eROI NYC Interactive Agency

Recently I had the pleasure of working with Alan Dessy of The Dessy Group on an in store event he had planned with one of his designers Cynthia Rowley. The in store event would feature her new collection and was being positioned as a brand event as much as a designer event.  In brainstorming how to present this to you in a meaningful and valuable way I wanted to come up with a format that was usable and adjustable to other campaigns. Thus the Digital Recipe is born. The first addition to the cook book is: “The Bleecker Street Boullabaise”

The first thing to consider when doing an event like this is of course getting people there. You need butts in the seats if you are going to have any kind of impact. So to get the message out we reached out to blogs and other publications.  Through positive outreach and by having a compeling story to tell….we got terrific press traction for the event. If your story is compelling enough…anyone can get coverage…just give them something to talk about. www.dmnews.com,  www.wwd.com, www.stylemepretty.com.

While the press added a special flavor….like any recipe its success if dependent upon the ability of all the ingredients to work together. Accenting the press coverage was a nicely designed and timely email invitation  informing the community about the event. This was further marinated in a special social media sauce of foursquare and Facebook.  And as with any dish…you need to know when to stop seasoning.  Use the appropriate channels, let the juices simmer and and let it work

Now that the dish was cooking nicely its was time to focus on execution. Cardinal rule…if you make it a big deal….make it a big deal.  After all the build up the worse thing you can do is underwhelm your community.  No one likes it when you wait 3 hours for a turkey then when you finally get a bite its dryer than a mouthful of sand. If you advertise it as a duck make sure it has a bill and feathers.  So the store was decked out with flowers and champagne….the store looked emmacluate…the models from the campaign were there showing off the dresses as live mannequins…and of course the designer was there. Undoubtedly a positive brand experience for not just those form the community who attended but also for the random passer by who happened upon the smell of the delicious Bouillabaisse. A key note to remember….that even if your customer doesn’t buy anything today making an effort for your community will put you at the top of their list when they are ready to buy.

This particular recipe is also a good example of how the age old adage “it takes a village” certainly can apply to effectivly building and maintaning a brand of any kind. That’s it for this edition of Digital Recipes. Keep it simple keep it real.

I took a walk over to The Dessy Group the other day to give a shout to one of our first NYC clients Alan Dessy. He is with out a doubt one of my most savvy clients and always has something cool to share. This time I was blown away. The Dessy Group partnered with Pantone to create Pantone Wedding. Brides to be can create unique inspiration boards for their wedding that they can share with friends and family. The user experience is great. You can import your own pictures and choose from galleries to create a visual mosaic of the wedding. Pantone Wedding swatch cards can then be divided into color chips for easy distribution to vendors ensuring it all matches. Love the progress Alan. Rock.

I am pleased to share that the viral campaign we did for The Dessy Group is getting some traction. It was picked up by Martha Stewart’s wedding BLOG. Not bad….

Hey Nation…..
I wanted to spend some time today to talk about the term VIRAL. What does it really mean?
I recently went to an OMMA conference where guest speakers spent an hour or so commenting on what it means. Here are some blurbs:

“Viral is result of content hitting critical mass.”
“Something is viral if it runs on its own.”
“Viral occurs when you lose control of the content.”

I am not sure what the right answer is, but from my perspective something isn’t immediately “viral”, it must become that way. The millions and millions of forwarded videos and pictures all have there place in the viral hall of fame. I guess viral is on the brain as we recently completed a cool campaign for The Dessy Group that features an animation video done by the Vancouver Film School. The goals for this were simple…add an aspect of fun into a very dry industry, drive traffic to dessy.com, and build their email list. Since its launch we have had about 6000 visitors to the site. So you be the judge…is this viral?