Out of This World

Barneys New York (Barneys) has upped the ante this year in the time-honored tradition of holiday retail wars by collaborating with the ever-surprising Lady Gaga.

Barneys has transformed the entire fifth floor at its Madison Avenue flagship store into Gaga’s Workshop, the star’s interpretation of Santa’s Workshop. So you won’t find any elves or reindeer, but plenty of visual stimulation with contemporary designs that reflect Lady Gaga’s unconventional style.

The workshop houses the “12 Days of Gaga” limited-time merchandise lineup, with one new product launched daily, and a branded collection comprising apparel, toys, cosmetics, accessories, treats, jewelry and media. These items can be purchased on-site or online at GagaWorkshop.com.

With a social media twist on word-of-mouth promotion, Barneys indicates on its micro-site how many Facebook likes and Twitter tweets each product has received, and there’s also a button for shoppers to forward the Web link to their own Facebook friends in order to spread the word and some holiday cheer. Barneys has promised to donate 25 percent of sales from Gaga’s Workshop to the Born This Way Foundation, which Lady Gaga recently formed to promote youth empowerment and equality by building awareness of issues such as self-confidence, well-being, anti-bullying, mentoring and career development, putting the emphasis on digital communication to engender positive societalchange.

Making the Gaga experience even more interactive, Barneys has hidden promotional codes on its websites and throughout New York City for customers to uncover. Anyone who finds a code can enter it online on the GagaWorkshop.com micro-site to see if they’ve won a holiday gift.

The flagship store also boasts an eye-catching 12’x6.5’ digital window display with which shoppers can interact to tweet their Christmas wishes to Lady Gaga using the #gagastars hashtag. The Science Project developed this social media-backed “Gaga Constellation” laser phosphor installation together with Moving Image & Content, making it possible for some of these wishes to be selected at random and posted on Twitter before appearing on the window display. That’s following a computer-generated fashion film that opens the experience and in which Lady Gaga’s cyber alter ego forms out of stars and particles right before shoppers’ eyes before dissipating in a burst of white unicorns—yes, very Gaga.

This out-of-this-world holiday program will end on January 2.

THE TECH TEAM

• “Gaga Constellation” computer-generated film: Tim Richardson (director), Nicola Formichetti (creative director), Q4 The Digital (agency), A White Label Product (production), The Mill LA (post production)

• Window installation: The Science Project and Moving Image & Content

• Window supplier: Prysm

THE TRENDZ TWIST

Combining visual merchandising, online marketing and sales promotions is surely a strategy to include in your plans for 2012. Here are a few ideas:

• Support F&B sales with an interactive window that presents your eateries with a combination of static images and QR codes. These codes would act as links to each eatery’s menu and daily deal. Shoppers who “like” the shopping center on Facebook could then access a promotional micro-site with the downloadable meal coupons. If you’ve got the budget to fund a more elaborate plan, why not run short films on your restaurants and cafés on that window display? It could be a powerful way to connect with shoppers and draw them in. Run food court promotional films at lunchtime, and reserve the restaurant videos for the evening.

• Allow your charity partners to take hold of empty windows and use them for awareness building and fundraising purposes. Social media tie-ins and other mobile tools could help encourage donations. The windows would also function as delivery platforms for your center’s own CSR initiatives (e.g. safety videos, green amenities presentations and youth programs).

• Use interactive windows instead of static signage to run promotional or pure-play treasure hunts during major holidays and celebrations. This could work well for Back to School.

• Look for partners for all these projects. Otherwise, you might be stuck with a hefty bill. If professional agencies aren’t cooperating, try the colleges and universities in your area. They might be willing to develop a collaborative project to give their students some real-world experience and help them build their portfolios.


Dec.
2011
Posted in Digital Marketing
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