Design of the times

Art, Fashion and Music collide

What?: A number of brands are rapidly notching up musicians to act as designers, desperate for their 15 minutes of associated fame:

* Pepsi has signed up acts such as All-American Rejects, Big & Rich and Pharrell Williams to design a unique series of soft drink cans.

* Lily Allen has launched her own fashion range via budget high street retail outlet New Look. The clothes mimic her own trainers and 50s dress look in a similar endorsement to the recent crush-enducing Madonna and H&M deals.

* Ryan Adams is designing T-Shirts to promote his new album Easy Tiger. Whereby the purchase of the T-Shirt contains the download of the album.

* Johny Marr is designing a pair of limited edition Sneakers alongside PF Flyers.

* Fergie – as part of a monstrously involved mobile campaign – is linking up with a fashion brand. The Fergie Mobile Fashion Meter Contest will give fans the chance to model on stage at a fashion show wearing clothes from the Candie’s fashion range.

So what?: Celebrity retail piggybacking is all the rage right now. The breakneck turnaround of fashion retail – where there is precious little time to build a brand – lends itself to the immediate positive associations that hiring an Allen or a Fergie convey to the consumer. Pepsi, too, can target a niche market with one careful sign-up – Pharrell for example – the mere association encompassing a multitude of marketing messages.

The validity of a musician’s actual input – however slight – seems under no consumer scrutiny. Customers simply can’t queue enough, content to risk being trampled into the ground to grab potential collectors pieces and the alleged kudos that comes with them.

Celebrity endorsed items certainly succeed in generating precious column inches in the press for their associated partners. However, the products themselves warrant little merit other than feeding the limited-edition hungry eBay flippers, who no doubt turn a tidy profit from the resale. There is also a risk of saturation – as in the case of the besieged perfume industry. Hopefully this will drive more creative campaigns to the surface before public interest wanes.

http://designourpepsican.com/

http://www.whatlilyloves.com/

http://www.ryan-adams.com/

http://www.candies.com/