Fashion designer and CFDA President Diane von Furstenberg is ramping up promotions for today's third annual Fashion's Night Out -- but not through a more elaborate series of parties at retail locations in the U.S. and abroad. Instead, the designer is bolstering her outreach on Twitter.
In a campaign that began Wednesday evening, DVF purchased a Promoted Trend and series of Promoted Tweets around popular Fashion's Night Out-related search terms, such as "fashion night out," "fno," "cfda," etc. DVF has also bought search terms associated with the location of its flagship store in Manhattan's Meatpacking District, including "high line," "standard hotel," "gansevoort," "west village" and "dvf meatpacking" to target users who will be near its store Thursday evening.
In addition to Promoted Tweets and Trends, members of DVF's team will be monitoring Twitter to see which of its followers are out and about Manhattan during the evening. (Hint: Broadcasting your Foursquare checkins to Twitter might help them find you.)
A few lucky followers -- one per hour -- will then receive a Direct Message inviting them to pick up a free bottle of Diane the fragrance, which doesn't launch until Sept. 22 t at Bloomingdale's. The winners will receive a special password so that they can pick up their bottle at DVF's Meatpacking location at 874 Washington St.
The effort is designed to help bridge the gap between social media and brick and mortar, says Michelle Horowitz, EVP of marketing and communications. “DVF is all about dialogue and interaction and what could be more personal than direct messaging someone, having them come to your store and putting a gift in their hand?” she says.