Broken Planet. The brand from space on a mission to help the planet and create a more sustainable streetwear world. The brand boasts a whopping 450,000 followers across their social media pages and over 50,000 global customers. Their loud designs come in an earthy and neutral colour palette on a range of oversized silhouettes. The pieces are heavily loaded with graphics and text that have a hand drawn aesthetic and a mix of puff print printing on all sides of their clothes. With their aggressive growth in the past months, it's unlikely you haven't come across this brand on your for you page.
Let's dive into the brand.
The Brand and the Power Couple Behind It
The sustainability oriented brand launched by Lukas Žvikas and his girlfriend Indre Narbutaite, the couple were born in Lithuania but now run one of the most impactful and fastest growing streetwear brands based in London. The couple grew up there and were in a long distance relationship both studying abroad. Lukas studied software engineering in New York and Indre studied International Tourist Management in the UK. They would see each other every couple of months and go on trips that inspired their brand. These include Bali and New York Fashion week.
The brand originated in July of 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, Indre mentioned losing her job at the time in a Tiktok but it wasn’t until September 2020 that the brand had their first drop. While Lukas focuses more on the production and warehouse side of things and Indre works more on social media.
Lukas also mentions that Indre started a brand with another friend but thought the couple could do something better, together where people see the clothes for more than just garments but also the brand's values behind it.
Their inspiration runs large with the couple mentioning that Travis Scott, Kanye, New York and space are all inspirations for their designs. A lot of the designs are also influenced by sustainability and the current state of the world, hence the name Broken Planet.
It's also influenced them to use high quality recycled material for their garments as well as sustainable shipping bags and options to do their part in helping the planet. This all aligns with their goal of changing the perspective of what it takes to run a sustainable brand.
In an interview with Hypebeast, Broken Planet Said
“We don’t even mention our sustainability anymore, I think people just get it and trust us,”
“We don’t do it to make sure we get sales, we just use sustainability to help our thought process internally and to know that’s how we make decisions we don’t think that we need to scream and shout about it.”
“We hate trends that’s a fact. As people that don’t like fast fashion, we can say that confidently.”
Furthermore they are very transparent with their design process and showcase this transparency on the Broken Planet YouTube channel and its 5K subscribers.
The latest news from the brand starts with a slight name change as the brand elects to drop “market” from their name and go by @brokenplanet on instagram, one of their main social media platforms, their TikTok on the other hand still goes by @brokenplanetmarket which we suspect is due to not being able to gain access to the @brokenplanet handle.
Broken Planet Marketing
A pillar of Broken Planets marketing strategy is transparency. Their brand oozes with it. A look at their feed shows a very laid back and realistic way of presenting the clothes. Contrary to the more common way of using models and product shots. Their feed is loud and attention grabbing, similar to their designs and inspirations. Their use of YouTube, BeReal and a dedicated page to their dog supports the casual vibes I'm referring to.
The brand has built up an incredible and loyal audience that eagerly waits for the brand's next move, with 217k instagram followers and 262K followers on Tiktok. Overall, Broken Planet Market has a remarkable social media presence which furthermore allows the brand to use streetwear influencers such as Luke Akoto to model their clothes towards their impressively large social media following. It was in fact Tiktok that helped the brand skyrocket and really kick off within the streetwear scene in the midst of the pandemic.
One thing I noticed was the heavy use of influencers. But not just any influencers. Those were very young and small influencers just starting out. Broken Planet has positioned themselves to show their target market within their marketing and that's one of the reasons it's connected with a customer base so well. They also stated, their use of young influencers and a young demographic is to be able to educate them on sustainability and how they can help the world. Their brand is definitely more so targeted at Gen Z.
Broken Planet jumped on the Tiktok wave early when it started gaining more notoriety. When they ordered 5 samples at the start, they went out in the streets and recorded their Tiktoks. Then use their young pool of influencers in a range of trendy Tiktoks with trendy sounds. that go viral and appear right in their target market faces in just a couple of swipes. They're not jumping on Tiktok trends, the video would just contain lifestyle pics and videos of their influencers doing everyday tasks such as walking around, posing and overall having a good time.
In terms of when the brand releases new collections and drops, the brand has a clothing drop once a month and occasionally has a shock drop. Alongside their drops they also have friends and family raffle pieces which they then use the profits from to donate to the broken planet foundation.
The brand has also recently utilised mystery drops. The way that this worked was there would be a selection of collections available in each product type with the products available being a pullover hoodie, zip-up hoodie, jeans, sweatpants, shorts, t shirts and sunglasses. In addition to this mystery drop there was also a mystery drop of faulty products (only minor flaws) the faulty products available were shorts, sweatpants, T-shirts, pull over and zip up hoodies and lastly sunglasses. Both the faulty and non-faulty products are sold at a reduced price
Community Involvement
On the 30th July of 2022 Broken Planet Market had their very first pop up store. The pop up store took place in London, Shoreditch to be exact, The pop up had different rooms that all had different themes. The themes within the pop up were moon room, planet of ice room, desert planet room, planet of life room and the spaceship room. Broken Planet paid close attention to detail with each room by adjusting the temperature, smells and lighting in each of the rooms to coincide with their environment which all in all reinforces how the brand consistently takes great care in customer satisfaction. One of the brands main values is making sure to be sustainable and ethical so during the pop up event there were food and drink sponsors that shared the same values as the brand.
Broken Planet also has their own charity to give back to the planet. Broken Planet Foundation aims to raise money for environmental missions chosen by their audience. They stated they will solve these various issues by physically partaking themselves and including local communities. They intend to raise the money from their one off “Friends & Family'' raffles as well as earnings for their Broken Friday drops where they sell imperfect stock. So far they have raised over £70,000!
What we can Learn
Be Open
Broken Planet is probably the most open brand we've covered. From the BeReal, sitdown videos and YouTube vlogs, they show us they have nothing to hide and this is something that resonates with a lot of people especially if they're first hearing your brand.
Tiktok Marketing is Big!
Quote on quote Tiktok brands get a lot of hate and while I can definitely understand some of the arguments, people have to understand that this is a form of marketing. And for some brands this is just what works for them. Tiktok is filled with a wide age range of people however its complex algorithms are able to cleverly get the right content in front of the right eyes and that's why Tiktok can be such a gold mine to get that brand awareness, you're looking for.
Use Influencers
Broken Planet have proven to us you don't need massive budget to work with the biggest influencers. They've given opportunities to tons of young people trying their luck in the world of being influencers. Putting your faith in multiple smaller and younger influencers is a strategy that has proven itself overtime
Now if you're looking to implement this strategy and actually work with influencers, you can request to work with us. Through our vast network of influencers and archive pages, we were able to curate suitable influencers that match your brand's aesthetic. For more information check out our agency below.
So what do you think of the Broken Planet? Is this a brand you see yourself investing in? Are you a fan of the bold designs?
Let us know all feedback and options in the comments. Be sure to share this article too.
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