This month my agency the Hai Media Group heads to Manchester, along with other digital media creative entrepreneurs from throughout the UK, for the conference bTWEEN08, where our agency is a finalist in the Branding Talent competition.

HMG has teamed up with media partner Isabella Hu, a designer, to develop this seed idea for an integrated promotional campaign to support Littlewoods, a popular online shopping site for fashion and house wares. We’ve presented the judges with our Rare Fruits concept, that invites customers to visit Littlewoodsdirect.com, to pick rare fashion fruits from the branches of trees, growing on islands. The virtual world concept wraps around what we’ve already been told about Littlewoods new branding initiatives to build excitement with a television commercial involving a desert island, scheduled to be aired in the 2008 holiday season.

Among our mentors for this experience will be 4Talent (an innovation arm of the broadcaster Channel 4), Aegis Media, Just-b (the creators and designers of bTWEEN08) and Littlewoods.

bTWEEN08's Sponsors

We join other finalists to develop our seed ideas into a full proposal for the client, during a conference workshop, and find out Friday, 20th June 2008, if our Rare Fruits campaign is a winner. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work closely with our digital creative peers for bTWEEN08, and hope we have a good chance at winning the cash prize of £5K. You can see some screenshots of our Rare Fruits campaign concept below:

Check out our Rare Fruits entry here, which is up for public vote online, among other contenders:

http://www.just-b.com/btween/branding-tallent/rare-fruits

How do you vote? Please sign up to the bTWEEN08 online community, a helpful resource for digital entrepreneurs.

Creative Branding Inspiration

Hai Media Group hopes the judges will love our Rare Fruits campaign, a concept that aims to build website traffic by creating consumer excitement around exclusively available items from popular brands such as Miss Selfridges, Diesel, Love Island, Henleys, and other brands the retailer currently stocks. We've also suggested the possibility of offering prizes or products from the brand’s official spokeswomen Trinny & Susannah, who are leading fashion divas in the UK. We’ve been inspired by the successes High Street retailers have had in recent years by offering shoppers fashion lines from celebrities and designers, and see this new branding initiative as an opportunity for Littlewoods to capture the same excitement online.

Kate Moss, Madonna, Lilly Allen and others, have unveiled their collections at Top Shop, H&M and other retailers, but we think the best case study example is when Stella McCartney’s collection debuted at H&M in November 2005, which launched consumer fervour outside the Oxford Circus retail outlet on its launch day, with thousands of fans queuing for their chance to own an original piece of the collection. The store sold out within the first day, and remains a coup d'état moment among the fashion industry marketing types.

We hope to fuel similar excitement for Littlewoods, and offer busy women a new way to have a chance to own an original fashion item, that doesn’t require taking a day off from work, or raising kids, to queue for hours at a shop. In the run-up to our Rare Fruits campaign debut for Littlewoods, we’ve got integrated promotional strategies surrounding our campaign, to build buzz and excitement over an 8-week period in the run-up to the holidays, that we’ll be discussing further with the judges of this competition.

We are looking forward to working closely with other entrepreneurs, and media mentors to finalize our campaign ideas during the bTWEEN08 conference.

We join other finalists in a development workshop on Wednesday June 18^th June 2008, to develop our seed ideas into a full proposal for the client. We’ll find out Friday, 20^th June 2008, if our Rare Fruits campaign is an award-winner.

 

Hoping we've got a winner with the Littlewoods Rare Fruits campaign,

-Lisa

Who’s Lisa Devaney?

I head the Hai Media Group, a multimedia communications company based in London, offering client’s traditional public relations, combined with new technology marketing strategies. I also perform, creating original Cabaret-style comedy skits for festivals, theatre and parties. Find out more about me, and the talented entrepreneurs I collaborate with, by visiting: www.haimediagroup.com

Who’s Isabella Hu?

Hu is an artist and designer who works across the fields of interactive arts, motion graphics and new media. Her experience includes design consultantcy specializing in digital, film, and print media. She has screened her work internationally at various festivals throughout Europe, Canada, Asia, Australia and in the UK. Visit her portfolio here: Ecolocate.