Istanbul Shopping Fest

0 comments on this article Posted by Selmin Ulusu in Marketing on March 16th, 2011 , tagged with , , , .

40 days and 40 nights for shopaholics! …and great opportunity for brands to promote their campaigns while customers are totally open to their messages..

Istanbul Shopping Fest is coming soon. There are magazines, inserts, and lots of printed materials in shopping malls, beauty salons, ads on billboards, etc. On the other hand, Istanbul Shopping Fest is mainly using social media to promote all events and campaigns. Although, they are using printed materials, their message on these materials is follow us! As a customer, we should follow them on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare to catch special offers.

The other side of this festival is having huge customer database from followers of Istanbul Shopping Fest. You can say anything to your customers at this season. Because they are totally open to receive your message. They are willingly giving their names, e-mail addresses, even their mobile numbers to follow festival. When you go to website of Istanbul Shopping Fest, it says “Be the first to know”. Customers fill the short form in order to get information about special offers and events.

As a customer, I will get information about many campaigns, I will go to shopping nights to see atmosphere. However, I have a concern about giving my contact information since there will be some brands which sends too many messages to get attention. I hope all brands will manage their campaigns properly, otherwise they can disturb and lose their customers…

 

P.S: H&M Sapphire is opening soon (March 19), in shopping fest season. It could be a coincidence or planned event, I don’t know. But I am happy because it’s very near to my home :)

 

The Shopping War in Forum Istanbul

0 comments on this article Posted by Selmin Ulusu in Marketing on November 11th, 2010 , tagged with , .

Girls cannot break their shopping habits, especially in the discount seasons!

As you know, one of the fashion giants, H&M, opened its first store in Turkey at Forum Istanbul. Before the opening they began to advertise in wide CLP and billboard network in Istanbul. The most attractive ones were the big shopping bags on the streets. They also used this bag design in the first day.

It is commonly thought,why we are excited to go H&M while we have a lot of alternatives. I went there and I will go again only for shopping because I like shopping. But we can say that, most of the girls went for special discounts for opening, promotionial T-shirts and just curiousity! How could H&M attract thousands of people in one day? This is the real question, I think.

As I said, they used outdoor advertising in wide area in addition to classic media. Also they used their website to announce free customer services from different areas of Istanbul. And they opened the shop at 11 a.m. so customers could arrive there on the time.

We went there at 11:05 a.m and we couldn’t enter the shop, there was a big crowd! After eating our meals at Ikea, we entered the shop however it was still very crowded. I found something to buy but the second surprise was the waiting queue. We waited 90 minutes for cash out. And the happy end, they gave us a gift card for our second shopping before September 22. We left after that.

Their strategy attracted my attention. They gave gift cards to first 1000 customers. But they wanted to attract us to shop before September 22 because they will launch Lanvin collection at September 23! They know that we will go there after September 23 so they want us again before that day. I liked that!

And like the title, there was a real shopping war at the opening and we were the enemies of other girls to buy clothes, accessories and shoes before them :)

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