How the Social Media Buzz Machine Creates Global Best Sellers

It's a process, as they say. Hits dont just happen. They are created. But sometimes they fail to appear despite all the planning and forethought lavished on them - and sometimes they emerge from unlikely or, at least, unplanned directions.

This is especially true in a global economy where a Malaysian fashion designer named Jimmy Choo who is based in the UK but whose brand is owned by a Swiss conglomerate discovers that when a character on a Korean soap opera wears one of his shoes it becomes a runaway hit thanks to the show's syndication in China and other parts of Asia (and is being dubbed into Spanish for distribution in regions where that language is predominant). With us so far?

Social media then kicks in because of the convergence between television and social media, both to keep fans engaged and to report on related phenomena, like the fact that clothes worn in character - or out - by celebrities turn into huge financial hits.

So, yes, we are being manipulated. But we seem to like it, we encourage it by responding positively to the stimulae produced by such efforts and, well, we just dont fully understand how all of these things keep happening seemingly out of nowhere. Except, of course, that there is no such thing as 'nowhere' anymore. It is simply a space that has yet to be effectively exploited. JL

Christina Binkley reports in the Wall Street Journal:

After a Heel Appeared on a Hit Korean TV Show, Social Media Lit Up and So Did Sales; Months to Reorder

A glittery Jimmy Choo heel was flying off the shelves in Shanghai and Beijing. Store clerks notified executives at the brand's London headquarters that clients were coming in with smartphone snapshots of the shoe on a mysterious new television show. Within days, the Chinese stores were sold out, and so was Seoul.

As demand for the shoe rippled around the globe throughout January, moving from Asia to Europe and finally to the U.S., Jimmy Choo's chief executive Pierre Denis got a crash course in the impact of Korean and Chinese media, even as he faced hurdles getting more of the shoes manufactured. The shoes are finally starting to arrive in stores, four months later.

The tale of the shoe, a dainty $625 pump called the Abel, illustrates how fads, magnified and fueled by social media, now move around the globe far faster than manufacturers of handmade luxury goods can respond. It also says a lot about the growing importance of Asian consumers and the way they consume entertainment media and luxury goods.

Korean film star Jun Ji-hyun slipped on the Jimmy Choo pump, in a sparkly gray color called "anthracite," on the second episode of a new Korean soap opera. The show, "My Love From the Star" (the translation that is preferred, among many, by the production company, SBS International Inc.) launched in Korea on Dec. 18, and soon after in China.

Its plot twists like a telenovela: In the show, a handsome alien, played by actor Kim Soo-hyun, has been stranded on earth for 400 years, never aging, and winds up living next door to Ms. Jun's character. Romantic tension, nasty rivalries, Mr. Kim's superpowers, and frequent flashbacks to the 17th-century Joseon Dynasty carry the comedy/drama through 21 episodes. It airs twice weekly.

The series is a phenomenon in Korea and in China, where Korean shows garner huge audiences. In China, the show has been a top draw on online video platforms and a trendy topic on China's Twitter-like Weibo. When Ms. Jun ate fried chicken and beer in one episode, Chinese restaurants reported a surge in orders. Her Yves Saint Laurent lipstick in "rosy coral #52" and a Samsonite leather backpack worn by Mr. Kim have seen sell-out sales.

Samsonite says it wasn't told in advance that Mr. Kim would wear the backpack on the show. The company "inevitably missed out on some sales before the stock could be replenished, which took approximately 1 1/2 months," says Leo Suh, Samsonite's president for Asia Pacific & Middle East. The company subsequently reduced its lead time to 45 days.

The show's unexpected consumer impact "definitely helps the show's distribution around the world," says Kevin Kim, director of business development for SBS International, which has distributed the show in China, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and elsewhere in Asia. It is available with English subtitles online, and is currently being dubbed in Spanish for distribution in Latin America.

Fashion brands work overtime these days to get their products on television and red carpets. They send items to stylists, give them free to celebrities, and set up give-away booths before Hollywood awards. Press agents email photos of the hits and plaster social media with them. Usually, these are brand-building exercises, as when Saint Laurent dressed Bruno Mars and his band for a Super Bowl appearance.

But Jimmy Choo—which hadn't paid for a product placement on the Korean TV show, according to a spokeswoman—had no advance notice for the shoe's big moment. The Abel had already been in stores for months when it appeared in episode two, which aired Dec. 25, as well as episodes three and four.

The Abel pump is part of Jimmy Choo's "Anouk" family—a group of best-sellers from the Choo 24:7 collection that come out seasonally in an ever-changing variety of colors and materials. The Abel, which has a 100-mm high heel, is almost identical to the Aza, a 50-mm version worn by Michelle Obama.

A stylist working for "My Love From the Star" requested the anthracite Abel, which has a glittery, fairy-tale look, along with several other styles. A plot line called for a Cinderella-type shoe that would play a key role—with several close-ups—in a case of identity confusion between two characters.

In January, with demand for the shoe swelling in much of Asia, the company's Hong Kong office drew up an illustrated story board showing images from the show to explain the phenomenon to executives in Europe. The anthracite Abel sold out completely in Asia in January. Requests came from Dubai and Europe, and the shoe sold out in the U.S. by late February. Store clerks took names for a wait list.

But production of the shoe model, part of the brand's fall 2013 collection, was long finished. The company was producing shoes for fall 2014.

Mr. Denis and his team had produced only a few hundred pairs (he declines to share specific numbers) of the Abel in the anthracite color. The company had special-ordered the shoe's complex, layered, glitter fabric from a family-owned textile company in Great Britain. In Italy, the fabric was hand-stitched and nailed on to shoe lasts, and then sat to take on the shape of the mold. The production took four months—standard for handmade shoes.

Still, in January, Mr. Denis demanded a re-order of the anthracite Abel pumps, in "a couple of thousand" pairs—a massive order for the brand of one style. The move, he says, required re-jiggering production among the Italian factories.

For years, film and TV-inspired trends mostly came from Hollywood. In the late 1990s, "Sex and the City" turned Carrie Bradshaw's shoe fetish into a national pastime. Saks

 Fifth Avenue later gave its Manhattan flagship's shoe floor a ZIP code (10022-SHOE).

Jimmy Choo, known for strong, sexy cuts and Italian craftsmanship, has benefited from TV exposure. Named for the British cobbler who founded it in 1996 with former fashion editor Tamara Mellon, the brand has had its bumps, including Mr. Choo's departure. When the brand was sold to Swiss luxury group Labelux Group GmbH in 2011, Ms. Mellon and then-chief executive Joshua Schulman resigned. Mr. Denis was wooed from LVMH, where he held executive positions with Dior and John Galliano. He is expanding Jimmy Choo around the world. "The growth is in Asia," he says.

The brand hopes for more "My Love From the Star" appearances. But there is competition. "We've reached out to the show to offer them more," says spokeswoman Dana Gers. "But I think a lot of other brands have discovered it."