Highsnobiety snagged a Lovie during last year’s Lovie Awards for the fifth edition of its Not In Paris series, a multimedia hub celebrating and collaborating with leading minds across fashion, art, music, and tech.
The multi-platform campaign refuses to be just one thing, comprised of creative collaborations with exclusive product drops, high-calibre editorials, immersive IRL installations, exhibitions, and curated parties at their stunning pop-up stores. From alliances with legacy brands like Diptyque and cultural icons like Café De Flore, Not In Paris is a bright homage to the minds driving culture and a toast to all elements quintessentially Parisian.
We spoke with Munise Can, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Highsnobiety Europe, for a peek into how they relentlessly drive culture by positioning themselves at its helm. Here are their 10 rules for reaching the forefront of digital.
What's your rule for landing on a creative and fresh idea? What does it take to think outside the box when everyone's trying to do the same?
Create work people actually want to see, read, attend, and share. Achieve this with a unique POV people can’t find anywhere else, activated through the lens of entertainment, and executed with a killer talent roster.
What's your rule for taking the brainstorm to idea, then to brief? How and where does it all start?
In today’s cultural landscape, you are not only competing with your direct competition. You are competing with anyone doing anything interesting. Culture is your benchmark.
What’s your rule for aligning your idea with the audience you’re creating for? How do you meet them in the middle?
Have a razor-sharp understanding of your pinnacle consumer. Create with them in mind. They will become your marketing channel and have a halo effect on the wider market.
What's your rule for beginning to map out the project's different components—from sound and creative to tone, format and beyond?
Define your idea. Then think about channel specific activation formats. Don’t work backwards from a ‘key asset’ to a million iterations of the same visual. Activate your idea in different ways. Otherwise it’s just lazy.
How and where does collaboration with different sectors fit in your process—either internally, externally or both? What’s your rule for bringing different minds together on a project?
There’s no substitute for living and breathing the culture you’re trying to participate in. You have to engage the people who are creating cultural change and momentum as creators and empower their creative vision. It’s not about interrupting the conversation, it’s about empowering and amplifying the voices that are already in conversation.
What's the one thing that's a must-have in your arsenal for every project?
Think culture first. Cultural relevance equals commercial impact.
Did you mess up? How did you fix it? What’s your rule for bouncing back from a misstep?
Don’t treat mistakes as a failure but as a lesson instead.
How do you know when to stop? And where? What’s your rule for reviewing the initial versions of a project to produce the final iteration?
Be your own audience first. If we obsess over it, it’s probably good.
What is your North Star guiding principle, mantra or philosophy for making standout work?
Be interesting enough that interesting people want to talk about you.
13 September is Your Last Chance to Enter the 14th Annual Lovie Awards
Our Extended Entry Deadline is an opportunity to stand with Europe’s most creative companies, including Highsnobiety, Le Monde, Snapchat, Van Gogh Museum, and WeTransfer, among more.
With dedicated honours for European Publisher of the Year and Brand of the Year, this is your last chance to cement yourself in the highest ranks of the European digital industry. Enter before our Summer Grace period closes on Friday, 13th September!