Last week marked a very exciting event for Style Coalition – we launched our first major campaign for a AVELLE (the new Bag Borrow or Steal). I’ve been personally following this brand since the day they launched 5 years ago, and was excited for their Sex and The City success (BBOS was integrated into the script). Needless to say how excited we were to work with their marketing team on a very innovative social media campaign celebrating brands 5th anniversary.
The Avelle campaign is one great example of the vision we had when founded Style Coalition – help brands engage in the social media in a way that would be authentic, ethical and, of course, measurable. By working directly with the group of publishers in the fashion vertical (Style Coalition) Avelle’s marketing team could create a promotion which was aligned both with sites content/demographics and their overall marketing strategy.
As part of the campaign, 9 fashion sites ( Second City Style, College Fashion, SheFinds, TheCoveted, Gala Darling, MyItThings, Trend de la Creme, StyleBakery, StyleObserver) were asked to make their own favorite picks from Avelle.com. The sponsored posts featuring these products run across the sites during the 2 weeks period, unveiling new content every day. Readers of these sites were invited to share their favorite Avelle picks for a chance to win $250 gift cards, in addition to the bigger sweepstakes Avelle run on their site (5 months of free couture accessories rental). The conversation was extended to Twitter, with a special #avelle5year hashtag. Special widget was embedded into the posts to allow both cross-promotion for participating sites and campaign tracking (case study to come).
The main goal of the campaign is to create conversation around handbags and accessories, sponsored by Avelle. I would like to emphasize the fact that bloggers were never asked to review Avelle’s services or website to avoid conflict of interests, and obviously the sponsored posts were clearly labeled as such. Each site was compensated for their participation in the campaign, besides the gift card giveaways offered to readers. In this case bloggers and publishers acted as social media agents and buzz creators, offering their properties and networks for sponsorship in a way that does not put in danger their authenticity or personal voice. So far 5 sites run their posts and generated hundreds of positive comments from their readers. There have been lots of Avelle buzz on Twitter as well as on leading social media blogs. In addition, Avelle featured the blog posts and their picks in their own daily blog, providing exposure to participating sites.
This campaign demonstrates to the brands effective and safe way to approach social media and hopefully Style Coalition will continue playing a leading role in this vertical by offering innovative solutions and delivering competitive results. I can’t wait to share Avelle case study here – so stay tuned!
Check out the widget below for all the posts participating in the campaign.
