In order to understand which shoe models to focus on for upcoming collections, fashion players need an overview and forecast of the sneaker market’s future bestsellers. Thanks to market intelligence analysis, they can choose or avoid certain styles that are losing or gaining desirability to meet customer demand and increase sales.
The Challenge: Designing a product aligned with the brand’s DNA and customer expectations
Artificial Intelligence can be helpful for designers and merchandisers looking to back their intuitions with data on sneaker design and top product trends in order to develop a sneaker style that will become a fashion hit. How? With image recognition technology. It is an area of Artificial Intelligence that focuses on recognizing specific items – such as clothes or shoes – in pictures.
For instance, Heuritech is able to analyze 3 million social media images and videos daily with 4 representative panels of consumers, from superstars to macro and micro-influencers to mass market. The company can recognize fashion trends by product type and features (colors, patterns, textures, shapes…). Then, with the help of its algorithms, Heuritech is able to identify the relevance of a trend through 4 sets of criteria:
- Past behavior
- Magnitude
- Forecasted upcoming growth
- Adoption rate
Discover how we helped a client release a hot sneaker with the help of our trend analysis:
A good match between brand’s DNA and product positioning
Once the top sneaker market trends are identified, fashion brands can select the ones that are a good match for their brand’s DNA and product positioning. Artificial Intelligence can help them to analyze each trend’s adoption stage and therefore each consumer target.
It is important to identify the trend’s behavior. Is it fast-growing, rapidly declining, stagnating, seasonal? Does the company have time to release its product before the adoption rate declines?
When the right sneaker model is selected and launched at the right time, commercial success is within its grasp and brand positioning is reinforced.
Finally, before launching their communications campaigns, brands can check that the style is aligned with their customer target, for instance:
- Edgy
- Trendy
- Mainstream
For that purpose, Heuritech also has a Moodboard for every trend to make sure campaigns are aligned with real-life clients.
Artificial Intelligence and trend forecasting: “it” sneakers in short
In short, in order to launch a hot sneaker, fashion companies will need to:
- Have an overview of the shoe market
- Identify different sneaker styles among top market trends
- Select sneakers trends that:
- are rising
- are adopted by their target audience
- are a good match for their brand DNA and product positioning
Heuritech is able to provide a platform allowing them to have trend forecasting technology, giving them a vision of their present and future market and customers.
