by Nora Ephron</li><li><u><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Official_Preppy_Handbook\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">The Official Preppy Handbook</a></u>, by Lisa Birnbach</li><li><u><a href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/713027/the-shards-by-bret-easton-ellis/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">The Shards</a></u>, by Bret Easton Ellis</li></ul>","author_name":"The Business of Fashion"}