• by May 8, 2006

Alloy Media + Marketing always seems to have a bunch of fun marketing programs going with its diverse client roster. Focused on tweens, teens, and college students, Alloy seems to know exactly how to design programs that meet marketers' needs and are on the pulse of the cultural zeitgeist.

Just last week, we learned about a program Alloy's running for Elizabeth Arden that targets teen girls with a new line of fragrances dubbed So...? The cross-platform campaign uses word-of-mouth, sampling, and Web marketing to drive awareness for the new line of fragrances and body sprays. Positioned as the "Fragrance with Attitude," the So...? line consists of So...? Kiss Me, So...? Wild, and So...? Desirable, each designed to target the various and sundry moods of girls ages 12 to 18.

The program kicked off with a promotion across Alloy's direct mail properties, Alloy and Delia's; ads will run in the catalogs through the summer. Online advertising will drive girls to the official So...? Web site and content on alloy.com will encourage interaction via quizzes to determine what scent fits a girl's personal style. In addition, Elizabeth Arden is offering more than 200,000 samples via Alloy and Delia's outbound catalog shipments.

But one of the best strategies is the So...? Insiders Sleepover party. Alloy will use its vast database of teen consumers to sign up 500 girls through the Alloy's Insiders network and allow them to invite four of their friends to participate in a So...? sleepover party. The party hostesses will receive sampling packages and party kits for the sleepovers, which are planned for May 12. Girls will be encouraged to sample fragrances, share their opinions. and upload photos sharing why they are "So..? Kiss Me, So...? Wild, or So...? Desirable" for the chance to win prizes including a $200 makeover from Delia's. Sampling is also being done via package inserts in Alloy and Delia's catalogs.

According to Geri Archer, marketing director at Elizabeth Arden, the sleepover party is a unique opportunity to get the new products into girls' hands and have them evangelize the benefits to one another. Of course who can say what really goes on at such parties (we would so like to be a fly on the wall...), but suffice to say, there will be games, gossip, photo-taking, and even mocktails (yes, cocktails), that the girls mix up themselves. Archer says Arden launched a similar program for Britney Spears' perfume Curious, but the So...? effort is much more youth-focused.

Alloy approached Arden with the buzz-focused program, according to Samantha Skey, Alloy's senior vice president, strategic marketing. The party hostesses will also be reporting on their parties. "We give them specific parameters and ask them to help define their friends' style through a personality test. There's also a 'Kiss and Tell' interactive game," Skey says.

The program will reach 5 to 6 million girls through the catalogs and Web sites. "The program is indicative of mainstream brands looking to differentiate themselves by doing non-mainstream media. This is a heavily customized program," Skey notes. "Most of our programs are cross-platform, integrating the Web and experiential marketing." Notably, teen girl-focused beauty brands are usually centered around marketing in magazines, but "now they're going beyond that and asking kids to interact with the brand, to own it, understand it, and develop an affinity to it. It's a much more ambitious positioning," Skey observes.