The target market for Fluevog’s high-end, one-of-a-kind footwear is a ‘marketer’s nightmare,’ says marketing manager Stephen Bailey. ‘It’s really hard to nail down exactly who a Fluevogger is.’
So Bailey decided that, for the first new ad campaign for the Vancouver-based foot-fashion label in four years, the fans would decide how to represent the brand. Fluevog put an open call to design ads for several different shoe models to the brand’s network of creatively inclined loyalists – who routinely submit designs for new shoes via the brand’s Open Source Footwear project and voice their opinions on the Vog Populi blog.
So far, he’s received nearly 200 submissions – often within a tight, 10-day window – and from 3,000 to 4,000 votes for each brief. The number of ‘likes’ a design received helped determine the final four, and the winners won prizes like $1,000 worth of Fluevog gear and the glory of having their work featured in the likes of Surface, Juxtapoz and ReadyMade.
Winning work will also be featured in lightboxes at the L.A. and New York stores, two of the 10 Fluevog boutiques in North America (the brand has dozens of retail partners here and in Australia).
While initially nervous about the quality of the end product, Bailey now believes it was a perfect match for the brand. ‘Seventy percent of people say they trust a stranger’s review [of a company or brand] over a company’s review,’ says Bailey. ‘I love the idea of letting customers do all the advertising for a product.’
www.fluevogcreative.com