Assignment #3: Betabrand (Ryan Puglisi)

Betabrand Website: http://www.betabrand.com/

The company Betabrand sells clothing and uses advertising and design to effectively sell products in excess of a hundred dollars. I believe the company is intimately aware and effective in its use of social media. Its website shows how keen they are in keeping connected with their users. They regularly update their content with viral photos, videos, and witty/hilarious slogans that strongly appeal to the hipster crowd. Regular content flows like water through their newsletters and constantly changing front pages. Immediately upon entering the site, you are prompted to join their newsletter and are assured that its, “Better than camel milk,” [With a picture depicting a man leisurely reclining next to a heard of camels]. Readers, who likely haven’t tried camel milk, are intrigued at the prospect and feel compelled to sign up. However, the key to their success lies in what you receive by adding yourself to their newsletter and visiting their site: “Sign up for the Betabrand Newsletter for crowdfund alerts, secret clothing specials, caption contests, and much, much more.”

                        In addition to all of the new content offered by their newsletter, Betabrand has a unique program they call “Model Citizen,” which gives you a 10% discount on your next order for uploading “any ol’ photo of yourself” for initially joining within the next 24 hours and 20% off any photo featuring yourself actually wearing Betabrand clothing. The key is the time limit for the discount, assuring that people continually post new photos if they want to keep receiving the exclusive discount; the fact that these photos are publically visible online and must be of the submitters pushes people to look their best and to actively promote the product. Once they upload the photos, the submitters are compelled to share them on their social media networks (Facebook, Google + and even Twitter). They also feature a “Wall of Fame,” for the most “epic” photos people have uploaded. The site currently has nearly 12,000 photos, which is a testament to this format’s success. When you go to the product pages, they integrate these user submitted photos for the promotion of the product. In addition to this, in exchange for being part of the programming “Model Citizens” are regularly invited to events, often for locals within San Francisco (near their flagship brick and mortar store), which are exclusive. Additionally, they have contests in which you can win products for being an active member.

There is another portion of the site called “Think Tank,” which actively solicits project ideas and has people purchase any new products (crowdfunding). Users can also vote for new proposed products. By building up support for products by using crowdfunding, they don’t have to sink nearly as much money in developing a new product, because they can use their subscribers as investers and gauge their interest in the new products their proposing. This helps them to avoid overproducing a product. Betabrand has integrated advertising into the development and investment stages of their projects through social media and is thus very “demand driven.”