Today we present the first of what we hope will be an ongoing series of Ypulse case studies that examine new and noteworthy youth-targeted campaigns. For our inaugural case, we dive into the timely topic of virtual worlds and real retail by examining the first line of clothing from a major fashion retailer to debut virtually on Stardoll. If you have a case study you would like us to present email me.

Ypulse Case Study: Kohl's Back-to-School Campaign on Stardoll

Background
With back-to-school sales taking a hit last year, more and more retailers have realized they need to reach out to young shoppers online.

Kohl's partnership with a popular teen and tween dress-up site was an ideal platform for promoting a new clothing line designed by pop star Avril Lavigne who was already featured on Stardoll as one of the celebrity avatars that users can dress up

The Appeal
Stardoll's strong emphasis on apparel and its steady growth (in August 2008 the site had reached 20 million users, doubling its membership in under a year), made it an attractive choice for any brand looking to turn virtual goods into actual sales with teen and tween girls.

The Steps
Various steps took place before this collaboration: last summer Stardoll launched a virtual mall called StarPlaza for fashion labels to introduce virtual collections for the site's members to purchase with virtual currency. And last spring the site experimented with a feature that allowed users to take logos or graphics from the virtual world's labels and add them to t-shirts or other items in the real world.

The Results
In its first 16 days, Kohl's Stardoll boutique logged 2.2 million visits and sold 1.8 million virtual items. In terms of how this translated into real-world sales, Kohls.com enticed 97,000 visitors to click through from the boutique. During the peak back-to-school week, which ended on August 16, the strategy proved effective with traffic directly from Stardoll making up .26% of the traffic to Kohls.com

Ypulse Interview with Matt Palmer, Stardoll Executive Vice President and General Manager

Note: Matt will be speaking on the "Beyond the Banner" panel at this summer's Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup

Ypulse: What homework do retailers have to do before approaching Stardoll or any other virtual world site?

Matt Palmer: Well, I think that’s a good question right now. It really comes down to what their goals are. What can I expect to get out of it. We can take a brand like Kohls and put it digitally in the hands of millions of kids around the world. [But we have to ask] how many of them are going to go to kohls.com…to find the actual impact of the messaging.

[Tweens] are not a credit card wielding crowd. It's a different play… It's up to our partners to convert [online traffic to Stardoll to sales on the partner's site] and Kohl's was very very pleased with the spike in traffic. As for foot traffic, they were going and checking it out.

YP: What goals did Stardoll set for the partnership? How was the success measured?

MP: Our goals are to achieve [our partner's] goals. We want to over deliver their expectations. As the first major retailer in fashion to sign on with us, we were basically paying close equation to the user and the experience. It was great for us. Our users adore and love to get lots of lots of clothing. They actually plan out what they’re getting for back to school. Two fresh lines of celebs. The kids ate it up. And they downloaded it by tens and thousands.

We do polls everyday off the site and on our homepage. We put something up there along the lines of "What’s your favorite thing?" "Pick of the day." [The demo] is extremely vocal and they email us. We get a really quick handle on what's hot and what’s not. We know just by watching what's working.

YP: What were some of the specific challenges for this campaign?

MP: I think the big next step would be how do we evolve to the retail sector to bring to our clients the ability to track more closely and convert it. What the retailers want to see is real world activity beyond the brand experience they have now.

Other things that retailers should look at..is when you partner with celebs you're approving a digital image of yourself… a me-doll versions of themselves. With the Hayden Pannetierre doll, her people had to approve the digital version of the clothing. Another layer of approval that not everyone is used to, and just making sure that everyone is happy with the execution

Data
This study was based on statistics compiled by Hitwise after Stardoll's initial launch of the campaign back in August 2008 and a follow-up interview that Ypulse conducted with Matt Palmer, Stardoll Executive Vice President and General Manager in November. We also attempted to reach out Kohls, but a company policy prevented them from sharing any data from the campaign.

For more coverage of the tween space, check out the Ypulse Tweens Channel, sponsored by the Tween Tribune.

Categorized under: Fashion, Tweens

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