Iconic brand, KARL LAGERFELD, refashions content creation, SEO and translation with AI-powered PIM solution from Akeneo

The house of KARL LAGERFELD shares the iconic vision and design aesthetic of its founder, Karl Lagerfeld, fused with a contemporary, forward-looking spirit.  The signature aesthetic combines Parisian classics with a rock-chic attitude and tailored silhouettes.  Its portfolio of accessible, aspirational collections includes ready-to-wear for women, men and kids, plus bags and small leather goods.  Additional collections include watches, eyewear, footwear, perfumes, candles and fashion jewelry.

KARL LAGERFELD’s immersive retail experience includes more than 200 mono-brand stores worldwide, with key locations in Paris, London, Munich, Moscow, New York, Dubai and Shanghai.  The brand further connects with consumers through a premium wholesale distribution network in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.  Its online platform, Karl.com, serves 33 countries in nine languages featuring an assortment of approximately 1,800 products, which are refreshed with new collections seasonally every six months.

KARL LAGERFELD had already been successfully leveraging Akeneo’s leading PIM solution to ensure it had accurate and consistent product catalogues across its shopper-facing touchpoints.  In 2024, it began using Akeneo’s native generative AI (GenAI) functions to support content creation, enhance its SEO performance and transcribe languages for product description pages across its international markets.

The brand previously used two external freelance copywriters, but after embedding AI into its product experience workstream, KARL LAGERFELD transitioned to a single content editor with a strategically contemporary role which now also includes work fine-tuning product content edits and providing feedback to continuously improve AI prompts.

The process has been a collaborative combination of human resource coaching and refining the automated elements to ensure brand equity and customer experience are maintained at all times, as Yoko Fujimoto-Sital, Senior Manager E-Commerce Trading at Karl Lagerfeld, explained: “We are Karl Lagerfeld.  We represent the designer, so our tone of voice is very important to our branding.  AI can struggle to fully interpret the brand’s tone of voice and it is crucial not to lose that, so we still need our human brand custodians to fine tune our product copy.”

Fujimoto-Sital explains the transition to a hybrid human/Gen AI model has given the brand a deeper understanding of its product content creation strategies and has resulted in a product content guide that covers its entire product experience strategy.  To date, KARL LAGERFELD has seen organic SEO traffic to product pages increase by five percent, while its add-to-cart rate has improved by 16 percent with costs associated with translations also significantly reduced.

Justin Thomas, VP Sales EMEA North at Akeneo, commented, “KARL LAGERFELD’S embracing of the power of GenAI showcases the transformative nature of this technology to automate time consuming processes to free up a business’s vital human resources to focus on creating compelling brand and customer experiences.”