SEO Werkt!

There’s something about summer music festivals that seems to inspire a fresh wave of innovation each year, and 2012 is no exception. Rather than offering tailored services such as RFID-enhanced security or helping to find shared transportation, however, UK fashion brand Very has launched what it describes as the world’s first festival delivery service designed to keep attendees at Virgin Media’s V Festival well-clothed.

Shop Direct Group’s Very is the official fashion partner for the V Festival, and to better serve revelers at the event, the online department store is bringing its free Collect+ delivery service to the fields of the festival’s Chelmsford site. During the festival’s two-day span of August 18 and 19, festival-goers will be able to buy any of the brand’s 50,000 fashion or home items online directly from their phones on the Friday of the festival, with free next-day delivery to V Festival on Saturday. Not only that, but a special, 50-piece “Festival Favourites” collection, including staples from tents to wellies, will be available for delivery to the official Very.co.uk tent in just one hour. Teams of Very representatives will be on hand at the festival taking orders as well. Also available in the brand’s official tent, meanwhile, will be “Glam Pods” equipped with hair straighteners, mirrors and other beauty necessities.

There’s no doubt festival-goers constitute a distinct market niche with unique needs of their own; that, of course, translates into a unique opportunity for marketers. How could your brand serve revelers with a specially tailored product or service?

Website: www.very.co.uk
Contact: queries@very.co.uk

Louis Vuitton's Core Values campaign isn't just about classy celebrity photos. Well, OK, it kind of is. But the fashion brand knocks it out of the park with its latest effort in the campaign—a tribute to Muhammad Ali by Ogilvy France, Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) and Niels Shoe Meulman. Bey's charming recitations of Ali's classic interviews mesh well with graphic designer Meulman splashing ink all over a boxing ring for what turns out to be really sharp calligraphy. It's a great visual metaphor for how a handsome, quick-witted poet like Ali stood out in the gritty, messy sport of professional boxing. The campaign also includes a print ad in which Ali, 70, poses with one of his grandsons, seen wearing boxing gloves. When you recall how pretty Ali always said he was, he's not so out of place in a Louis Vuitton ad. Second spot after the jump.

Another big round of funding in the currently-chic area of online retail and fashion: JustFab, the online shoe/fashion brand and styling platform with six million members, has raised $76 million, funding that it will use to go big on international expansion. The C-Round was led by new investor Rho Ventures, with participation from existing backers Matrix Partners, Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) and Intelligent Beauty, JustFab’s parent company, which incubated and launched the startup in 2010. The total amount of money now raised by JustFab is $139 million.

After a launch in Germany earlier this year that went “significantly better than we expected,” co-CEO Adam Goldenberg tells me that the main priority right now is to continue that international expansion to one of the biggest fashion markets in Europe. “We are launching in the UK in September,” he tells me, with more markets to be added by the first quarter of 2013. Currently, he says, JustFab is adding half a million users every month, and is on track to make $100 million in revenue this year — a big leap on the $28 million of 2011 — on a business model that mixes a subscription-based user-base with other users buying a la carte.

The subscription model, Goldenberg says, has been serving JustFab very well indeed: the VIP program, as it’s called, requires users to spend a minimum of $39.95 each month on items in the store (that’s the flat price for every item as well). He says that what happens is that users visit on average much more frequently, between 25 and 30 times each year. “Every time they ‘walk’ in the door [of the site], we remerchandize the store,” he says, which drives people to buy more. The a la carte model involves users not required to make purchases, but in these cases the items cost between $49 and $79.

Shoes are where JustFab got its start — the styles are geared at the “fast fashion” category of footwear, more Nine West and Steve Madden than Louboutin — and he says this is what has remained most popular. JustFab currently puts in orders for some 4-5 million pairs of shoes annually, and scaling up the business will only improve the financials for this. Manufacturers, he says, tend to require minimum runs of 300,000 on footwear.

But he also adds that some of the $76 million will go towards widening its product base well beyond the shoe category that helped JustFab make its name. “We want to go beyond shoes, bags and jewellery to better compete against the H&Ms and Zaras,” he said. While it will continue to focus on the Just Fab brand, one area that will be a focus are “capsule” collections working with specific designers to create seasonal, temporary lines of clothes. This is an area that has sold very well for H&M and others in the fast fashion retail category.

Another area that JustFab just might see some potential is in the area of acquisitions. Right now growth will be more organic, says Goldenberg. But he’s also aware of the other route, as evidenced by well-funded fashion and design brand Fab, which has made several acquisitions in Europe (most recently Llustre in the UK), to quickly pick up customers and infrastructure.

That’s partly because in Europe there haven’t really emerged competitors offering the same kind of subscription-based business model and around the same kind of fast fashion offering. That’s not the case in JustFab’s home market of the U.S., where it competes against companies like ShoeDazzle and BeachMint (that’s another reason for the international landgrab).

One last category that JustFab has not really touched is mobile: the company still has yet to launch dedicated native apps for users — a surprise given how so many other online fashion brands have closely linked themselves to the platform, and the fact that JustFab itself has already seen a large part of activity on its site come from mobile devices. “It’s a big opportunity,” he admits, adding that native apps will be released later this year.

As part of the funding, Mark Leschly, managing partner at Rho Ventures, will join the board.

The internet is about to expand on a massive scale in 2013, and we can see the possible contours of that expansion with the recent release of the list of more than 1,900 applications for new generic top-level domains. When you consider that, currently, there are only 22 top-level domains — the portion of a domain name located to the right of the dot, the best known of which is “.com” — you can appreciate the impact that 1,900+ new ones will make on your brand’s digital presence.

Whether these new top-level domains (TLDs) are successful and embraced by consumers or not, brands need to plan how they will deal with this expansion now. ICANN, the non-profit responsible for overseeing the domain name system and orchestrating this historic expansion, has designated an “objection period” for reviewing the list of applications before the new TLDs open for business in 2013. This gives brand managers a much-needed chance to estimate how their brand will be affected — and the implications for 2013 budgets.

Understand how closed generics impact your brand

The first step for brand managers is to understand the “true” generics — terms like “.film,” “.fashion,” “.sports,” and, yes, “.sucks.” All of these terms represent actual applications that have been submitted; in fact, almost half the 1,900-plus applications are true generics, many of which come from entrepreneurs who hope to build businesses around offering the public the ability to register a domain name to the left of the dot, such as “brand.fashion,” “brand.sports,” or, yes, “brand.sucks.” 

There is a particular wrinkle to the generics: the “closed” TLD — a type of TLD in which the ability to register domain names is at the discretion of the TLD operator. Some brands have chosen to apply for generic terms in their business category, and it is unclear at this point if those TLDs will be available for registration by competitors within the category or only to internal groups, partners, resellers, or, perhaps, fans.

What if a single company wins a TLD for a category of business and decides to restrict the ability to register a domain? For example, what if your company manufactures cameras and a competitor applied for .camera? Would you be able to register your brand in that TLD (i.e. “yourbrand.camera”)?

The question of whether a generic term will be operated as a closed registry, blocking other brands in that category from setting up a domain within it, is a valid competitive concern — one that needs to be addressed now, during the objection period. The “rules” defined by ICANN for filing objections allow organizations representing communities to object, but not individual companies. For brands, your trade organization needs to file any necessary objections — and with a 60-day period, it is crucial to start the process.

Scope the effect of open generics on your brand’s digital presence

The next step for brand managers is to examine the generics that will be offered by entrepreneurs who plan to “open” domain name registration in that TLD to the public.  Do those generics represent an opportunity for the brand or another potential headache from cyber squatters and scammers who steal brand-bound traffic? Given the wide variety of open generics, it seems inevitable that domain portfolios will be burdened with additional defensive domain registrations, especially when you consider that, on average, large companies see about 80 percent of their portfolio dedicated to defensive registrations.

Even if only 20 percent of the open generics make sense for your brand, registering domains names in hundreds of new TLDs isn’t economically feasible, especially when you consider all the permutations involved — your corporate name, product and service names, titles of movies, books, software or games, names of corporate officers. Now is the time to purge your existing portfolio of domain names that no longer justify their expense, so that, if necessary, you can afford to register key terms in any new TLDs that make sense for your brand.

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We’ve picked out our top ten Marketing & Advertising articles from the last year on Springwise. We hope that the campaigns and initiatives listed below — which could potentially be adapted into longer term business models — spark even more innovative efforts in the future!

1. In Singapore, loyalty card rewards coffee fans for being disloyal

The demise of the independent coffee shop has been a real threat on high streets across the globe for a number of years now. In one city an enthusiastic team refused to accept this threat as a foregone conclusion and a partnership sprung up between three Singaporean organisations with the aim of saving the local coffee shop through their Be Disloyal card campaign. The disloyalty card encouraged customers to visit as many of the eight participating outlets as possible with the intention of encouraging the eight to join forces against the major chains. This initiative managed to effectively combine grassroots retailing with a savvy business approach — a blueprint for the future perhaps?

Read more about Be Disloyal »

2. Fashion brand offers discounts based on a shopper’s social influence

Word of mouth is an essential tool in any company’s kit if used correctly. Californian fashion brand Volga Verdi were well aware of the power of the spoken word when they offered discounts to their customers based on the amount of contacts they had on social networks — the more popular the customer, the more discount they received. This clever campaign encouraged customers to increase their friendship base, all the while broadening the company’s pool of potential fans. Customers were also more likely to associate the Volga Verdi brand with the attributes of friendship — trust and kindness — thereby enhancing their brand image in one fell swoop.

Read more about Volga Verdi »

3. Google flu prediction model used for mobile ad campaign

Companies have often made the most of data on their customer base in order to effectively target their products and Vicks’ recent campaign was no exception. Using information from Google on flu incidents across the US and flu-related web searches they were able to pinpoint areas where flu rates were high and directed Vick’s Behind Ear Thermometer advertisement to relevant smartphones in these areas.

Read more about Vick’s campaign »

4. Pop-up store sells chocolate for good deeds, not money

There’s nothing quite like a business venture that combines clever ideas whilst rewarding good behaviour. Chocolatier Anthon Berg managed just this with their sweet gifts being sold in exchange for acts of kindness. The use of iPads to replace tills meant that staff members could immediately post the good deed to the customer’s facebook wall, successfully sharing the person’s thoughtful act as well as marketing the brand.

Read more about The Generous Store »

5. In Seoul, retailer uses 3D QR codes and the sun to deliver discounts only during its quiet times

There’s nothing groundbreaking in the idea of shops maximising sales during quiet periods by slashing their prices, however South Korea’s Emart added a touch of adventure to their discount offers. The Seoul retailer placed QR codes dotted around the city that could only be scanned between the hours of 12 noon and 1 pm each day. Between these times the QR codes were visible because the sun was at its highest in the sky, casting the correct shadow for the 3D QR code to form. Once customers scanned a code they were taken to Emart’s homepage where they could browse reduced price items and have their purchases delivered direct to their door.

Read more about Emart’s campaign »

6. At London bus stop, interactive ad shows different content to men and women

An age-old dispute centres around gender, and whether men and women are so very different from one another. One charity that used this debate to their advantage was Plan UK, who adopted facial recognition software for their bus stop advertising campaign to highlight gender inequality. The software identified whether a man or woman was standing in front of the screen and then played a different advertisement accordingly. Women were shown profiles of three females from around the world who each experience gender discrimination in differnet ways. Men, however, were denied access to the full profiles and could only read a set of statistics about gender inequality. The chairty hoped to bring home to the male viewers the limited opportunities women can find available to them simply based on their gender.

Read more about Plan UK’s campaign »

7. Mexican retro sneaker brand relaunches with free shoe exchange

The Mexican sneaker company Panam noticed an increasing demand for their 80s designs as a demand for retro style swept the country. They boosted their wavering popularity by organizing shoe exchanges in the country’s busiest squares, where people were encouraged to bring an old pair of shoes and swap them for a Panam pair.

Read more about Panam’s shoe exchange »

8. Insurance company recruits existing policyholders to advise potential customers

It is a brave company who hands over responsibility for their brand image to the consumer, but Finnish insurance company If did just this when they asked 852 of their customers to provide live one-to-one testimonials to potential customers over the telephone. These one-to-ones could include positive and negative feedback on the company and aimed to give a fair and unbiased assessment of the service offered. This was a potentially risky strategy that empowered the consumer. Fan-sourcing sales platform, Needle, also recognized the importance of customer testimonials, matching up brands with their most loyal fans to provide personalized recommendations for potential customers.

Read more about If’s campaign »

9. Alarm clock app rewards users for guessing which city’s sounds they wake up to

Most people need a little help to clear heads in the morning, and this app from Lufthansa airline struck us as an ingenious idea to kickstart the brain at dawn. Set up as an alarm on the user’s phone, the app played sounds to represent different cities as a wake-up call. The user then had to guess which city the sound represented and input their answer into the phone. If they were correct, they won discounted plane tickets to that destination. Lufthansa created a fun game as well as cleverly alerting the user to their brand on a daily basis.

Read more about Lufthansa’s Anywake app »

10. Deliberately late pizza deliveries raise awareness of world hunger and money for charity

While we’re used to marketing campaigns that have stand-out qualities, it’s rare that we come across one that takes the risky step of potentially annoying its customer base. But that is just what Paraguayan ONIRIA/TBWA did when they arranged for the country’s two leading pizza delivery chains to deliberately deliver their customer’s pizzas late. The campaign aimed to give their customers a glimpse into the lives of those who suffer from a lack of food every day, and each pizza was delivered with a note inside explaining the thinking behind the strategy. It remains to be seen whether this bold move has paid off and left their customers with food for thought, or just irritated by poor customer service.

Read more about ONIRIA/TBWA campaign »

We’ve already seen marketers rewarding the crowds for spreading the word about their product with California-based fashion brand Volga Verdi, which offers its Twitter-using customers discounts based on their number of followers. Taking a different approach to that concept, buzzdoes is a feature that pays smartphone and tablet users to suggest apps to friends.

Companies registering with the startup can add a button to their app which makes it easy for existing users to pass on a recommendation to a friend. The button, which can be customised to fit with the style of the app, takes the user to a list of their phone or social network contacts. Once the suggestion has been sent, the user is returned to the app. buzzdoes aims to make the recommendation process as simple as possible to ensure that user experience is not affected. Sharers who succeed in getting their friends to download the app are rewarded with cash, vouchers, free apps and other prizes courtesy of the startup. Developers pay for each new download they gain, meaning that the cost of each campaign reflects its success. Developers can also earn money from downloads of other apps that come about as a result of the buzzdoes button in their app. buzzdoes is currently offering a free package, which allows for up to 100 successful recommendations, alongside three paid options – Basic, at a setup cost of USD 69.90 for 300 recommendations, Pro, at a setup cost of USD 209.90 for 1,000 recommendations, and Enterprise, at a setup cost of USD 1,190 for 7,000 recommendations.

As any good marketer knows, there’s nothing quite like a trusted recommendation from a friend to help spread a brand’s name, and buzzdoes’ model helps incentives these recommendations. Could your business harness reliable recommendations between trusted sources in a similar way?

Website: www.buzzdoes.com
Contact: info@buzzdoes.com

If tomorrow morning you won’t know what to wear, there is now a website that can inspire you. Fashion brand Pimkie has launched a pretty sweet project that helps consumers understand the colors “of the moment” in the major European fashion capitals like Milan, Paris and Antwerpen.

Happiness Brussels has installed high-speed digital cameras in key locations throughout the three cities, the footage is collected and filtered in real-time through a color tracking software that generates infographics detailing which colors are trending where.

Pimkie Color Forecast is a definitely a fun idea, a cool tool to expose consumers to the Pimkie collection. I would say it’s a Uniqlo way to engage consumers with the product. Interesting to note how long it took a fast-fashion brand to start following the Japanese approach to online communication. It’s a just a pity IMHO that Pimkie, with such a great concept, hasn’t tried to create its own visual identity. Those fonts and squares in the interface scream Uniqlo…

Happiness Brussels has also uploaded a video that explains how the magic works.

Marketers have long known that consumers vary widely in terms of their influence over others, but today’s social networks are making those differences plain for all to see. Aiming to zero in on the shoppers with the widest social clout, Volga Verdi is a California fashion brand that offers its customers discounts depending on the number of friends, followers or fans they can claim on popular social networks.

To participate in Volga Verdi’s Exchange program, shoppers begin by referring to a chart on the site listing the size of the discounts it offers for the number of friends or followers they have on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, tumblr, Kohtakte or Lookbook.nu. Twitter users, for example, get a discount of USD 7 if they have between 20 and 200 followers, or USD 15 if they have more. To get the discount, they would need to follow Volga Verdi on Twitter and tweet a prespecified message about the brand. If they aren’t using Twitter, shoppers must perform similar actions tailored to the social network they are using, before emailing Volga Verdi to confirm they have taken part. Volga Verdi then issues a unique voucher code for the corresponding discount.

We’ve already seen sites that “sell” online content for just a tweet or a Facebook mention — namely, Pay with a Tweet and Social Whispers — but offering discounts based on the shopper’s social clout takes such efforts onto new ground. Other retailers around the globe: how about you?

Website: www.volgaverdi.com/exchange.htm
Contact: peter@volga.la

Uniqlo collaborates with Japanese fashion brand Undercover, and their collection called “UU” website has just launched. You can see their whole product collection with Google map interface navigation. Their wide collection for men’s, women’s, kid’s and baby will be available on March 16th at 11 countries.

Iconic Australian fashion brand Bonds has been around for 35,301 days (aka since 1915). To celebrate their long-running relationship with Australians their new campaign is called ‘We Are Bonds’. And everyone is invited to claim their birthdate as one of those 35,301 days.

The first 15,000 entries on their microsite will receive a shirt with the words ‘ I AM <BIRTHDAY>’. Famous ambassadors like Pat Rafter and Dame Edna as well as average Aussies pose with their birthdate on posters, at events and online.

Agency is Clemenger BBDO Melbourne