One thing that hasn’t changed in the mobile arena in the past 12 months is the apps people are downloading most frequently. Same as last year, the five most popular in 2012 (so far) are: Facebook, YouTube, Android Market, Google Search and Gmail. Despite having almost 10 more apps to choose from, smartphone users only spend two additional minutes per day (39 versus 37) accessing them than they did in 2011. Interestingly, relative to time spent on mobile web, time spent on mobile apps showed a more significant increase of 10 percent.

(Images via L2, Nielsen Wire)

GM’s pullout isn’t likely to cripple or even cause much of a cramp in Facebook’s multi-billion dollar revenue. What it could do, and significantly if others follow GM’s example, is cast doubt on the site’s reportedly $100B+ valuation, set for IPO this Friday. Further complicating Facebook’s case is a new AP/CNBC poll out today that confirms on the user-end what GM discovered: paid advertisements and sponsored content on Facebook aren’t very popular with consumers. With more than 1,000 Facebookers ages 18 and over surveyed, the poll showed an overwhelming 83 percent of respondents “never” or “hardly ever” clicked on brands’ Facebook ads and sponsored content. 12 percent reported they “sometimes” did, and just 4 percent said “often.” Given these numbers, it’s no surprise that GM made the decision it did today. Now, we’ll just have to wait and see if other heavy ad hitters follow suit (Chrysler and Ford have already publicly stated they have no intention of joining GM), and how, if this is the case, a wide-scale retreat will affect the social networking site.

Surprisingly, few prestige brands have made any meaningful attempts to appeal to the rising tide of BRI internet users. Just 27 percent of the brands included in this report offer websites translated into Russian; only 22 percent translate content into Portuguese. Furthermore, just one-fifth (21 percent) maintain a BRI-dedicated Facebook page.

A local strategy can go a long way in reaching BRI consumers. L2 data suggest that Russians and Brazilians are 24 percent more likely to search for brands whose sites have been translated into their native languages. Among those with translated sites, brands that add a local Facebook page to the mix garner an additional 22 percent more searches, suggesting that a wide yet consistent reach generates the most interest online.

Prestige brands considering a local approach would do well to look to Clinique and its success story in Russia. Ranked as the fifth highest Digital IQ for Russia, Clinique offers an “.ru” URL which links to a Russian account on both Facebook and VK, the country’s most popular social media platform. Russians are eager to comment, share and ‘like’ on a timeline tailored to their tastes. Clinique’s fast-growing Russian page features a significantly larger interaction rate than its international counterpart. Visitors clearly find the local site more engaging: the average visitor on clinique.ru browses more than six minutes longer than the average visitor on clinique.com. And if search is any indication of demand for its beauty products, Clinique is in for a treat – with its robust presence on social media and its localized website, Clinique receives three times as many Russian Google searches as its competitors.

For more insights and analysis on the BRI markets and to view the full rankings for each of the three countries, download the full report here.

It’s not clear that Choo’s rules for submission — the first of which, “the photograph has been taken by you and/or belongs to you” — are enforced very stringently, as many of the Choo models featured on the site are well-known models and actresses on red carpets. Recognize Oscar winner Marion Cotillard in the photo above? Regardless, ‘Stylemakers’ is visually beautiful, engages audiences in a meaningful way and is well-integrated into the brand’s main site. For more on the conception of this new microsite, check out this video from Jimmy Choo, which accompanied ‘Stylemakers’ launch last week:

Enter ‘the other guys’ in the emerging market game: Brazil, Russia, and India. These three countries collectively account for an increasingly significant share of the luxury sector’s revenue–and yet, brands’ investment in catering to these markets, particularly in digital, has been less than impressive. At present, less than 21 percent of prestige brands have a regionalized Facebook page for any of the BRI countries. And when it comes to mobile, the offerings are even more paltry: only five have a Russian-enabled site, and just four for Portuguese.

In L2′s newest report, Digital IQ® Index: Brazil Russia India, released today, we benchmarked the digital competence of more than 100 iconic brands in these three emerging markets across more than 350 data points. To learn more about this research, please download the full report and watch the video below.

The study also found that 93 percent of wealthy consumers claimed to have had a “positive” experience with luxury mobile apps and 40 percent said they would be interested in downloading an app that provided a secure path to purchase. Since 71 percent of respondents said they felt more connected to the luxury brand after engaging with their app, these findings should help inform brands’ strategies moving forward. Because consumers look to luxury apps to provide them with loyalty program bonuses, early access to sales, and exclusive updates about new products, brands have an enormous opportunity to use this platform to communicate a vast amount of information in an engaging, visual way.

It’s important to point out, though, that Nordstrom has an advantage over its two more regional “boutique” counterparts because of how many more brick and mortar locations it has. With 116 stores nationwide, Nordstrom has close to three times the number of Barneys New York stores, and 114 more than Bergdorf Goodman’s two outposts. It’s no surprise, then that more than a third (36 percent) of wealthy consumers in the study say they had shopped at Nordstrom in the past year–the most of any store in the survey. On the flip side, just 7 percent had physically set foot inside a Barneys and even fewer (6 percent) inside a Bergdorf Goodman. Despite fewer customers, 74 percent of Barneys and 76 percent of Bergdorf Goodman shoppers believe the prices and merchandise are well-priced. Just 65 percent of Nordstrom shoppers make this claim.

Where Nordstrom really impresses is in customer loyalty: a near-perfect 96 percent of its shoppers plan to return and 94% say that would recommend Nordstrom to friends and family.

Based on the retailer’s strong financial performance in recent months, taking the top spot in the LCEI index only makes consistent sense. In a preview of its first-quarter earnings report (which measures the period between February and April of this year), Nordstrom said that revenue at those stores open at least one year increased by 7.1 percent, surpassing analyst projections by 1.3 percent. And it’s not just most recently that the high-end retailer has posted bullish numbers: Nordstrom’s revenue has experienced double-digit growth every quarter since 2010 for an impressive average uptick of 12.2 percent. Nordstrom’s net income has also increased each of the last three quarters

Earlier this year, as one of L2′s ’10 Digital Predictions for 2012′, we posited that Amazon’s dominance in the e-commerce and m-commerce markets — as well as the affluent, luxury consumer market — would only become more pronounced in the months ahead. Already commanding 37 percent of all mobile transactions and boasting a growth rate five times that of in-store retail and three times the rate of online retail, Amazon is in a class by itself. Its popularity, on the other hand, extends to all classes, in particular, those with a considerable amount of money to spend. Among U.S. households with incomes of $300,000 or more, Amazon ranked far and away as favorite online retailer. Considering that 92 percent of people in this demographic shopped online in 2011 (up from 64 percent in 2010), their loyalty can only mean good things to come for Amazon’s bottom line.

The big question right now is, will Amazon, with its newfound interest in fashion, do to that industry what it did to publishing? In addition to sponsoring the Met Gala, Amazon has poured considerable resources into the expansion of its fashion offerings. From assembling a more upmarket inventory and hiring a bigger, more experienced staff (seasoned industry experts like Gilhart certainly don’t come cheap) to investing in aesthetics like a glossier web design, high-quality in-house photo shoots, and soon, more luxe delivery and comprehensive digital and print ad campaigns, Amazon is spending a great deal of money to raise its fashion profile. These moves, according to L2 founder and CEO Scott Galloway are the right ones. “Prestige is a looksist industry,” says Galloway, also a clinical professor of marketing at NYU Stern. “And rightfully.”

Whether Amazon will redefine the way we buy fashion is yet to be seen but very much a possibility. “This could be another example of Amazon being the giant poisonous mushroom that kills everything in its path,” says Galloway. “There’s no reason to think the same thing that happened to Borders couldn’t happen to Barneys, Saks and Neiman Marcus.”  Small to medium-sized brands (the vast majority in the fashion design world) may have no financial choice but to go with the well-funded giant that can offer to buy multiple orders of entire collections, rather than a select few pieces. Designers may initially hesitate to sign these “deals with the devil,” as Galloway describes them, but with so many already aligning with large corporations like H&M, Macy’s and eBay, the line between fashion as art and fashion as commodity is as blurred as it’s ever been. And that, is very much in Amazon’s favor.

(Image via Getty)

Tonight, beginning at 6:30 ET, Miuccia Prada, Michael Kors, Alexander Wang, Giambattista Valli, Prabal Gurung, Zac Posen (that’s Christina Ricci, at right, in a custom design of his last year), Alber Elbaz, Marc Jacobs and scores of other top designers will show off their wares on the backs of the beautiful as they make their way into the Costume Institute to get an early peek at the much-anticipated follow-up to last year’s McQueen retrospective, “Savage Beauty.” And, thanks to Vogue, the Met, and Amazon, all of which are live-streaming the arrivals, those not lucky enough to be there can see it all as it happens for the first time in the event’s 64-year history.

Whether Ms. Schiaparelli, in absentia, and Ms. Prada can eclipse the success of the late Mr. McQueen’s record-setting exhibit is to be seen. In just over five months, “Savage Beauty” attracted 661,509 total visitors (17,000 of whom paid a premium Monday entry fee of $50), which resulted in 23,000 new museum memberships. All new Costume Institute records. And then there was the swag. In addition to selling more than 100,000 copies of the exhibit’s pricey $45 catalogue, the “Savage Beauty” souvenirs — posters, books, miniature platform shoes fashioned after those in the designer’s FW 2010 collection — flew off the shelves in droves, bringing in millions of dollars’ worth of revenue.

Curated by Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton, the same creative team that put together “Savage Beauty,” “Impossible Conversations” gets its inspiration from journalist Miguel Covarrubias’s “Impossible Interviews,” a popular Vanity Fair column during the 1930s. To recreate the dialogue between Schiaparelli and Prada, Koda and Bolton worked with filmmaker Baz Luhrmann on eight video “conversations” between the real Ms. Prada and Ms. Schiaparelli (“Schiap”), who is played by actress Judy Davis speaking actual dialogue from Schiap’s autobiography, Shocking Life.

There’s no question about it, Alexander McQueen’s legacy raised the profile of the Costume Institute’s annual event to a new level, ensuring the museum’s continued success for years and exhibits to come. Only time will tell whether Schiap and Prada’s new effort will strike a similar chord with fashion and non-fashion audiences alike. Regardless of the outcome, fashion and art are reaching more people than ever, and by any measure, that is success.

(Images courtesy of the Met, NYT, and Just Jared)

In terms of the economy, AARC reported that the majority of respondents believe the stock market won’t return to its pre-recession robustness until at least 2015. On the subject of jobs, most believe the road to recovery will take even longer–40 percent say it won’t be until 2016 or even 2017 for employment to stabilize. Despite these measured outlooks, future purchase intentions for what AARC calls the, “8 major expenditures,” (automobiles, primary residences, cruises, home remodeling, etc.), have for the most part been on the rise among the affluent. And when it comes to the study’s 17 designated “product categories” (international vacations, fine jewelry, furniture, designer apparel, charitable donations, etc.), the figures are even more promising with five of the categories projected to see double-digit increases. Compared with ‘Affluent Market Tracking Study #20′, published last fall, this new set shows steady improvement both in consumer confidence and consumption intention.

As for the luxury consumers’ brand preferences, results were a mixed bag of predictable and less so. One-third of those surveyed listed perennial favorite Apple as their top brand for quality product/service. For retail, however, the most popular store wasn’t Saks or Neiman Marcus or even Best Buy–it was bulk food purveyor Costco, with 25 percent of total responses.

AARC found loyalty/reward programs to continue to be extremely popular with the wealthy, with the average number of memberships among those surveyed to be 10 per person. The most popular loyalty program, once again, with a 16 percent share, was American Express.