Okay, let me start by saying that I wanted to post this for a couple of reasons

1. Disclaimer: I worked on it. Bluefly was one of my very dearest clients while at Attention and I was heavily involved in this campaign from ideation right up to launch; I’m incredibly proud of how it has turned out.
2. In my post about the Toyota Yaris agency campaigns, I suggested an approach of identifying influencers (ugh, can we get rid of that word already?) and then activating and empowering them to act as brand ambassadors. The proof is in the pudding, right? So here ya go…

Overview: America’s Most Stylish Blogger (affectionately referred to as AMSB) is a collaborative effort between designer fashion e-tailer Bluefly and Stylelist (AOL’s fashion and style blog) to find the country’s most style savvy blogger. The campaign commenced with an open call for submissions from which 8 bloggers were selected. The contestants are from all over the country, range in age and life stage and each possess a unique personal style.

Each week, the bloggers go head-to-head in styling a particular clothing item or accessory (provided by Bluefly) and use their personal fashion blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, etc to share their look, express their inspiration and drum up support. Each challenge is kicked off with a video recap of the bloggers’ submissions featuring a guest style consultant, and then it’s up to the public to choose who did it best via an embeddable voting widget. The contestant with the most votes at the end of the 5 challenges wins the coveted title of being America’s Most Stylish Blogger – as well as a $1,000 Bluefly shopping spree, a Bluefly blogger store and a column on Stylelist. Not too bad a deal.

Comments: I love the idea (and I’m obviously biased), but this campaign really does illustrate what happens when a brand, its community of influencers and consumers have a mutually beneficial relationship… everyone wins!

The bloggers:

• The chance at winning the contest is obviously a major incentive, but in addition to that they all get to keep the 5 products – which in itself is a win when you consider that the second week’s challenge item was a pair of studded Prada booties.
• The bloggers also gain traffic and visibility for their blogs (which comes with it’s own set of perks). For example, contestant Tiffany Tse was written up in the LA Times and Valerie Elizabeth was featured on NBC.
• And hey, it’s probably sorta cool getting personalised style tips from fashionalities like Nicole Miller.

Bluefly:

• For 5 weeks they are guaranteed to have 8 different blogs writing about their products (with a link back to shop the look). Since there’s no incentive for the bloggers to put up advertorial-ish posts (the public chooses the winner, not Bluefly), it’s authentic word-of-mouth.  In fact, in the 3rd challenge, contestant Nikki from Dirty Flaws took the challenge item – a pink lycra miniskirt – and dyed it black and stuck it on her head as a hood because she hated the item so much. Furthermore, the bloggers have varying style, so they essentially demonstrate 8 different ways of wearing a given product – More variety = wider appeal.
• Hello, SEO! By design, the campaign builds a massive number of inbound blog links, user-generated content and conversations – all of which are key drivers of natural search. A Google Blog Search for “America’s Most Stylish Blogger” AND Bluefly (to look at conversations that talked about the brand alongside the contest) generates 3,990 results – and that’s just a piece of the pie, the campaign isn’t over yet.
• Oh, and we mustn’t forget about email collection. In order to vote, people must enter their email address, and guess what… there’s a little pre-checked box to subscribe to Bluefly emails.

Consumers:

• Firstly, they get entertaining content – fashion tips and how-tos, celebrity appeal (guest style consultants include: Kelly Cutrone, Nicole Miller and Amy Smilovic) and the drama of good ‘ol fashioned competition.
• Participation is incentivised with a sweepstakes to win a $1,000 Bluefly shopping spree (every vote is an entry) and people are invited to show off their own looks by uploading them to the AMSB Facebook Page.

I think it’s a winner and can’t wait to see the final results (not just the winner, but actual metrics - yes, social media is measurable.)

Love it? Hate it? Drop your thoughts in the comments.