Joining the Dots

I love a good play on words and I love a progressive social media integrated website, so I was pleasantly surprised to hear about Dotti's new campaign "Dotti Nation".

They've re-launched their website to incorporate web 2.0 with social media and allow more user generated content with a catchy tag line of "Join the dots". Features include:
1. Wardrobe - It's a virtual wardrobe with styling tips via video and showcases what's in store right now
2. Dotti Nation - Members can upload their outfits and win prizes for sharing
3. Design-A-Bits - If you're a designer in the making, you could share your ideas with Dotti for instant fame and prizes
4. Connections to facebook

Its interesting that Dotti have chosen this expensive financial set-up and ongoing management of their site, when you compare other retailers in the market like Bardot, Forever New, Supre, Glassons and Portmans. Sportsgirl obviously launched their interactive site last year and were one of the first in Australia to do so.

I am curious to see the audience reaction to this kind of site, given Australians (whilst spending so much time online) are not the most interactive when it comes to retailers sites, we tend to support forums and blogs that are neutral and not brand driven (case in point - Vogue's notoriously popular forum).

Sportsgirl embraces Bloggers

On Monday 8th February I was invited to attend the Sportsgirl Roadshow parade for Autumn Winter 2010. Primarily, this is put on for the Sportsgirl retail team, however this year, they invited a few Melbourne Bloggers to attend to take a sneak peak at the action. It’s an interesting strategy on Sportsgirl’s behalf. The bloggers feature their own reviews and photo’s from the parade, and share this with their communities.

Jade Roberts (PR Manager) said she has been working with bloggers for 2 years and finds they are effective for reaching out to potential/existing Sportsgirl customers because of their strong community followings and unique perspectives on fashion. It’s also helpful due to the fact that online is immediate and Sportsgirl is all about fast fashion.

Whilst at the parade I chatted with Kate Elton, Online and Events Manager whose position was created to cater to the new Sportsgirl community website some 8 months ago. Kate's role varies from updating the website daily with product, blog posts and articles to managing the social networking community (twitter, facebook etc). Kate has found Twitter has been incredibly popular in the last year and uses it to offer sneak peek's to their twitter followers. She finds the website sections that are most popular are to do with 'style advice' i.e. Style Snaps and Style Me.

The parade was a high-energy event with a Circus/ Moulin Rouge/ Vaudeville theme and featured smiling models (a refreshing change that epitomised the perfect Sports-girl)! The audience gasps, laughs, claps and general buzz was a combination of lust (for the pieces they have yet to own) and $$ signs clicking over in their heads (as they saw what would sell in their respective Sportsgirl stores)! This roadshow was a great way of inspiring the Sportsgirl staff about what's coming in store as well as offering the wider Sportsgirl community the opportunity to share the night through the bloggers attending.