Outlines a recent collaborrative marketing campaign between Free People clothing and Olapic, a social image sharing startup. The end result was innovative functionality that allowed Free People customers the ability to have images they uploaded to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook appear on product detail pages at Freepeople.com. This deck chronicles the idea from inception through reception of what was ultimately a successful campaign to support the relaunch of Free People's denim line.
2. Who we are…
• Urban Outfitters was originally named Free People and founded in
West Philly (born and raised!)
• Rebooted in 1984 as a wholesale line
• “Boho chic” apparel, shoes, & accessories targeting women 25-35
• Over 75 retail locations and countless wholesalers
• Recently opened our first international store and launching our
first international ecomm site this fall
4. The Opportunity:
Free People has a huge, socially engaged community of customers, fashion
bloggers, and stylists talking about our product.
– 783,884 Facebook Fans
– 107,673 Twitter Followers
– 299,490 Instagram Followers
– 28,440 Pinterest Followers
– 871,446 Google+ Followers
– 1000’s of indie fashion bloggers
5. We know what your thinking…
And yes, there are 871,446 people on
Google+
6. Social Sharing + Cool Product = ???
So how do we leverage this audience… to build excitement for our denim?
7. Enter Olapic…
• Olapic is a relatively new startup
in the social image sharing space
(founded in NYC in 2010)
• Captures sharing where its
happening by pinging
Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
APIs for specific hashtags or
phrases
• Pulls images with specified
hashtags into photo galleries
• The technology had yet to be
utilized for an eCommerce site
8. The Technical Bits…
• Easy implementation via an
Embeddable JavaScript Widget
• Allows for automated or manual
curation
• Full CSS control over Widget
• Subdomain for gallery page
10. Now we’re cooking with gas!
Using Olapic’s social image sharing technology, we created a campaign based around
the hashtag #MyFPDenim. Customers were encouraged to tweet or instagram images
of themselves styling Free People denim looks using the specified hashtags…
14. …And people liked the campaign!
• Over 600 customer image
submissions
• Very nice YoY gains for denim
sales
• Large spikes in backlink
acquisition correlating to days
of significance in the campaign
18. We liked it so much we took it on vacation…
• The campaign was so
successful we decided to
employ an Olapic
microsite to tease our UK
site launch
• With dev efforts tide up
on the UK ecommerce
site, this Olapic
constructed site is
allowing us to build brand
awareness and link equity
in advance of the launch
• CNAMEd
www.freepeople.co.uk to
Olapic’s servers, will
remove upon launch of
the full site
19. And the Brits like it too!
THE FP “IT” GIRL CONTEST
• Upload your best street
style images to join the
contest and be Free
People’s ‘It Girl’!
• Use the hashtag
#fpitgirluk on Instagram
or Twitter to enter.
• Over 200 submissions so
far since launch on 9/5