• by Aaron Baar , August 31, 2010

Nine West is launching a mobile marketing campaign to promote its Vintage America Collection, offering music downloads and other videos featuring music artist Joss Stone, who helped design the line.

The mobile campaign, which launched earlier this month and will run through October, features a specially designed barcode created by agency Jagtag. Consumers are encouraged to use their cell or smartphones to photograph the design (which follows the pattern of Stone's signature floral tattoo) and text or email it to the company. The company will then send back email, photos and video content viewable on the phone over the course of the promotion. Jagtag's servers determine the type of device (smartphone or feature phone, for instance) the consumer is using, and send content based on that device, Ed Jordan, the company's CEO, tells Marketing Daily. "Our server returns content that is tailored to the device that requested it," he says.

Content for the Nine West campaign will begin with simple email messages (such as tips from Stone on how she likes to wear the product), and move into music and multimedia content through the course of the campaign. (Consumers who enter the campaign late will have access to all of the content, Jordan says.) The entire effort is intended to launch an ongoing dialogue between the company and its consumers. "It enables the brand to start the conversation with the consumer, whether that is basic text or multimedia content," says Jordan.

Nine West has incorporated the barcode into print advertising (to run in Lucky magazine's October issue), in-store signage, boxes and on a special microsite for the campaign, all clearly marked how to use the virtual barcode. "This is the first time we've been on packaging," Jordan says. "It's a way for people to interact with the brand in ways that might not have been done before."