The best ideas, especially when it comes to retail are often the most simple.  Retailer Urban Outfitters has made the Facebook ‘Like’ button central to the way the company is marketing its products online. Visitors to the Urban Outfitters web site are now greeted by a large thumbs up asking them to “See our most Liked items.” It’s  a slightly less advanced version of  Apple’s genius button on i-tunes but nonetheless the effect is the same.

The company has already installed the Like button by its products on the company web site and this new feature is essentially a grouping of the most Liked items into one place.

So far more than 313,000 Like Urban Outfitters on Facebook, where the company does promote its company web site. Exclusive offers for Facebook fans are also offered and the company shares new merchandise with photos often with fans as well.

Inside Facebook

To celebrate the launch of their new drink called Southern Comfort Lime, Southern Comfort is launching a new Facebook game called “Beat the Bartender” that invites players to channel their inner bartender. Apparently Facebook’s popularity with teens makes it the perfect place to engage a group early on to eventually turn them into consumers for these alcoholic beverages :-0 

Players begin by first selecting a male or female bartender and then they are tasked with creating a SoCo & Lime shot using their mouse . Meanwhile the bartender who is armed with the new ready-to-go SoCo Lime pours five shots for bar patrons. If you beat her, you win that round and go another round. As the pace picks up, players can deploy “time bonuses” such as girls coming up to order a drink.

 Players essentially keep going till they lose, creating for lots of fun and incentive to score high and compete with friends via a leaderboard. The traditional social features in this game are driven by competition with the highest scoring players winning prizes each week for 10 weeks.

Call us cynical but we’re not convinced. It feels gimmicky and lacks credibility and authenticity – which for a spirirt brand, should be a bit of a worry. As for using facebook to target teens……..

Social Times

P&G are developing quite a taste for f-commerce – selling on Facebook.  In the UK, with their Amazon-powered Facebook store for the makeup of makeup artists brand Max Factor, and in the US, now a Facebook Campaign Store to support and capitalize (literally) on their heavily promoted and much talked about Old Spice Man campaign.

From the Facebook storefront, Old Spice aficionados – yes they now exist – can buy branded merchandise from the Super-Bowl-to-Real-Time-Social-Media ‘Old Spice Man’ campaign featuring shirtless baritone and ex-NFL player Isaiah Mustafa, replete with washboard ads and comedic timing.

As with the UK store, P&G has outsourced all the heavy lifting with the Old Spice Man Campaign Store – the Facebook store is simply a storefront linking through to an external e-store managed by a e-commerce partner in Massachusetts that looks after fulfillment and customer service.

So one of our predictions we make when speaking about the future of social commerce is no longer a prediction – the emergence of Facebook campaign stores to support and monetize marketing campaigns – pop-up f-stores – see the ad; engage with the promotion; buy the merchandise.  The P&G Campaign store is elementary, and no doubt could be improved, but all the elements are there.  And it’s there. Welcome to the world of Facebook Campaign Stores.

Why do we think pop-up (temporary) Facebook Campaign Stores are the future of f-commerce?  They’re quick, cheap and easy to set up, they help monetize campaigns, and ultimately, because they may help solve the century-plus old problem encapsulated in the famous quote of disputed origin Lord Leverhulme) origin “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half”.

Whilst much advertising, including the digital variety, is and should be focused on building lifetime customer value (AKA ‘Brand building) rather than producing sales bumps, any integrated campaign that creates a digital trace between advertising and buyer behavior can only be a good thing.

So if you manage a brand, why not take a leaf from the book of the biggest advertiser in the world, and throw up a Facebook store for your next campaign?  And if you are an agency, why not consider teaming up with the burgeoning number of f-commerce solution providers out there and start proposing campaigns with real ROI?

Post courtesy of Social Media Today

The following is a quick presentation done by Syzygy Group on three ways the luxury sector is using social commerce – selling with social media – to drive sales for premium upscale brands, but without discounts and deals and whilst retaining an image of exclusivity.

Post courtesy of Social Commerce Today

To experience it yourself follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/user/expendables