The Lookbook as an effective marketing tool
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011
Natasha Belonio, 19, Server & Aldo Employee from Ladner Spotted At: Granville St.
Touching on the theme of marketing campaigns and discussing their effectiveness, I want to share an example from my own experiences from this past summer. In May 2011 I started interning as a marketing intern at Vancouver Fashion Week. It’s a biannual event (every April and November) where local and international designers showcase their collections over a course of 6 days… 6 days of non-stop fashion and runway!
Because Vancouver Fashion Week is only in its 10th year, its a relatively new concept on the West Coast, no where near as big and extravagant as the famous Toronto Fashion Week. This is where my job became important. Effective marketing strategies would attract new customers to purchase tickets and the name and prestige of the event would then follow with time. I think the biggest hurdle with the event is that not enough people know about it – therefore the key to our marketing strategy would be to target and inform every day people such as you and I. Because I love photography, the two ideas were combined and The Lookbook was initiated: it focused on Vancouver’s street style. As I walked around Vancouver, snapping pictures and interviewing trendy locals, I connected with them on a more personal level and really dug deep into not only what inspired their sense of style but also what they thought of Vancouver and its style and culture as well. Through this experience I have met numerous people from all around the world who all have a common interest: Fashion!
I thought this marketing initiative was quite successful because The Lookbook had lots of social media exposure; it was featured on the VFW website, our Facebook fan page, our Tumblr page, Twitter, and The Province Newspaper. In addition, when I stopped people on the street, the majority of them were flattered and agreed to talk to me for 10 minutes where I pitched them a snippet of the event if they had never heard of it and I thought the personal interaction was most effective. For new customers, they were bound to use word of mouth to tell their friends and family and tag themselves in the Facebook pictures. Our Facebook page currently has 8,166 likes and our Lookbook album consists of a full 200 photos. The Lookbook got so popular that we started “tweeting” the location we would be scouting that day, and people flocked to that area in hopes of getting their photo taken. Other ongoing promotions were little things such as for the styles that receive the most “likes” on Facebook every week, that person would win free tickets for one of the shows – more reason for the people I stopped on the street to tell their friends and thus, the more traffic our page and website would receive. Ultimately, win-win for everyone.
Holly Russell, 27, Stylist from Vancouver Spotted at: Granville St.
Tibeb Mitiku, 19, Student from SFU Spotted At: West Georgia St.