[Progress thread] Transmedia lifestyle brand

[stephanduq]

Transmedia lifestyle brand, say what?

This might be a bit of a weird premisse to start, but here I go. I develop entertainment storyworlds and brands for clients. And from that perspective you develop brands starting with a story and providing content people need (with a low margin, or at a loss as marketing), when they are engaged with your brand you drag them to your other products. Coca Cola and Apple for example are companies that put the story and message first and develop brands that will still resonate with you 20 years from now. MJ's succes you can also bring back to a mixture of different media and content that not only give you information, but also part of a world you want to be in.

So here we go for my plan. Teaching men how to fix the details in their life, and turning them into gentlemen. Brand message: obtaining elegance and style for every man. This message is going to come back in a series of apps that will teach men about visually designing themselves, and from there go to a central store with high quality, but inexpensive, products to satisfy their new knowledge and needs.

Where am I add now. I'm in the last development stage of Suit! An iphone app that tells you what kind of shirt, tie or suit mix well together. With the right algorithms in place to prevent you from making horrible mistakes, including hints and tips to think about. The need? I'm always very well dressed, following Oscar Wildes "You can never be overdressed or overeducated.” Plenty of times men comment on how well dressed I am, and remark that they would like to as well, but don't even know how to select a tie in the store. I can explain color theory, but if there is a good way to kill a conversation it is explaining color theory. So there we go, the first product in the brand! Fulfilling the "I have no clue what kind of tie or shirt to get!" need

My next step, finishing the app! I need to do one more pass to fix the color algorithms, finish up some placeholder art, and implement the tip system. And then I can launch a first MVP version. When this is done,it will be time to set up a launchpage, and start researching SEO and marketing. I somehow don't think the traditional app marketing of having an amazing launch is doable for this app. It seems most traffic for this kind of information is generated by blogs that are offering content about the subject, and I would prefer to have a good presence online for an extended period of time in favor of rising the charts in a week and then vanishing.

I'm busy with projects for at least 3 months. So I can't immediately go full speed on this. But the projects are all beneficial in learning the skills I need to develop this. I have decided to slowly start dropping my other activities and make this my main focus as soon as my responsibilities let me.

This is it so far, I'm looking forward to reading feedback and critique and learning from it!

 

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[MamaD]

What exactly do you consider traditional app marketing?

So, men want elegance? Seems like a term associated with women or decor. Your app idea immediately reminded me of Aaron Marino and the Alpha M Style System.

 

[stephanduq]

I consider traditional app marketing as very intense marketing to get into the top charts of the IOS store. Hoping that the traffic it will generate is enough to keep you there for a while.

I see a problem with this because it is not setting up a continuing system, but a one-time event with a fall-off. Also there are hundreds of app makers who scourge the charts to duplicate anything with some margin of succes.

How I assume the path of the customer goes, is a bit like this:
1. Customer wonders what kind of tie to wear tonight, or what kind of tie to buy.
2. Customer looks online for some easy information and tips. Finds lots of blog posts with charts, tables, and lengthy explanations.
3. Customers thinks "Maybe there is an app for this"

I want to catch a prospective customer at step 2. Meaning I need an ever lasting presence, instead of some reviews and one burst exposure. If I can get customers to the app-page right away, I also don't have to worry about the horrible presentation of apps in the app-store. And I take control from apple.

Now on to elegance. Elegance is control. When a man dresses elegantly he shows he is in control of what he does, his clothes are cut razorsharp, the colors complement him, and his silhouet is powerful. Everything he does has meaning, and is done with refinement and again, control. An elegant man designs every aspect of himself to perfection, but makes it look natural. This is of-course a message that I will have to refine and abstract to a core and different sales messages, but if things go well I will have a number of apps and products inspired by this core-idea. The hard part with creating a brand is that you need to think of two needs you need to fulfill; a functional need (such as knowledge or products) and an identity need (happiness, succes, fashionable or in my case elegance). So there is this weird balancing act going on, and I will just have to see how to work that out

I didn't know about the Aaron Marino system! Thanks for that, it definitely has some sale-message hints for me I think

 

[stephanduq]

Some small progress! I started testing out the app on different communities. My approach basically is

- find a thread where someone is asking about color-matching between ties, shirts and suits
- run a quick simulation in the app
- screencap the simulator and post the result.
- wait for replies!

The result so far, people are commenting on the app as a killer app and wondering where or when to download it. I would say this is a pretty positive sign! So my next step I suppose will be designing a landing page, and start pre-launch buzz by repeating the same steps for a while in more communities.

One of the fun things I noticed, communities with a high amount of stylists or style consultants hate it, and are very eager to burn it to the ground. Since these communities represent the small percentage of highly knowledgeable users, I will most likely avoid them in marketing to prevent lower ratings. So I should also get started with a plan for that, since it was my initial target demographic. Exciting, exciting!

Some alpha shots

 

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[DennisD]

This is a bull market. Huge resurgence in pop culture about old ideals of men.

Things like Dollar Shave Club, ArtOfManliness.com, Old Spice's Revamped Marketing, Dos Equis' spokesperson/mascot popularity are examples of this. Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother is ALWAYS wearing a suit, and characters like Jack Donaghy from 30 rock are creating popular favor towards traditional male role models.

While working at an Ad Agency I undertook a personal study/project called "Redefining Badass" which I took old figures (Galileo, Carnegie, Ford, for instance) and attempted to create media showing how 'cool' they were. No client, just a branding exercise on the company dime. Figured eventually we'd find a client that would need something like that.

The days of metrosexual popularity are gone, so it's very important to be careful and deliberate with your branding/messaging on this one. You want to call upon, and perhaps even redefine the days of old. It's no so important if you're just selling apps.. but you say you want a lifestyle brand.

I'd be happy to help you where I can. I hold an interest here and I eventually would like to peruse similar projects.

 

[stephanduq]

Yeah indeed! And I think if you do it right, you can attach the clients to your brand for decades.

The app is just the beginning. There are a lot of places that are inspiring men about the old ideals, but barely any places teaching the ideals and where they come from. So that seemed like a good place to start, and in the app-market there is barely any competition on these kind of apps.

I figured that if I can teach men how to visually design themselves and the world around them, then they will also trust my taste when I start pushing products on the market.

And one for the mods! Can this be moved to the INSIDERS section? I'm known for sharing too much

 

[stephanduq]

A very small update. The app is nearly done, but I got stranded in the apple enrollment procedure. While waiting for this I started setting up the content I want to write for the website. As I still need to set up name for the whole thing, I'm tempted to start using my own name right now. And when it grows migrate all the content and apps to a new business entity

Does anyone have any tips for settings up digital marketing?

 

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[PopEmersen]

Actually looks pretty cool

As far as digital marketing, you should try a FM mobile app ad campaign. Target young men who use the operating system your app is on, 19-34 who like GQ, Men's Health, etc. Do this once you are happy with how your app works, NOT BEFORE. You don't want to turn them off initially.

This will lead to installs of your app.

Create an Instagram page with pictures of the screenshots you have below. Your market is a visual market so you need to go the visual meeting places like IG. Coordinate with other IG pages that do mens clothing.

There is a user that created a great men's tie holder, i think its PaulRobert, his site is called TieMags. Coordinate with him. You guys have similar interests so it could work for both of you.

 

[CommonCents]

thrillist might be worth checking out for that demo.

 

[stephanduq]

Thanks for the tips!

Especially instagram, didn't think about that one yet. I'm initially planning on having a very small campaign just to try things out. Even though the app is fun and well designed in my opinion, it is going to be flawed when it will meet with the expectations of the users. So to counter that I added a "send feedback" functionality in the app to prevent feedback from ending in the app-store. From there on I will just develop it in lean way with the first customer group that cares enough about the app. Until its time to bring out all the marketing guns.

What do mean with FM mobile app ad campaign? I suspect it is Facebook?

 

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[MamaD]

Isn't there a way for you to give out promo codes for the app BEFORE it actually goes live in the app store? If so, this would be an opportunity to get the app to key people (influencers) in the target market.

 

[PopEmersen]

What do mean with FM mobile app ad campaign? I suspect it is Facebook?

Yes, Facebook. Facebook has an ad campaign that only shows on mobile phones and link DIRECTLY to your app in the App Store or Google Play store. It leads to greater installs.

 

[stephanduq]

Isn't there a way for you to give out promo codes for the app BEFORE it actually goes live in the app store? If so, this would be an opportunity to get the app to key people (influencers) in the target market.

Yeah there is, and it could give a good boost at the start. I'm approaching some of the key people to beta-test with me. And change the app based on the feedback.

But I see involving key influencers as a scaling opportunity, not a launching opportunity. The need I'm fulfilling with the app is for men that are not in the influence sphere of the leading bloggers. So my first priority is too get the app finished, and on a small scale try reaching my target market. If the app is well received, and some early hiccups are fixed I will scale up my marketing.

Wado: Thanks! Going to dive into it soon!

 

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