Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

A lot of online retailers struggle with balancing a controlled brand identity with the ways consumers purchase in the real world.  A clerk might give advice on what clothing or accessories go together closely following employee training from a prescribed "season" of goods--and this plays out online as "others who bought this also liked" features.  For the Vogue set, it may work fine to be decked out head to toe in a single brand--but that's not usually how real people dress. 
 
Walk up to anyone who is fashionably put-together and ask them to list the retailers that comprise their look.  Assembling an outfit is a personal and usually multi-branded effort--one of self-expression, imitation of friends and random people they see on the street, magazines, and TV.  It is a mental model of shopping that individual retailers are not inclined to support because it can advantageously position competing lines of goods.  
 
Enter Polyvore.  This year-old company blends a variety of familiar social media tools from Flickr, YouTube, and blogs to help people create, share and shop.  What makes it really clever is that it often links out to far-flung product pages from a variety of ecommerce sites.  Users can put together a blouse from Abercrombie, a watch from Kenneth Cole, and a handbag from some little boutique in London, give the outfit a name like "cocktails in the afternoon", and share it with their friends.  Even if the creator of the look never buys the entire outfit, 200 of her friends just might, either in whole or in pieces.  If you like a blue dress in one assembly but want to see what others are doing with that same blue dress, fresh looks are just a click away.  Suddenly you've got a new reason to hide your credit card from your teenage daughter.  
 
I just got off the phone with Sarah Cooper, who heads up product, marketing, and community, and she described the site aptly.  It is all about "people making art out of advertising, which essentially turns it into better advertising, because it's user-generated, viral, and initiates purchases".  For now the site is focusing on apparel and home décor, but could automobiles, cell phones, books, and DVDs be far behind?  Aren't these things that people use to express themselves?
 
Michael Beavers