I’m a big fan of retailers with physical locations integrating social technologies to tell their stories. And not just by adding a “follow us on Twitter” or “like us on Facebook” buttons to their store windows. That’s all well and good (and if you’re doing interesting things in those channels, great). But those initiatives by themselves are hardly creative or worth remarking on – they’re now typical.
So while in Chicago this weekend visiting my girlfriend, something caught my eye as we walked on Damen avenue. It was this friendly looking dog sitting in the window of a shop. My first instinct, of course, was to snap a photo:
Only after I took a photo I noticed the following sign to the left of the dog:
I looked into the shop, only to discover the owner taking a photo of us.
So when I got home, what did I do? I had to check out the blog, which was as real as the dog. Naturally, our photo is there (which shows the view from the shop owners angle). The introduction tells the story of how this phenomenon started, and asks the following questions, which I’ll try and answer as one of the photo takers:
Where are these photos going?
On our blogs, on Twitter, on Facebook, Flickr, or just being used to show our friends and tell a story. The fact that the owner noticed people taking photos of his dog and started a blog the share the other side of the story is the interesting aspect of this.
What are they being used for?
To tell stories. I’d challenge readers: do you have a retail location that is in a busy area? How can you use technology creatively in your own way to help tell stories? Why not do something to connect with people on the other side of the glass?
Are people going out to dinner with their friends and passing around their cell phones and cameras to show photos of a dog that they have never interacted with other than through a window?
Probably, and for this store owner in particular that’s a great opportunity. My next question if seeing a photo taken of this dog from a friend would be to inquire where it was taken? And, naturally we’d talk about the retailer and how clever they are as well.
In a connected society, marketing is storytelling
By observing a social phenomenon that happened organically, 360SEE stumbled upon a creative way to indirectly gain more exposure for their art, furniture and design. It was completely unintentional as far as I can gather, but is a story worth retelling. They are building relationships, inspiring stories and even getting some press.
What’s interesting here is not the dog, as much as the aspect of providing something to passer-by’s in the form of a mirror of themselves and their actions. It speaks to the universal phenomenon of what we do with technology: we share things we like, find interesting or worth remarking on.
Are you connecting with your audiences in a unique, creative way, or are you merely following “best practices” with digital marketing?