The retail industry continues to look for ways to effectively infiltrate social media and capture the attention of milleninial consumers who seem to be impervious to traditional internet advertising. Rather than invade existing social media sites, Men’s Wearhouse has created its own, which it hopes will draw in lots of teen and tween friends, create buzz, motivate sharing, boost its brand, and somehow make sales in the process.
Men’s Wearhouse saw its apparel sales plummet, while its tux rental revenues rose in 2008. To capitalize on that trend, just in time for the peak prom rental season, the company has launched VirtualProm.com. It’s a free website where visitors can create a virtual prom experience, complete with their choice of outfits, location, themes, dance moves, and even YouTube music videos.
Once their online creation is complete, virtual prom queens and kings can invite their friends to join the dance and create their own characters and dance moves. Then, I guess, everybody texts and blogs about the whole thing. The VirtualProm site hopes to attract tweens and teens, build a hip brand image, and translate virtual goodwill into real life tux rental sales.
I’ll be the first to admit that I am old and therefore have an inherent amount of social media retardation and resistance. For the most part, I just don’t get it. I’m not sure why I should take the time to troll through thousands of tweets, posts, and texts from friends, friends of friends, networks of vague acquaintances, and people who think they might know somebody I once had an interesting encounter with in a past life. How does anything meaningful occur in the middle of all that noise?
As is always the case, one generation’s “noise” is another generation’s music. One thing I do get is that those who are in the social media vibe are tuned into a life rhythm that is much faster, more intense, and less tangible than what most of us aging boomers have ever experienced before. Meaningful participation in social media is probably too big of a goal for a baby boomer. Perhaps an appreciative awareness and acceptance is the best that we can hope to achieve when it comes to the phenomenon.
As it pertains to retailing, an appreciative awareness is really all that is needed to make social media work, providing that you also have a sufficient number of millennial buzz-savvy staff members who know the how-to’s of actually putting it to work. When you strip away all the hype and technology, the principles behind social media marketing are not all that unfamiliar.
Find your target customers where they are, get them engaged, integrate your offer, and once you connect with them, keep the connection meaningful, strong, and intact. The how’s of accomplishing these steps have changed radically in the past decade, but the steps have pretty much been the same since proactive retailing was born.
It probably doesn’t bode well for Men’s Wearhouse that I think their VirtualProm.com is very cool. Being well past my prom days, and nowhere near their target audience, I fear that its appeal to me will make it lame to the desired demographic. However, there is the seed of an amazing customer loyalty program there, and if Men’s Wearhouse can get some underage technoids to help them make the site a little more “sick,” they may be able to create just the kind of buzz that is music to millennial ears.
By the way, if you want an invitation to my virtual prom, let me know. My avatar does a back flip at the end of the dance that is really wack. Or is it bad? Maybe it's dope. I have NFC. I gotta bounce.
Men’s Wearhouse saw its apparel sales plummet, while its tux rental revenues rose in 2008. To capitalize on that trend, just in time for the peak prom rental season, the company has launched VirtualProm.com. It’s a free website where visitors can create a virtual prom experience, complete with their choice of outfits, location, themes, dance moves, and even YouTube music videos.
Once their online creation is complete, virtual prom queens and kings can invite their friends to join the dance and create their own characters and dance moves. Then, I guess, everybody texts and blogs about the whole thing. The VirtualProm site hopes to attract tweens and teens, build a hip brand image, and translate virtual goodwill into real life tux rental sales.
I’ll be the first to admit that I am old and therefore have an inherent amount of social media retardation and resistance. For the most part, I just don’t get it. I’m not sure why I should take the time to troll through thousands of tweets, posts, and texts from friends, friends of friends, networks of vague acquaintances, and people who think they might know somebody I once had an interesting encounter with in a past life. How does anything meaningful occur in the middle of all that noise?
As is always the case, one generation’s “noise” is another generation’s music. One thing I do get is that those who are in the social media vibe are tuned into a life rhythm that is much faster, more intense, and less tangible than what most of us aging boomers have ever experienced before. Meaningful participation in social media is probably too big of a goal for a baby boomer. Perhaps an appreciative awareness and acceptance is the best that we can hope to achieve when it comes to the phenomenon.
As it pertains to retailing, an appreciative awareness is really all that is needed to make social media work, providing that you also have a sufficient number of millennial buzz-savvy staff members who know the how-to’s of actually putting it to work. When you strip away all the hype and technology, the principles behind social media marketing are not all that unfamiliar.
Find your target customers where they are, get them engaged, integrate your offer, and once you connect with them, keep the connection meaningful, strong, and intact. The how’s of accomplishing these steps have changed radically in the past decade, but the steps have pretty much been the same since proactive retailing was born.
It probably doesn’t bode well for Men’s Wearhouse that I think their VirtualProm.com is very cool. Being well past my prom days, and nowhere near their target audience, I fear that its appeal to me will make it lame to the desired demographic. However, there is the seed of an amazing customer loyalty program there, and if Men’s Wearhouse can get some underage technoids to help them make the site a little more “sick,” they may be able to create just the kind of buzz that is music to millennial ears.
By the way, if you want an invitation to my virtual prom, let me know. My avatar does a back flip at the end of the dance that is really wack. Or is it bad? Maybe it's dope. I have NFC. I gotta bounce.
Comments
Well, I checked out the virtual prom site, and as a twenty something-year-old i must say that I think it is pretty “wack”.
and “wack” means bad, btw….
Rather fascinating/humorous that Men’s Whearhouse even attempted such a thing, really. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.