Third Wave Fashion // JANUARY 2014 // THE CONTENT + COMMERCE ISSUE | Page 24
FOCUS ON THE PRODUCT
It is imperative to have an editorial point of
view and apply it, consistently, across all
channels. For instance, descriptions on a
product page should read as if they were
written by the same person writing the
email blasts. Take care to distinguish
between the uses, of course, but be sure to
maintain integrity and authenticity in the
brand voice.
Nasty Gal does a great job of maintaining
consistency of voice on product pages:
Dance the night away in this vintageinspired black sequin party dress… Bonobos
does a fantastic job with theirs: For the
weekday warrior campaigning bravely in the
professional trenches, wrinkles simply are
not an option.
COMMUNITIES
Content, commerce, and… community.
Our focus on content and commerce still
requires active community elements. Social
sharing buttons, trending product feeds,
forums and active comment threads, and
even peer-to-peer selling are all ways to
enliven a website.
Rent the Runway offers Our Runway, an
addicting way to browse and search for
photos of women with similar
measurements wearing the company’s
dresses; many dresses have hundreds of
users photos. ird Wave Fashion client
Olapic makes social content shoppable.
eir collaboration on e Sweat Life from
LuluLemon is a perfect example–it
aggregates Instagram photos from fans, as
well as adds those photos to actual product
pages, where shoppers can read reviews as
well as see the garments in action.
THE NEW INFOMERCIALS
ink that infomercials have gone the way
of Snuggies and Sweatin’ to the Oldies?
ink again. Joyus, launched in 2011 by
former executives from Google and eBay,
brought the genre into a new generation.
With their short, original videos for each
product (from a few seconds to a few
minutes long), the format is informative
and addicting.
Similarly, the beauty gurus of YouTube
(like power player Michelle Phan), have
gone from reviewing other company’s
products to hawking their own product
lines. Designer Issac Mizraahi reportedly
rings up 80% of his sales through QVC; the
shopping channel logs a whopping $8B in
annual revenues. While the concept of
shoppable videos has a long way to go, the
idea of shopping from videos is here in a
big way.
"A very small fraction of
visitors — typically
between 3% and 10% —
are actually interacting
with the content portions
of a [brand's or retailer's]
site, but those visitors visit
more frequently and
convert at a higher rate.”
-- Maureen Mullen, L2 ink Tank