Shopseptembervogue.com

[PradaP]

excellent idea

Vogue Sets Up Shop On Web for September
By Jeff Bercovici

NEW YORK — Every magazine insider knows the story: A brand hires a big-name photographer for its ad campaign, taps a well-known supermodel, signs a high-priced stylist and voilà, the result is that the consumer really doesn’t even notice the lighting or the pose. All she wants to know about is that belt barely visible in the artistic shot.

Well, with the September issue of Vogue, she’ll finally get the chance to zoom right on in. The Condé Nast flagship (which, like WWD, is a unit of Advance Publications Inc.) is making its own foray into the shopping genre — until now the preserve of Lucky, Cargo and the new Shop Etc. — with a new Web site, shopseptembervogue.com. The site, which goes live Aug. 24, will feature digital representations of 442 of the ad pages from the September issue, representing 186 advertisers. Visitors to the site can shop directly from the ads with the aid of software that allows them to highlight individual items within the ad and, in most cases, click directly through to a manufacturer’s or retailer’s item page. The site’s flexible architecture allows shoppers to browse by brand, store or product category.

Tom Florio, Vogue’s vice president and publisher, said shopseptembervogue.com helped the magazine to reach 647 ad pages in September, a best-ever tally for the title. “It drove the business, without a doubt,” he said. “Retailers see it as an opportunity to develop business in markets where they don’t have stores.” What’s more, advertisers have little to lose by participating: Vogue is treating the program as an added-value incentive, underwriting the cost out of its own research budget.

The technology behind the site was created by Active8, an Atlanta-based software development company founded in 2001. Active8 president Lee Davis said he was looking for a way to “take the consumer from the point of inspiration to the point of purchase” with a minimum of hassle. “If you see a product in an ad and go to [the advertiser’s] Web site, you have to go through so much time and effort, and, gosh, sometimes it’s not even there,” said Davis. Shopseptembervogue.com will be the first large-scale test of Active8’s patented technology. Vogue’s deal with the company gives it exclusivity for an undisclosed period within the field of fashion and beauty magazines.

Of course, Vogue is far from being the first magazine to dabble in connecting readers and advertisers online. Fellow Condé Nast title Glamour’s My Virtual Model program allows Web site visitors to “try on” items of apparel featured in the magazine by supplying their measurements, which are then used to make a three-dimensional facsimile of the user’s body. In the two years since the program began, the site has hosted close to 12 million try-ons, according to numbers supplied by Glamour. Hearst’s Marie Claire has its own two-year-old program, Haute Shopping, that allows readers to access a Web site, hauteshopping.com, featuring special offers from the magazine’s advertisers. Twenty-four advertisers are participating in this year’s program, which starts with the October issue and runs through the end of the year.

But Peter Gardiner, partner and chief media officer at Deutsch Inc., said he doesn’t know of another magazine-based e-commerce venture that is similar in scope to shopseptembervogue.com. Gardiner, who placed two pages for Revlon in the issue, said the program was a promising sign for advertisers. “I think it’s the next stage of where magazine marketing is going to go,” he said. “In a broader sense, it’s one more element of the evolution magazines are going through to make their medium more actionable and ROI [return on investment]-oriented.”

Making ads interactive could have another benefit, said Active8’s Davis: enhancing the effectiveness of print itself by providing feedback about which elements of an ad work and which don’t. “Never before have you been able to look at an ad and tell Gucci, for instance, that people are most interested in the belt, and the second most popular product was the shoes.”

To analyze all the data it collects, Vogue has hired Target Group, a division of OMD. Promotion for the program includes displays at airports, book stores and supermarkets, as well as 250,000 shopping bags distributed at Hudson News outlets. Florio said he expects the site to generate between 160,000 and 250,000 responses.

If the program proves anywhere near as popular with consumers as it has been with advertisers, it will give Vogue a powerful tool for defending its turf against the Luckys and Shop Etc.’s of the world. As Florio said, “I’m not interested in being Vogue, the shopping magazine. But why should we allow ourselves to be positioned out of that?”

 

[TheSoCalledPrep]

I must say, this is wonderful...

 

[MayaPapaya9]

I know, I was really intrigued when I saw the ad for it in Aug Vogue. I'm excited for the 24th!

 

[stylegurrl]

Excellent idea.

 

[stylegurrl]

The site is up and running as of today.

 

[softgrey]

thanks stylegurrl... ..i will check it out...

 

[MJCouture]

I was hopeing this would be better. It is basically just shopping from the ads which is easy anyway. I thought it would be more shopping from editorials. I guess if you live somewhere where it is impossible to find a cole haan bag, or dont feel like going to neimanmarcus.com than this works for you.

 

[Meg]

ugh the site sucks hardcore. It is just stuff from the ad's and even then you can't buy everything online. some of it just gives you toll free numbers or tells you the nearest store if you enter your zipcode. What about if I'm not american? blah.

 

[vintage_princess]

I think its a great idea, but why does everything has to be american? Its harider for people like myself who dont live in America to buy the stuff from the ads.

 

[Amara]

The site is a good idea in theory, it would of course be better if you could order all clothes off the site...

~Amara

 

[PradaP]

hm.. i was expecting it to be an actual online store

but at least we get to have access to scans of all the latest ads right?

 

[stylegurrl]

I personally was very disappointed by the site.

 

[chanel_girl]

Not what I expected at all...terrible

 

[mikeijames]

i'm sorry but i needed one hundred percent...if you are going to lure us there saying we can shop the ads, don't give us just the stores near us...every single ad should be linked to an online retailer. between net-a-porter.com and neimanmarcus.com and eluxury.com (not to mention sephora.com and everything else) they could have made this thing really work...

 

[shabby_N_Chic]

After the wait the site was such a disappointment I was really looking forward to buying things that were going to be unique or sold out like the multipocket chanel bag. Also, the variety ws limited.

 

[TheSoCalledPrep]

I looove all of the pictures, especially since Vogue isn't one of my subscriptions..

But really, isn't it kind of DUH?!!?! that Chanel brooches are at the Chanel boutique in NYC?

 

[BrothaG]

Originally posted by TheSoCalledPrep@Aug 31 2004, 04:39 AM
I looove all of the pictures, especially since Vogue isn't one of my subscriptions..

But really, isn't it kind of DUH?!!?! that Chanel brooches are at the Chanel boutique in NYC?

[snapback]351043[/snapback]​

Lol, exactly, it's like your too stupid to figure that out yourself.