Crowdsourced

Crowdsourced creations already form the foundation of sneaker brand Ryz, which sells high-tops featuring graphic designs created and voted into production by consumers. Now, a similar concept is being used to createExuve, a new line of clothing "where the designer and the consumer are one and the same."

California-based Exuve is a new fashion label for women and men that sells dresses, tops, skirts, jackets and bottoms designed and voted on by the crowds. Users can submit their designs for any of the site's monthly competitions using any combination of pictures, illustrations, words and specs. Submitted designs then get posted for critique and review by other members of the Exuve community; the designers, meanwhile, are encouraged to promote their work on their own blogs, social networks and personal pages. The designs in each category that get rated the highest are put into production for purchase in the company's online boutique, and winners are rewarded with USD 500 in cash, a USD 200 Exuve gift certificate (redeemable for USD 100 cash) and 5 percent of net revenue royalties from sales of the item through Exuve.com and its affiliate retailers. There are currently some 70 users registered on the site.

Adidas:::Urban Art Guide

BRAND OWNER:Adidas Group

CATEGORY:Accessories/ Clothing/ Footwear

REGION:Germany

DATE:May 2009 - Dec 2008

MEDIA CHANNEL

Adidas has a strong association with street art and graffiti, with the brand having been inspired by the New York hip-hop and graffiti subculture in the 1980s. It wanted to pay homage to this heritage with a smartphone application.

Adidas came up with the Adidas Urban Art Guide to Berlin – an iPhone travel guide that lists Berlin’s best graffiti. Users download the application for free or visitwww.urbanartguide.de. The guide gives them access to a Google map of Berlin that is marked out with the locations of street art. The map can be navigated by a number of ways. Users can either “find artworks nearby”, take a tour of the city with “Tour Guide” or browse the cities art in a “gallery”. Users can click on each marked location to view images as well as information about the piece, the artist and further references. The application allows for users to comment and rate the art as well as upload their own pictures of the art which updates on the map.

Berlin is currently the only city on the Urban Art Guide's map, but plans are underway to develop similar guides for other cities

Reebok:::Your Reebok

BRAND: Reebok 

BRAND OWNER: Adidas Reebok 

CATEGORY :Accessories/ Clothing/ Footwear 

REGION :Global 

DATE :Mar 2009 - Dec 2008

Reebok was looking for an exciting way of engaging consumers with the brand.  Customisation had been a popular part of reebok.com for over two years and it wanted to take this a step further into the mobile space. Reebok has created an iPhone application, Your Reebok, that allows consumers to fully customize, and have the option to buy, a pair of Reebok shoes. People who download the application from the iTunes App Store can customize three shoe models: The Freestyle, The Classic Leather and The Ventilator. The designer can change up to 23 areas of the shoe, with a choice of 19 colours, four material options and adding personalized text. The designs can be shared with friends via email link or the whole world from the application – with the design being geo-tagged and added to the Your Reebok global community map. From the map all the other shared designs can be viewed and either bought or used as a canvas for customisation.

 

Gap / Havaianas :::Pop-up flip-flops

Gap is clearly trying to reach out to niche groups of consumers with this rolling campaign of targeted marketing activity. Fundamentally that's a sound approach; Gap is one of those brands that sells on its adaptability and wide-ranging appeal. What bothers us is the lack of a theme that binds all of the disparate activity together. Where Absolut has established a clear connection between all the various aspects of its amazing 'In an Absolut world...' campaign, Gap seems to have skipped that part entirely. Consequently, their various initiatives end up feeling more like an identity crisis than a coherent brand strategy.

Gap is hosting a pop-up flip-flop store in their New York Fifth Avenue store

Gap has collaborated with flip-flop icon Havaianas to create an 'Urban Beach Flip-Flop Shop' in the small space adjacent to their Fifth Ave store. 

Customers can choose from a range of flip-flops and over the weekends Gap is hosting an in-store craft bar where pins, initials and crystals will be available to customise the sandals.

This venture follows a string of pop-up events that Gap has hosted recently, the latest being a tiny dancers studio on the weekend where youngsters could dress up in Gap clothes and take free dance classes. Previously, instillations included; sale of Rhode Island School of Design redesigned Gap cardigans; a collaboration with Colette Paris; a Pantone T-shirt shop; and Gap’s (Product)Red gift-shop from which sales proceeds went to fighting AIDS in Africa.

www.gap.com

Van Gils:Dating a dummy

BRAND OWNER:Waalwear Group
CATEGORY:Accessories/ Clothing/ Footwear
REGION:EMEA
DATE:Aug 2008 - Sep 2008

Van Gils was a successful formal menswear brand across Europe in the eighties. In its prime it rivaled Hugo Boss, but had fallen into decline and had become largely unknown. Van Gils wanted to rebuild the brand’s visibility among 28-40 year old men in four local markets: Sweden, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands.

While other fashion brands use celebrities as models to add borrowed interest to the products, Van Gils understood that it is really only the suit that counts.

The campaign consisted of magazine spreads featuring an anonymous mannequin who “gets a life” and lives out a celebrity life.

The strategy was to take the mannequin (an actor in costume) to high profile events in each market. On each occasion the mannequin would be ‘dating’ a glamorous female star with a high profile in that market.

This meant model Susan K at the Survivor TV Party in Denmark; Miss Belgium, Alizee Poulicek, at David Coulthard’s pit at the Belgium Grand Prix; model Carolina Gynning at a film premiere in Stockholm and actress Lieke Lexmond at the Netherlands Film Festival.

Two international events saw Pamela Anderson ‘date’ the mannequin at Vivienne Westwood’s London Fashion Week show and Channel 5 presenter Laura Esposto at the ‘Burn after Reading’ premiere at Venice Film Festival.

This helped to generate major press interest and PR. In each market an exclusive content deal with one key publication was negotiated (such as FHM) to ensure a minimum level of coverage. To raise the profile beyond this base level they used extensive online seeding and blogging, while employing a local PR agent in each market to gain exposure in more channels.

Despite a relatively low weight of press advertising, the campaign achieved a 6% increase in Van Gils suit sales. This was accompanied by a 90% increase in new visits to the Van Gils website.

The viral

Reebok:::Fitness circus

BRAND OWNER:Adidas Reebok
CATEGORY:Accessories/ Clothing/ Footwear
REGION:Global
DATE:2008

Reebok has a history of inventive workout disciplines, recognizing that women like to enjoy themselves while exercising, starting with the simple Step Reebok in 1989.

Following survey of 15,000 women across 25 countries in 2008, Reebok found that less than 25% of women work out often. The findings showed that nearly two thirds (61%) of all women would workout more if it was more fun. More than half (54%) felt exercise was a chore.

Reebok teamed up with global acrobatic circus entertainment company, Cirque du Soleil, to create an innovative gym work out called Jukari Fit to Fly.

It is the first in a series of initiatives to come out of a new, long-term partnership, first formed in early 2008. In the eight months of development, Cirque du Soleil ensured that every move was inspired by the real moves of its acrobatic artists. Jukari Fit to Fly is an hour-long work out on a specially-designed piece of equipment called the ‘FlySet’, a durable three-stranded rope fixed to the ceiling, with a 380 degree swivel point at an adjustable length with two attachment loops. A bar is placed through the loops to create a sort of trapeze. The workout gives the sensation of flying while strengthening and lengthening the body.

The class was launched in gyms in 14 cities around the world, including Hong Kong, Mexico City, Madrid, London, Krakow, Munich, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Montreal, Los Angeles, Boston and New York.

To complement the class, Reebok has created two collections of women’s fitness clothing and footwear – On the Move and the Reebok-Cirque du Soleil collection. Both consist of product which can be worn for a range of fitness disciplines, from running to yoga, JUKARI Fit to Fly to tennis. All have been developed and designed with a deep understanding and knowledge of the unique way a woman’s body moves.

The launch was supported by a global campaign spanning online, outdoor, in store and in print featuring imagery of Jukari Fit to Fly.

SunSilk :::Manuela's wedding

BRAND OWNER :Unilever
CATEGORY :Accessories/ Clothing/ Footwear
REGION :Brazil
DATE :Nov 2008 - Dec 2008

Sunsilk is the top hair care brand in Brazil and was set to launch a new product, Sunsilk S.O.S.

Crescimento Fortificado, whose main benefit is to drive strong hair growth at a rate of up to 1.27 cm a month. Sunsilk had focused its brand position around the expression, "Life can't wait, why should hair " a bid to appeal to the lives of 20-something-girls.

The challenge was to create a communication campaign capable of bringing together the brand's philosophy (life can't wait) and the new variant's powerful functional benefit.
As Unilever research showed that 70% of women have "growth" and "strength" as two of their main hair care needs, Sunsilk needed a platform to reach this huge percentage of Brazilian women.
Due to the huge role that soap operas play in Brazilian cultural life, Sunsilk decided that this would be the most powerful creative direction to take.
An original, 4-episode sitcom was produced following the 4 month's leading up to the most important day in a woman's, Manuela's, life: her wedding day.
The plot linked to the product as Manuela had cut her hair short only to get engaged the following day. The target audience became gripped with Manuela's struggles to have her perfect wedding and, more importantly, her perfect hair.
The episodes were aired on TV, and were then made available on a website created for the project.
Sunsilk also produced exclusive online content, including video tips from Manuela's hair stylist, dermatologist and nutritionist. The FAQ section of the website was transformed into video interviews with these skilled professionals. The mystery of who was trying to sabotage Manuela's wedding could only be solved via Manuela's blog, and the sitcoms character profiles that were created on social networking sites, such as Orkut, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.
Consumers were encouraged to interact with the content, coming up with their own storylines. The winner of this competition appeared as a guest star on a special episode of the show.

The first episode was viewed 500,000 times on YouTube and the product is now the biggest selling product in SunSilk's portfolio, which has 21 products. Market share was increased by 400%.

Sears::: Back to school

BRAND OWNER:Sears
CATEGORY:Accessories/ Clothing/ Footwear
REGION:USA
DATE:Jun 2008 - Sep 2008


For Sears, the back-to-school (BTS) season is the only promotional period the retailer directly targets and involves younger shoppers.

Among teens Sears is rarely considered cool, so the challenge was to prove to teens that Sears had the apparel and styles to help them really "arrive" back at school.

This was to be part of a continued dialogue throughout the year, as Sears realised that you can't just talk to teens once a year and expect them to care about your brand.

Sears understood that the BTS season was incredibly important to kids, they would be seeing their friends for the first time in months and needed to make the right impression.

To generate excitement about Sears product offering and build an aspirational relationship, Sears aligned with Vanessa Hudgens, star of teen phenomenon High School Musical.

With Vanessa as brand ambassador, the strategy positioned Sears as the reference provider of the BTS looks and playground currency to impress.

Vanessa, dressed in Sears, starred in a TV commercial; series set as a musical, wearing the winning look for the 'first day' of school in the final act.

Sears' Arrive Lounge microsite was created, featuring Vaness Hudgens behind-the-scenes footage, content, opt-in mobile offer alerts, downloads and tools (video/music mash-up tool, apps to link to social networks).

Visitors registered for VIP Access Card and entered a sweepstakes to win a concert at their school with Vanessa. Card holders received weekly emails/SMS giving clues to hot items only to be found at Sears stores. When items were found, keywords were texted for a sweepstakes to get a Vanessa concert at your school.

A cross-channel sponsorship of MTV movie, “American Mall”, integrated product and aligned Sears’ partnership with Hudgens, the lead actress.

To drive traffic to “Arrive Lounge” Sears teamed up with highly trusted teen social networks and destinations: Facebook, MySpace, Seventeen, CosmoGirl, Addicting Games, FunBrain and Neopets to be part of and add value to their own customizable virtual worlds: Integrated “Arrive Lounge” into custom virtual worlds with exclusive content, videos, freebies and bespoke games for each environment; Sears virtual boutiques offering clothing, backgrounds, and animations to get ready for the new school year; Parties, Fashion events, Catwalk contests where users interact and celebrate the best of BTS fashion and Sears virtual stores offering exclusive apparel for their avatars, with online trading currency. "Intention to shop at Sears for BTS items" was up 5% among tested audience.

Nike:Nike Human Race

BRAND OWNER:Nike
CATEGORY:Accessories/ Clothing/ Footwear
REGION:Turkey
DATE:Jul 2008 - Sep 2008

Turkey is a country without a serious running culture. Nike wanted to use a global event to get a non-running nation thinking and talking about running, create a base for upcoming running campaigns and activities and build a direct association between the sport and their brand.

The main challenge was to get 10,000 people to run while maintaining alignment with the global strategy.

Nike Human Race 2008 was a global phenomenon which was localized for the Turkish market.

Nike needed to remind non-athletes of their lack of motivation, and so teamed up with the Dogan Group to enable this.

The Dogan Group gave Nike access to nine TV stations, 5 newspapers, 13 monthly magazines and 6 websites. Script editors were instructed to include reference to Nike Human Race wherever possible.

It gave Nike unprecedented access to its celebrities, produced and aired celebrity spots, engaged columnists to write about the event and integrated the event story into programmes, news and talk shows.

The Government supported the initiative as part of a national health drive and allowed the race to be run over the famous Bosphorous Bridge for the first time ever.

The event was also integrated as a mini-game into one of the biggest social networks.

Mobile was used for location-based MMS messaging, which was sent to the Nike database.

Outdoors, some 150 government owned bridges were branded for the first time.

As a result the race was three times over-subscribed, with 10,000 people taking part. Some 860,000 people visited the Nike Human Race site and the uplift of sales in Nike Plus kits was beyond expectations, with more than 5000 kits sold in 3 months – equivalent to the total amount sold during the previous two years

Nike :::Men versus Women Challenge

BRAND OWNER:Nike
CATEGORY:Accessories/ Clothing/ Footwear
REGION:Global
DATE:Mar 2009 - Apr 2009

Following on from the success of the Nike+ concept, a community for runners which allows people to track their progress, plot routes and connect with fellow runners, Nike wanted to create a new spirit of competition.

Nike+ sees a transmitter in certain Nike shoes transfer data wirelessly to an iPod nano, an iPod touch or a Nike+ SportBand, including information on time, distance, pace and calories burned. This is then stored on www.nikeplus.com.

Users can set each other challenges in order to motivate themselves.

Nike’s latest challenge concept was simple, Nike Men vs Women Challenge. The campaign responds to the popularity of this type of challenge set by the Nike+ community.

The two teams are given 38 days to clock up as many miles as possible. The team with the most miles after the 38 days wins.

The campaign was given mass coverage with a star-studded TV ad dripping with celebrities including footage of Eva Longoria throwing real life husband Tony Parker's trainers off the balcony. Tennis ace Rodger Federer, Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, long distance runner Paula Radcliffe, hip hop dancer Sofia Boutella and Liverpool footballer Fernando Torres also make appearances. Visitors to www.nikeplus.com can tally kilometers and monitor how their team were fairing against the opposite sex.

This was supported by calls to action on social networking sites including Facebook and MSN. Users could also download relevant content including a widget monitoring which team is winning.

The campaign is still ongoing, but in 2008, this was one of the most popular types of challenge on www.nikeplus.com, with runners contributing nearly 2.5 million kilometres.

To see the video, visit: http://www.rightbrainleftbrainblog.com/2009/03/nike-men-vs-women-.html

Anthropologie.com::: how is this website selling itself online?

Anthropologie touchy-feely?

by Vivian Manning-Schaffel

April 13, 2009 issue

Anthropologie is a moderately upscale American retail chain that curates an assemblage of various brands for a decidedly feminine lifestyle.

With stores arranged in impeccably casual fashion, they provide their target consumers (women 28‒42) with an eclectic boutique-like shopping experience where they can gather items such as vibrant dishcloths, an overstuffed antique-looking sofa, a great pair of jeans and a progressive, designer bag—all in one convenient location.

Owned and operated by Urban Outfitters, Inc., the company responsible for its signature chain, Urban Outfitters, as well as the collegiate clothing brand Free People, Anthropologie began seven years ago as a direct-mail business, opening its first retail outlet in a sizable New Jersey mall. Boasting an impressive category growth of 27.6 percent in the past year alone, Urban Outfitters, Inc. and the brands under its umbrella are bucking financial trends with an upward swing in a downward-facing economy.
According to their website, the founders of Anthropologie created the chain to “cultivate a shopping experience unlike almost anything else in retail today.” Their touchy-feely messaging matches their feminine look, describing their collection of designers as artists with “an eye for craftsmanship, the smallest details, and that certain something special that makes each item you find in our stores and website more than novelty but a personal discovery.” Matching the romantic sensibility of many of their products, it also refers to their consumers as “soulmates.”
Despite never having advertised, Anthropologie’s customers stay longer in the stores than most chain shoppers, with an average visit clocking in at an hour and 15 minutes. Brandchannel paid a visit to Anthropologie.com to see if their online presence invites users to linger over their own special brand of boho mojo.
When a brand has such a strong identity woven into their catalog, the ideal would be to match that sensibility online, which Anthropologie does—at least visually. The homepage focuses on trends and “pushes” seasonal items with accompanying tag lines that outline the solutions to your shopping dilemmas (“Wild about bottoms, bewildered by tops? Visit Bottoms Up!”).
Such vast product offerings can be challenging to organize and display, but the folks at Anthropologie take a methodical, traditional approach to online sales, keeping the basics all in order with clear product images and detailed information.
It’s one task to make your brand’s website look as good as your catalog or your stores, but it’s another to entice target consumers to linger by offering tangible benefits from shopping on the site. The “For Your Home” section has found a way to do this with “Dwelling Dos” that provide a combination of information and interaction. For example, the homepage, featuring hardware, informs consumers about the benefits of their vast selection of drawer pulls and leads them to a “Personalize Your Look” page that encourages viewers to drag and drop the drawer pulls on mock furniture pieces so they get a visual of what the accessories might look like in life.
However, the “For Your Self” section, featuring clothing and accessories, is surprisingly devoid of value-added fashion content, save for a spotlight widget that delivers a featured product of the day to users’ desktops. They might consider upping the ante. By providing online shoppers with style guidance to help them assemble that chic Anthropologie look, the brand in turn enhances its positioning as an arbiter of bohemian style.
Overall, Anthropologie.com does a decent job of conveying the decidedly feminine sophistication of the brand. With a few tweaks and additions of value-added content to beef up the “For Your Self” section, perhaps visitors will be inspired to linger online as they do in retail.

My Shape.com:::Online Fashion Consultation

Website : http://www.myshape.com/shop/index

Without paying for a personal shopper or fashion consultant, My Shape determines the best clothes for your body type, by asking you to take a variety of measurements and asking you about your fashion preferences as they relate to style, cut, fit, color and more. It then assigns you a letter for your shape based on the measurements you provided, and allows you to shop showing only the clothes that would fit you, that suit your preferences, and that would naturally flatter your body shape.

Blush lingerie ::: illegal ad of the day.

Virtual Wardrobe::: Online Shopping Revolution

While its virtual fitting room lets you see how you might look with different hairstyles and colors, and you can quickly determine how different garments will look with each other, it's not going far enough yet. It's similar to an Interactive Mirror concept we showed you a couple of years ago. But we'd like to see how the clothes look with the exact measurements of the prospective buyer.

This is heading in the right direction, though. The ultimate goal, called e-fit, involves stepping into a 3D scanner, and getting measurements of your body. Then, clothes can be digitally painted onto that image, for a realistic look at the results. Still, there's one more drawback — the final frontier of online clothes shopping: How does the material feel?

Reebok:::Rondo ringtone

BRAND:Reebok
BRAND OWNER :Adidas Reebok
CATEGORY :Accessories/ Clothing/ Footwear
REGION:USA
DATE :Jun 2008 - Dec 2007

In 2008, the Boston Celtics reached the NBA final for the first time in over 20 years. Reebok wanted to create a campaign that would magnify the excitement and magic of this sporting moment, with only 8 days to turn around the campaign.

The key objectives were to activate the Reebok brand during the highest profile basketball series, establish authenticity and credibility in the basketball category and drive sales of Reebok’s basketball merchandise.
The Reebok-sponsored player Rondo was the number one asset. Reebok wanted to build on the growing popularity of the player while driving traffic to the mobile site.

The key was to encourage people to download a “You Got Rondo’d” ringtone to their mobile phones and sign up for ring backs before each of the games.

This meant that when the games happened, the phones were set up to go off whenever Rondo played a good move. As soon as he made a great play, all of the phones rang out with the ringtone “You got Rondo’d”. When people picked up the calls, they heard further messages from ex-Celtics legends providing an instant payoff for the consumer in real time as they watched the game unfold.

The personalized WAP site also featured NBA player info, links to product cataluge, send to a friend mechanism and bespoke videos based on the same theme
This was supported by mobile and online ads, flyering in bars in and around the stadiums where the finals were being played, as well as a key in-stadium presence on the big screen. There was also a Reebok homepage takeover, targeted mobile banners, videos seeded on YouTube.
As a result, the mobile site received over half a million unique visits.

Mobile ringtones and videos were downloaded by more than 200,000 people. Sales of Reebok’s Celtics and basketball merchandise exceeded US and international targets. The phrase “You got Rondo’d” has also now entered into household vernacular.

Tommy Hilfiger "L.A."

Brand: Tommy Hilfiger Apparel

Agency: In-House

Review Date: February 10, 2009

Tommy Hilfiger strives to tell "American Stories" in a new global print, out-of-home and online campaign produced via its in-house creative team in tandem with Radical Media.

The work is high-concept in that it seeks to present a "cinematic treatment of iconic American cities," so, starting with Los Angeles, the nation's film capital, makes sense.

The oddly bland executions, unfortunately, should have been left on the cutting-room floor, as the spirit of L.A. is missing entirely, and the work looks as if it could have been shot almost anywhere.

Cliches of the Hollywood scene -- like a movie location trailer and actors holding scripts -- might not even be immediately recognizable as such to consumers quickly flipping through the pages of magazines. Another take in a new setting is sorely needed. Here's hoping Tommy's act plays better on Broadway.

The dancing t-shirts

March 12, 2009
An infinite number of animated t-shirts populates the summer collection of Japanese fashion brand Sunny Clouds. The website is pretty basic but also quite fresh in presenting the product and driving immediate sales.

The animations with the t-shirt definitely buy the products some attention, and even the product catalogue shots become interesting in a context that communicates a feeling of joy and makes you feel Spring is almost here.

Origami In the Pursuit of Perfection

http://vimeo.com/2188162

To tell the story of Japanese sports brand ASICS, Nordpol + Hamburg created this beautiful stop-motion movie showcasing the origami models of Mabona Origami.

ad:tech New York: the digital strategies of Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton: digitizing luxury
Digital media, of course, are not just a bunch of stunts and tricks that can revive fading products - a case Lazarus made with new Ogilvy/Paris work for Louis Vuitton. "Ten years ago, we would have come up with the most gorgeous print ads you've ever seen," the Ogilvy chairman/ceo noted. And, so they did with the most recent execution for the brand, with lush, engaging, evocative Annie Liebowitz photographs of Catherine Deneuve, Keith Richards, Mikhail Gorbachev, Andre Agassi/Steffi Graf, and this one - two-filmaking Copploas-in-one-image: Francis Ford and Sofia:
In each case, Louis Vuitton products - featured ever-so-elegantly - somehow eased their transit as, said Lazarus, "we offered a deeper exploration of their personal journeys."
But unlike the print programs of just a decade ago, Ogilvy built the new campaign to last, to reinforce, and to build the brand even more powerfully. Gorbachev takes YouTubers on a visit of Moscow. Deneuve does Paris. And Keith Richards goes inside his London in a series of nine videos, including this trailer:

"Each of the Louis Vuitton people take us to places they love," Lazarus said. Keith Richards' love for Shepherd's Pie may not play to an association with one of the world's great luxury brands, but, Lazarus explained, "You experience life the way celebrities find it." Consumers who come to the Louis Vuitton site spend an average of 16 minutes viewing different video executions.
"The brand turns to experience," she added. "And that translates to public-relations impressions and blog impressions" that never could have been part of a pure-print campaign in the 1990s. "And we're driving double-digit growth in shop visits and growth."
While Lazarus recognized "it's impossible to know what will happen in the face of an economic downturn," the campaign will continue, with the next subject 78-year-old Sean Connery featured over the copyline, "There are journeys that turn into legends."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54QslBU1bK0