A YEAR LIVING SOCIAL TRENDS: MARBLE EVERYTHING
So far, we’ve used social data to identify (and live) veganism, cycling, gin, health reset and gardening as consumer trends. This month marble is having its moment. There is a lot of marbling going on, and not just the stone material itself. From chopping boards to legging print, from nails to phone cases – bloggers are all over a little marble accessorising to chic-up their channels. This month, we’re going to investigate why marble became so popular on social…
From looking through a few design bloggers (like Hannah in the house), we learned that marble kick-started among interior designers a few years back. But it didn’t take long until this stone took over a broader social audience. Marble has 2.4M hashtags on Instagram worldwide (96k UK est.), which is 5.5 times bigger than 'granite' and 1.3 times bigger than 'copper' (another material trend in past years).
But it’s not just about a building material: let’s have a look at a few examples:
The Glow Edit promoting Garnier’s Ultimate Blends in a marble bathroom vs Lolitamas promoting the same product with a bedding background.
Amelia Freer’s lunch post on a marble table vs Gastroglam using a placemat.
Brighton Keller travelling with her marble suitcase vs a black one.
Brands also know about the aesthetically visual marble-effect: Adidas recently launched marble-styled gym wear. To promote this special product range, they worked with various influencers: our very own Natalie Glaze, Twice The Health or Tally Rye, for example.
Now the question arises: why are (especially) Instagrammer so keen on having marble in their images?
The most popular marble used is the white marble. It works well for food items, beauty products or accessories, where the background raises the emotional value (e.g. designlife used in combination with 'marble'). This is probably one of the reasons why marble grew beyond interior designers and became popular among lifestyle blogging.
A second and more prominent usage of marble on Instagram is its pattern (we estimate ¾ of Instagram posts tagged as such to be products with a marble design, not background). Home decor & furniture, nails and laptop/phone cases are the top products using a marble look ('marblenails' has 152,629 mentions, 'marblecase' has 145,981; home decor & furniture don’t have a specific hashtag, but can be found under the general marble hashtag). Among home decor & furniture, the marble kitchen, bathroom and tables are most noticeable. Those categories are mainly associated with luxury home or an elegant, aspirational lifestyle (e.g. #dreamhome, #parisianstyle).
As the recent adidas influencer campaign shows, marble is pushed by some big brands. One of the latest makeup trends arising on Instagram are marble lipsticks. So, this month, we’re going to show you the most trendy marble accessoires on social, analyse the visual interest marble creates for your audience and speak to a few bloggers to learn what it means to marble-ize your images.
