Glamour used SnapTag, an advanced, customized form of QR code, to turn its magazine advertising pages into mobile shopping experiences, giving consumers the opportunity to purchase products directly from the magazine. The “Buy-it-Now” mobile commerce campaign enabled advertisers to activate a sale where and when consumers were motivated to buy. Consumers received incentives for buying directly from the pages of the magazine, and the products were delivered to their doorstep.
Consumers see over 3,000 ads daily, and that figure is expected to grow with the evolution of mobile as a new media channel. In fact, eMarketer forecasts that sales via mobile devices will grow to $31 billion by 2015. Glamour was on the forefront of this mobile evolution, going beyond simply interacting with readers to allow them to purchase products featured in the magazine via mobile.
To build awareness around its upcoming March issue, Glamour created and unveiled additional mobile shopping experiences. Glamour worked with one of its premier advertisers, L’Oréal USA, to create a mobile shopping experience in taxis during NYC’s Fashion Week. It also created a shoppable outdoor wall dubbed the Apothecary Wall. Both provided consumers with the ability to purchase products while in NYC at the height of the fashion season and preview content in the March issue, an issue packed with “Buy-it-Now” SnapTags.
By integrating a mobile wallet into the SnapTag shopping experience, advertisers tracked consumer actions and purchases; not only could brands see the products that consumers purchased together in the same transaction, but also the products consumers purchased at a later date, giving brands valuable information about shopping preferences and habits. The SnapTag program provided a seamless user interface that was also engaging and complex enough to give brands back-end information and analytics.
The L’Oréal Taxi Shops launched and ran throughout Fashion Week in early February 2012. Taxis traveling in Fashion Week hot spots were transformed into Yves Saint Laurent and Lancôme mobile shops that featured customized taxi tops, backseat “clings” featuring Shop-the-Look SnapTags, and taxi TV programming that offered exclusive content featuring original Glamour trend videos with make-up artists. Consumers shared their experiences with friends on Facebook, creating an opportunity for social shopping. Sixty-six percent of Taxi Shop riders posted a status or photo update about the experience on Facebook, and 94 percent felt the experience positioned Lancôme and Yves Saint Laurent as innovative beauty companies, increasing brand affinity.
The Glamour Apothecary Wall featured products of several advertisers including C.O. Bigelow, Johnson & Johnson, and Unilever. The shoppable wall operated in much the same manner as the Taxi Shop, allowing pedestrians to purchase products directly via mobile with the Buy-it-Now SnapTag.
Following these successful events, Glamour launched its March issue, filled with Buy-it-Now opportunities from 21 advertisers, allowing brands to truly monetize their advertising. Glamour combined commerce and social into one seamless consumer experience to engage consumers and drive sales.
When the taxi, wall, and magazine promotions were live (five days, seven days, and a month respectively), the program generated nearly 4,000 “snaps” for advertisers. What’s more, advertisers gained important insights about what worked and what didn’t in mobile advertising. The highest conversion rates were enjoyed by those advertisers that offered tips or complementary products. In the case of the Taxi Shops, one of every three riders snapped a tag, and of those, a quarter of them purchased products, representing an overall purchase conversion rate of seven percent. The program was such a success and so well received by advertisers that Glamour deployed Buy-it-Now SnapTags again in its May issue.
