Shop until you drop… a line.
What an interesting concept. Capture your shoppers on video, have them create a profile. Internet users all over the world can then view and write messages to the shopper. Shopper checks back to the store, or logs in from home, all nicely wrapped up in the retailers brand.
After mastering ’shock marketing’ (link to Olivero Toscani’s controversial 80’s campaign using traditional media, Benetton makes quite an impressive attempt at new media marketing.
Comments:
This is going to do great. Give people a new interactive platform with a little space to work, and all sorts of inventiveness will emerge. Let’s call it “open source creative.”
Kenny Ferguson, August 11, 2004 at 2:07 am
I would say this is less a form of a creative open source (COS) and more of an example of narcissism in marketing.
The power of narcissism in marketing is underutilized, thought I could see it as the next big thing. In terms of narcissism, I am referring to the Freudian view; or a desire to see a reflection of oneself in the world around. In this case its interesting to see Benetton literally reflecting the individual in their brand rather than trying to have the individual reflect what they are pushing for that moment. Without getting too academic for a comments post, it seems the traditional job of advertising and marketing has been to make the individual feel inferior and to have them fill this inferiority with whatever is being sold. The opportunity here is to provide an experience where the customer feels the brand is less about what is being sold and is more of a reflection of their everyday life.
Mason Poe, August 11, 2004 at 6:56 pm
Great comments. This is a logical evolution of their legendary campaign - where they presented Benetton as a symbol of versatility - now the common man is their star. It’s free broadband content and the with the sense of spontaneity and voyeurism - I’m already a repeat visitor - impulsively clicking through the sea of human beings. - The more I look at the site, the more hooks and extensions I think this concept has - with 4000 stores worldwide this could make a great feature for the social networking (Friendster, MySpace) and dating networks (Match.com, Lavalife.
Stefan Kjartansson, August 11, 2004 at 9:03 pm