How Topshop builds a social community

0:02My name is Jill Gagan, Editor of Drapers, and I'm delighted to welcome you to Drapers Talks, our podcast series bringing you cutting-edge content from our live events. This episode was recorded live at Drapers Social Summit on the 20th of May. From unlocking the value of influencer partnerships to navigating emerging platforms, we explored how to cut through the noise, build real communities, and drive measurable growth in an ever-shifting digital landscape. In this episode, Draper's Deputy Editor, Gabrielle Derbenauskas, discusses relaunching an iconic fashion brand with Moses Rashid, Global Marketing Director at Topman and Topshop.

0:39Enjoy. So Moses, tell us, Topshop's return has been such a huge moment. What was the social strategy? Talk us through it.

0:49Moses Rashid: so there are a few things at play i guess first and foremost was really establishing like what top shop stood for you know what's the message we want to convey and actually acknowledging that there's this huge emotional connection with the brand so that how do we firstly um treat that with respect but of course and i always say give the people what they want so we kind of break it down into three areas so part one was around product and you put real product in front of real people and of course on socials how do we bring that product to life culture and community like this is the the backbone of our business doing really cool and interesting things but also making our audience feel like they can inform our future decisions i don't know if anybody in the room saw a post that said we've missed you too absolutely we did that we were not prepared for the feedback that we got from that the feedback being an amazing amazing response how How many reactions did you get again?

1:44Remind me.

1:44Moses Rashid: I think it was about 24 hours. We had about 10 million views on this post. I remember posting this thing in the car without really thinking it was going to do that. And then I was like, shit, that is, that's pretty cool. But that was a direct communication between like brand and audience. And the third part is around elevation, right? And so hopefully you saw this small thing we did in Trafalgar Square. Small thing. Shut down Trafalgar Square in August Saturday afternoon. and so um so from a social lens it was like how do we bring product to life how do we do cool things that our community are going to buy into um and again how do we elevate thinking of like aspirational be accessible um how do we create this social economy that people want to be a part of absolutely no it's all very exciting i think the majority of people in the room would have seen would have seen the big top shop home that's for sure and they keep on coming as well um so with that in mind so i'm part of i'm a fan of the original top shop so how do you appeal to i guess elder millennials like myself and to a new generation of consumers as well yeah so it's been really interesting to try and unpick that um part one it was like acknowledge that we need to nod to heritage um but we need to focus forward and so i think you know so that was part one part two is acknowledging you know 214 that hopefully some of you of course have been into um in in its heyday was a place where mother and daughter of father and son would shop so again it was about how do we appeal to to all ages but again do it in new and interesting ways um and so in terms of how it was about breaking down the things that we can see our audiences responding to so that was educational videos on styling for example it was around coming behind the scenes and thinking about where that content would live for tiktok for example thinking about pinterest actually what really resonates with the customers on interest and actually that's like editorial beautiful imagery that shows the craftsmanship and quality of the product brilliant that was going to be my next question actually so how what kind of works best for top shop and top man across the different platforms and what receives the most engagement yeah i don't i don't quite think there's like a one-size-fits-all approach i don't know if they've you've got lots of brands in the room and and so forth but and hopefully you'll you'll agree with what i'm about to say and if you don't then um the door's that way please don't leave please but um no look i think i think what's really interesting like breaking down social platform by social platform like instagram is what we kind of call our hero feed it's you know that's our real estate and we you know we of course want to project um aspiration but also community and culture an element of bts but of course um and actually what we see that works really well is ugc ugc which is showcasing our community and of course we get huge engagement through both on the feed um and then of course when we repost TikTok, of course, feels unfiltered, feels authentic, feels raw.

5:01Moses Rashid: And actually, you know, for a Gen Z audience or indeed younger, if they don't like it, they'll tell you exactly what they're thinking. Their feedback's amazing. And actually that informs your future decisions. And of course, Pinterest, like that's our editorial gallery. That's really interesting. Really good. um and i guess creators and influencers are a big part of your strategy um so how do they fit today for top shop and top man and how do you decide who really does align with the brand so two two parts to that answer so um so actually if we break down influencer we think about what their role is it's quite funny this morning we were doing a piece of work around actually what content works best and what we tend to see is like people speaking to camera start styling edits through to ugc now actually influencer um we we we do to a point but actually we only do a handful of posts per month and we're really intentional about who we partner with what they're talking about and how that content is conveyed on our socials um what's the second part so how do you influencers and um how do you choose who aligns with the brand yeah and i think like that element of what you know who who aligns i'm going to give you the influencer example and i'll give you our talent example um actually it's kind of like perfectly undone what we what i guess you know when we're talking about authenticity which is going to be a key theme of kind of what we'll talk about today is is um actually are these real people wear real top shop clothes and how do we bring that to life on a bigger scale of course you might have seen cara de la vene was our first ambassador and as we were kind of looking at who would represent the brand and be that first ambassador we kind of went through a you know hit list of people and i think what it's not is about putting a face next to a brand it's about authenticity and why does that fit and there was a there was a beauty in her and it kind of leads back to uh one of your earlier questions around like how do you appeal to so millennial and new audiences and she kind of represented something that was perfectly undone was effortlessly cool was you know we know she's had her challenges but that's exactly what it's what it's about and she was kind of that bridge between them yeah definitely no really nice and also you're working with adware i think now as well for spring so again another cool london girl i think exactly like an authentic story to tell grown up she's grown up in london taking london to the world and what i mean by that is obviously the spirit and the energy of what the top shop brand um epitomizes yeah for a lot of people and if you've ever been around adewa she is like the coolest coolest person to be around she just got this aura so actually to have her kind of um uh to to be the front person for our spring summer campaign was amazing amazing um please do get your questions in for moses and we'll get to them towards the end thank you for sending them in um so how about i had the way things are moving um obviously social media trends come and go so quickly so what do you think fashion brands should be paying attention to now so are there any kind of trends or platform shifts at all that are happening that you think right to be successful we need to get on this i think um we need to acknowledge that social media is changing at pace um so i think part one is that we need to be reactive to really interesting things going on in market.

8:34Moses Rashid: Good example, as we were kind of analyzing some vulganic reach just this morning, one of the posts that performed really, really well was actually for our April Fool post, which we came up with the idea about 5pm the night before we launched it. And it was just a bunch of dogs wearing Jamie and Joni jeans. I saw those. But I guess the point being is actually injecting a bit of humor into it. So that's part one. Part to is of course being reactive to what's going on but also of course being true to what your brand is right and i think you would have set that out in any strategy that of course you're deploying but um yeah i think they're the key things and i think like the things to consider in terms of you know challenges you know what you know thinking about social media in the future thinking about what brands should be mindful of um you know there is so much content out there yeah so much content every brand is doing their version of you know um social right and so it's kind of thinking about like how do you really get cut through now you can see cool content you know and of course you'll engage with it but i think um culture and community and really think about how you harness that part one um how you take transactors to advocates to raving fans and of course encourage social sharing which which always works really well um yeah brilliant no thank you moses and um again looking at the kind of wider fashion sector are there any strategies that you think are kind of falling by the wayside not being as effective as they were a few years ago things that we should leave behind maybe i'm going to keep it positive okay i'm going to keep it positive look i think the things that we should be doing more um and authenticity is that word like how do you create content um that allows your audience to engage yeah to relate um and of course have that emotional connection right and we take a step back and you think like what's the business we're in of course we want to sell product but of course we're in the business of selling feelings right and so from a social lens thinking about how do we invoke reaction how do we invoke emotion And I guess for us at Topshop and, of course, Topman, we've got the heritage and the foundation that thankfully so many people are supporting our journey.

10:59So part of our challenge is to think about how we bring that out, but in the right way. Brilliant. You know, AI has been a big talking point today at the wider conference as well. So what do you think the future is, Moses, of social media in that context? So considering the way algorithms change, AI-generated content that might be out there, is there anything we should be kind of cautious of? I think we need to think about how we can harness it to drive efficiencies and speed in the content we're creating. I think in reality, if you're not thinking about employing AI, whether it be in marketing or other areas of business, then you could run the risk of being left behind.

11:49Interesting. Yeah, definitely. And also bringing it back to Topman as well. So very specific kind of male fashion audience. What have you learned with the way men engage with social media and how does that differ from Topshop, for example, women's wear?

12:07Moses Rashid: Top Man's been a really interesting one to unpick. And actually, I think part one was thinking about what's the role that Top Man has to play in the kind of top shop economy, right? Kind of look at the big sister to the little brother, as it were. And actually, what we came down to was, again, how are consumers, how are our audience engaging with content that we're sharing? Styling content, for example, has worked really well. But actually, rather than these kind of huge events, again, I'll shout out Valk Square. Actually, what we've been doing is kind of what I call an inside out approach. And what that means is actually really cultivating community and what that looks like.

12:52Moses Rashid: An example, two weeks ago, we did this really cool little collaboration with Blacklock and Dream Sake. Brought our community members together. and actually what we've seen off the back of that is a lot of these guys um coming to every single thing we do um but they're kind of almost creating this this family feeling and actually with that very much supporting what we're doing so in terms of uh ugc and organic content which is translating i think actually in terms of you know one of the challenges but also the great things to unpick is like how do you convey energy in the spirit of the brand through socials and again that comes down to that word authenticity.

13:33And how do you make sure you catch that authenticity and that the content that Topshop and Topman put out there really, you know, does resonate with its consumers? Yeah.

13:43Moses Rashid: So I guess a great example, and I'll use the Topman example, we had three guys actually turned up wearing the same jacket. Oh, nice. But they all styled it in such a different way, which was incredible to see i've got to say and so again so part one is like how do you bring their personality out on camera that's where you get little skits and vox pops and so forth but actually shining a light on actually how your jacket for example um could be worn in different ways i'm gonna point it i know this guy okay no pressure yeah brilliant no thank you and um any kind of moments that we can look forward to the summer and going forward with top shop and top man I can't give away all the cool stuff we're going to be doing, but I will tell you on the 11th of June, watch what happens on socials.

14:38Moses Rashid: There'll be lots of cool stuff. Perfect. No, that's good. That's all I can share. Brilliant. Well, thank you everyone for sending in your questions for Moses's as well. A popular one now. So if you can speak on this, Moses, which brands aside from Topshop do you think are doing well on socials right now? anyone you admire or you look at in the industry and think yes this is good i think for different reasons i think um amely on door i think has got beautiful imagery with beautiful styling actually for guys that resonates really really well and actually it's quite a simple execution there's a brand called running if you know those guys um where the founder actually will speak to things that they're doing and that gives a real connection between both audience and brand um And I think ASOS are doing some really cool stuff.

15:27Moses Rashid: Of course. You know, you would have seen that out of office campaign that, of course, they're rolling out at the moment, which has a huge, huge response, which is, you know, excited to see how that continues. Brilliant. And another popular question from the audience. So what is the optimum setup for a social media team across community reporting, content creation, calendar management? Where should brands be investing? Oh, my goodness. um the list is endless and i've got to say we've got a very small but mighty team um so where should we be spending time look i think really understanding what performs well and what doesn't in social so of course the reporting element how you break out both um i guess the impact of your content from an organic reach point of view part one what's the impact of how feed translates um to reach but also the power of your stories so we normally say feed as impact stories as scale um so that's i guess part one um content creation look um super important to make sure that your audience is fully engaged um and again having your content strand so what does that look like um campaign content you're selling the brand you're talking you're elevating you're kind of projecting the the version of said brand that you want to project but also um ugc content creator again slightly different might be a micro micro but they produce amazing content and so like how do we elevate that so um so the optimum setup to answer the question um there's like you need a balanceable not easy i think to um capture as well i guess and with that ugc point so and micro influence micro followings even is there a particular number that top shop looks for um or is it more kind of free-flowing than that you just see someone and think they'll work rather than yeah i think i think um in a in a robust social strategy there's um different layers of the types of influencers or content creators you work with but there's a place for everyone and each each individual serves you know a purpose to supporting the overall cause um i wouldn't say it's it's to do with the follower account um it's more about you know do they produce amazing content are they aligned with the brand they do they have the right values do they style things really well nice um and also i think uh somebody else would like to know so we touched on ai generated content a little bit um so that compared with model ugc or influencer content um i feel like i know your answer but well what's my answer probably not the ai generated content i'm guessing um but how do you see that kind of evolving yeah i think thinking about okay so if we just live example if you think about how ai can be applied to content i think there's a balance between like using ai models right but actually how can you amplify um so for example it might be you have real person model um but actually the the item you want to switch out might be the earrings yeah because you want to focus on accessories that's a really good interpretation of like how you can move really quickly to harness the power of AI for PDP shots, for example, or indeed content on socials.

18:58Absolutely, without having to reshoot the whole thing, which takes time and money and everything else. Definitely. Definitely. And also, so how do you truly engage community to become cult followers or even representatives of the brand? So how do you get that kind of UGC in the first place? Yeah.

19:20Moses Rashid: a good example actually was um well i'll give you two so i'm gonna talk about what happened last friday and i'll tell you about um trafalgar square and i guess like why we chose to do it in that setting so there's two things so the vogue execution for those that didn't see it we we produced the top shop and vogue flower market um of course leaning into a chelsea flower show and we actually constructed a dress specifically for the execution which dropped on the morning of the day. That event was broken into two parts. He had one part which was like product presentation where we invited an open to all community to come and experience the collection and meet the Vogue editors which meant, and of course the product team to learn a little bit more about product.

20:04Moses Rashid: So that's a good example of how you put real product in front of real people, culture and community, and then the elevation piece. That of course translated into a great luncheon we had in the afternoon and so on so on so part part one is about how do you create these amazing experiences but also um how do you interact right how do you actually interact with um the community trafalgar square um so i was asked a question it's like why did you do your first nearly first runway in nearly 10 years why did you do it in august off schedule off fashion week schedule and in open air because, of course, the great British weather can never be.

20:46Moses Rashid: Never reliable. We did not have a contingent exam, by the way. That's a place choice. I shouldn't say that, but it's true. But actually, I think there were two things. It was a really important moment for British fashion. I think Topshop has always been at the forefront of British fashion, engaging with cultural tastemakers and so on, part one. part two is this amazing moment we've had gone as such amazing support across those months that were building up to the runway and of course our launch which happened on the 15th of august um we had to have our community join and share that moment i mean even talking about it now it kind of gives me goosebumps because the reaction was incredible um and i think it was just so so important to to share that moment with our with our audience and that's just two small examples of an overall strategy but hopefully answers the question definitely um another great question was so the landscape that top shop has returned to um culturally um i guess in terms of diversity and inclusion as well has changed a lot um so how do you bring the brand back with this in mind with a focus on diversity and inclusion yeah i think um you know we'd be really mindful to make sure that we um have the right representation whether that be model selections for our campaigns whether it be um content that we're pushing out on socials or indeed um you know the other things we're doing um you know and we and even through to our model um should i say sorry our runway is about like did we have the right representation going down the runway um and actually i think that's that's the beauty of it so if you lean on the values of top shop we say this thing which is London to the world.

22:31Moses Rashid: So what does that mean? Why not British? And actually, what that means, London is a melting pot of lots of different inspirations and cultures and, you know, creative excellence. And actually what that means, how do we package that up? And how do we, in turn, take that spirit, that swag, and how do we take that to the world? So actually, that's kind of like, I guess, the point I'm trying to make here is that's kind of in the fabric and the ethos of the brand brilliant um and another member of the audience would like to know so on your instagram channel which is kind of like your you know the top shop home i guess uh what type of content do you find gives the most engagement editorial produce content or ugc and talent content three types of content campaign tends to work really okay what tends to work nicely but actually the two things that tend to perform ever so slightly better UGC for sure um and actually beautifully shot product shots but we've got two types of product shots so you've got of course flat lays which is on the symbol but also uh what we refer to as still life yes so for example a handbag with product in it yeah you know so or shot on location or something so yeah so it's still that kind of curated content maybe there's an element of curation in terms of how you put it together okay um again it needs to sit right on the feed and again we consider it's our real estate um but time and time again we see it and actually the third part or should i say the fourth is um the type of content when people are speaking to camera either walking through clothes or taking into an experience um again bringing behind the scenes we see every single time works really well that's really interesting definitely one to keep in mind and somebody has asked why trafalgar square is a venue and why august

24:28so we were obviously thinking about um when to launch and of course like you know we we had set a line in the sand that it was going to be august part two is again i kind of lean on that community

24:41Moses Rashid: moment like it was really important to do it in open air space um but i'll give you the story of like how we actually got to rafaglia square so um you're not allowed to share this outside of the room but here we are yeah noted um but we so we were actually looking at covent garden and so we were we were going to do this thing we were like you know this is set and we'd had a couple of meetings with the mayor's office um and predating this as we're kind of doing the fun build up to to what Topshop would look like. I'll say this bit and I'll bring you back around, which is I saw this piece of content by Sadiq Khan where he was talking about Topshop.

25:22Moses Rashid: And I thought, I've been gifted. I've been gifted this piece of content. So we clipped it and we shared it and we said, at Sadiq, give the people what they want. So going forward a few months, we were obviously looking at where to hold the runway. So I've WhatsAppped the mayor's office. I'm like, hey guys, I've got something. It suddenly clicked. I thought, well, you know, have you got Oxford Street? And I did think about putting the runway outside Oxford Street, Ikea, but it unfortunately didn't slide. Okay, that's great. And so I thought, okay, well, you guys have got Trafalgar Square. Can you give me Trafalgar Square?

26:00Moses Rashid: And I put, you know, 24, 48 hours on it. And thankfully they came through and said, yeah. Oh my gosh. And now in August, typically what happens is they don't have this kind of, have events. It's typically what they say for their restoration works. But of course, it's important to British fashion. So that's how we got there. That's a good scoop. Over a beer. I'll tell you the rest of the story. We'll see you at the Champagne Reception then at 5.30 for sure. And also a few simple questions to wrap us up. So who was the Topshop customer in 2026? That's great. great question um look i think it's it's the brand um you know we're a mass brand of course they say it's like father and son mother and daughter if you want me to pinpoint actually if you see what's trading on asos 25 to 35 but not but not limited to be clear um and of course on topshop.com actually a slightly older customer around 30 to 40 and say sweet spots around 30 but But again, not limited to.

27:01Moses Rashid: So, but again, it's, you know, the ethos of the brand is how do we make, you know, amazing clothes, you know, that feel aspirational, accessible to all and bring the best of British fashion to everyone. Perfect. Thank you. And lastly, just what does the rest of this year and beyond really look like for Topshop and Topman? Somebody's trying to steal my marketing address. Trying to your marketing plan, exactly. Look, what you're going to see is we've got a really exciting collaboration coming up later in the year. We've got a really cool event happening. You might see one in June. You might see one in September.

27:38Okay, noted.

27:39Moses Rashid: And that's all I can tell you. Okay, brilliant. Well, thank you very much, Moses. A big round of applause, please, from Moses. Thanks, guys. Thank you. This podcast was brought to you by Drapers, delivering you exclusive content from Drapers Social Summit. We hope you enjoyed it and thank you to our speakers for their time and expertise. If you enjoyed this podcast, don't forget to subscribe to have each new episode delivered directly to your device. Thank you and see you soon.