Fashion retailer La Redoute has made an impression in the blogosphere. Fashion blogs are very popular and the company is a partner with the advertising network Tradedoubler which many fashion bloggers use to generate revenue for themselves. In a new drive, the company ran a promotion on its site where all products were sold at a 50% discount for only half an hour. Between 19.00 and 19.30 last night – shoppers’ heaven! Just the kind of campaign that will drive blogging shopaholics nuts. The word “redoute” is now one of the top words among blog posts, according to the blog portal Knuff.se:
So does this translate to “success”? Not necessarily. The people who managed to actually buy something were really happy, but many others were only left angry and disappointed.
Emilee: “Okej, La Redoute’s fenomenala 30-minuters rea var ju väldigt lyckad. Eller inte. Snarare det sämsta jag varit med om.” [“The worst I’ve ever seen”]
One comment to this blog post by Sandra: “jag lyckades men med deras leveranser vet man ju inte. en klänning jag köpte ska komma om 5-10 veckor. Brukar ju sluta med aldrig och sedan när den kommer in i lager så säljer den slut…hehe :-p”
Engla’s Showroom: “Läste bland alla kommentarerna i inlägget under att det var många som ej lyckades handla till halva priset hos La Redoute igår. Jag var en av dem. Blev insläppt kl 19.25 till slut. Men när jag sedan kom till kassan så tog det ca 30 minuter innan sidan laddat färdigt och när den gjort det. Tekniskt fel! Ja sedan kostade allt som vanligt såklart. Jag tycker La Redoute borde tänkt på att haft det under en längre tid så att alla verkligen kunde handla.” [“When I got to the check-out it took 30 minutes for the page to load and then. Technical error!”]
One comment to this blog post by Therese: “tja…. jag hängde på låset kl 19, kom in direkt. Försökte komma till kassan mellan 19.20 och 20.10 – MEN bara felmeddelanden. SURT! ILLA!” [“Tried to get to the check-out between 19.20 and 20.10. But only technical errors!”]
When you surf around these blogs you find more of these comments from shoppers who drew a blank. So, if La Redoute is monitoring what is said about their brand in the blogosphere they might be able to repair the damage they caused. If they are “guillouing”, i.e. ignoring the blogosphere, they might make the same mistake again.
Rick Murray, executive vice president of Edelman, said it well:
“We look at the blogosphere as a focus group with 15 million people going on 24/7 that you can tap into without going behind a one-way mirror.”
Worth noting is that none of the referenced blogs above are included in media monitoring company Observer’s list of monitored blogs.
UPDATE: La Reduote makes an effort to reach out to affected bloggers. But they are apparently not offering any concrete solution yet, as would be desired.
Footnote: Att guilloua = ignorera bloggar. Från Jan Guillou.
Tags: fashion, fashion blogs, mode, modeblogg. Ping.