Tapestry is essentially a CRM device for the retail sector. Since we work with a range of lifestyle and retail clients we wanted to devise a tool that could solve recurring problems they encounter, whilst enriching a consumer shopping experience.

In a nutshell it allows the public to collect information on real world items through their mobile – they can then share, review or buy. On the flip side the brand can speak to the user based on the same items and offer rewards and build loyalty. Plus there’s a host of analytics it serves up. Finally it’s scalable and cost effective.

Once we’ve completed the trial with Diesel we will be extending it to other brands. The process was very much designed with the retailer in mind and simplicity of scale. It’s a journey of discovery for us and one we’re thoroughly enjoying.

The consumer facing app is available here (UK only)
Android
iPhone

More to follow soon…

To mark the occasion, Chloé.Attitudes is an exhibition at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, celebrating Chloé’s 60-year contribution to fashion culture.

After a competitive pitch, Chloé commissioned Guided to deliver a digital heritage experience, designed to coincide with the Chloé.Attitudes exhibition and extend its reach.

In response, Guided created ‘The Alphabet’: a digital exploration of the Chloé heritage, available across the world in 6 languages on computers, smartphones and tablets. ‘The Alphabet’ aims to lay down an engaging precedent for the Chloé brand in the digital landscape. A playful and immersive experience, it is sure to paint a picture of Chloé that is both familiar and yet unexpected, and above all, imaginative and compelling.

‘The Alphabet’ is inspired by Chloé founder, Gaby Aghion’s, own creative process for naming her collections and garments. Finding numbers impersonal, she switched to letters, and the alphabet. From 1958, Collection ‘A’ was first, with every item in it given a name beginning with ‘A’. Then came ‘B’ and so on…

Launching on 27th September and running until 14th November, each letter of ‘The Alphabet’ has been assigned a theme, individually telling a fragment of the story; collectively forming a mosaic of Chloé’s iconic moments, inspirations and heritage. These 26 themes will be brought to life via film and documentaries, previously unseen archive imagery, past advertising, music, interactive and editorial, with the entire array to be made available at chloe.com/alphabet

To kick things off, ‘The Alphabet’ launched with 5 original short films and animations created by a stellar, all-female directing cast – Poppy De Villeneuve, Julie Verhoeven, Kathryn Ferguson, Stéphanie Di Giusto and Mary Clerté – who have each interpreted one of five principal letters / themes that happen to spell out the name C.H.L.O.É. These films – which you can see below – explore themes of Counter-Couture, Horses, Light, O (roundness) and Embroidery. They were released exclusively and simultaneously via five high profile fashion bloggers from the UK, USA, France, Japan and China.

Subsequent letters and themes will be released every other day via global fashion bloggers until the physical exhibition closes its doors.

It is early days in this mammoth 2 month project, so check back to see more content unfold; images of the bespoke boxes of content each blogger receives; and the results – which, at the time of writing, are looking positive with coverage appearing across the likes of Vogue, Elle, Harpers and Another Mag to name just a few.

As well as advertising, PR and social media, we made 2 mini-documentaries to engage design savvy audiences, lifting the lid on the design, style and craft secrets that have shaped the icon. The films have garnered over 250k views (organically over 3 weeks with no paid seeding), featuring on hundreds of blogs including Notcot, Devour and Hypebeast.

Here we present ‘Bond’s Look’ – a peak into the sartorial secrets behind Bond’s personal style, meeting costume designer Lindy Hemming and a handful of bespoke tailors who have been instrumental in crafting this icon of style over 50 years.

The second film showcases the creation of the iconic world inhabited by James Bond over 50 years. We spend time with award winning set designer, Sir Ken Adam; as well as Aston Martin’s Head of Design; along with the designers and makers of the legendary Golden Gun.

The activity saw 111 lucky customers receive a signed, framed, original, one-off portrait created by one of 11 top illustrators that included Jacqueline Bissett, Niki Pilkington and Michael Frith.

Ted invited customers across 9 stores (7 UK, 2 NYC) to ‘put yourself in a picture’ and become a masterpiece. All they had to do was try on pieces from the new collection and pose for a photo in one of Ted’s ‘Exhibitionist’ photo booths. An image of their look was taken using Instagram and the photograph was beamed straight into the artist’s studio, Ted’s Drawing Room, situated at Ted’s London HQ.

Inside the studio, the illustrators were invited to ‘choose their muse’ and re-create their favoured photos from the hundreds of instagram photos submitted.

The 11 illustrators ranged from pure fashion illustration to watercolour portraiture to contemporary graphic art and were seen employing a broad diversity of techniques and styles throughout the day.
The studio, open for only 8 hours from midday to 8pm GMT, also hosted an artwork and framing service with the 111 portraits created uploaded to Facebook on the day and the original, signed portraits framed and sent to their subject in the post soon after.

A film crew were also on hand to capture the illustrators hard at work. Footage was broadcast live via Livestream back into participating stores and to Ted’s Facebook page enabling the public to watch the masters at work and the subjects of the portraits to tune in and watch their portrait being created! Over 2000 viewers tuned in across the day, spending on average 26 minutes each glued to their screens. The stream was viewed in over 23 countries ranging from the UK and USA to slightly further afield such as Japan, Malaysia and Taiwan.

The activity proved a huge success across social media with a 75% increase in Ted’s reach on Facebook and a 70% increase in people talking about Ted Baker on Facebook. Twitter mentions also increased by 1000%.

Customer responses to the campaign were also hugely positive:

“That is just an amazing drawing. It’s so original and I love the captions!! You made my day, Serge!” (Jale R)

“Love this!! STUNNING yay for Glasgow!” – Victoria B

“That is beautifully delicate Jo. I love it. ♥” – Nigel A

“Wow… Jacquline, I look amazing, thank you and thank you Ted” – Ivet D
“What a laugh… An afternoon in ted baker cracking day” – Willie S

“Didn’t expect this when I went shopping today, was great fun and real confidence boost, thanks TB xxx (also mum bought me the outfit as birthday present so win win)” – Emma W

The activity also featured in a diverse range of printed and online sources such as Look and Stylist to Mashable and Contagious to Notcot and Drapers.

It was a lovely surprise beating two campaigns that we hugely admired in the Guardian MEGA Awards. The judges commented that this was “uniquely innovative yet incredibly simple – something that is sure to be replicated”.

Receiving these accolades was just reward for thinking differently – challenging and inspiring our client to innovate and deliver amazing results on a very modest budget.

So a big thanks to the Pan MacMillan guys and all that helped make it happen. Special thanks of course go to Lord Sugar and Nick Hewer who delivered on the day – it was fraught with potential banana skins and was very tense at times (as the photo illustrates) but we’re hugely proud of the achievement.

We had to position it as a new release, not a 2nd autobiography (after the previous year’s successful What You See Is What You Get autobiography). It was important to achieve considerable cut through on a small budget, building momentum towards the crucial Christmas sales period and make enough noise to stand out from the spate of books launched by other celebrities around the same time (Super Thursday).

Initially Pan MacMillan wanted a traditional print campaign (and Guided obliged – across posters and taxi wraps) – but we realised there was a better, more effective approach…

Lord Sugar is a Twitter addict who at the time had 1m+ followers (he’s also big on Facebook and Youtube). He is a media channel in his own right – the most effective channel to reach the most likely people to buy his new book – his fans. He’s also a very busy guy – so a solution that revolved around him, but was easy for him to take part in would be win-win.

The world’s first live Twitter book signing was born.

It took place in his office (cunningly on the Wed before Super Thursday). The day before the signing, he invited his Twitter followers to tweet rants at him… the ones that struck a chord would reward their tweeter with a signed copy of the book – all broadcast live via Livestream so that winners could see him sign their book live. Their book arrived in the post a day later; a link to a clip of their book being signed sent to them to share with friends on social media.

The results were incredible:

- #TheWayISeeIt – trending globally at position 1 on Twitter for over 20hrs
- 390k Tweets
- 7.6m OTS from tweets
- 100k live viewers over 30 mins
- Celebrity Tweeters to comment / get involved included Rio Ferdinand, Chris Moyles, Piers Morgan, Robbie Savage, Alastair Campbell, Peter Jones…
- 8000 increase in Lord Sugar’s Twitter followers.
- Content for Lord Sugar’s Facebook and Youtube channels
- Mainstream press coverage.

This innovative launch won a Guardian MEGA Digital Innovation Award for Campaign of the year.

During October, a competition ran across Ted’s Glasgow, Manchester and London stores allowing customers to try on the collection and pose in a fantastical deer mask within a beautifully illustrated Richmond Park set. They were then ‘shot’ – using Instagram – by a top fashion blogger (Les Garcons De Glasgow, Sara Luxe and Madmoiselle Robot), with the photos uploaded to a Facebook app. The customer was then invited to impress their mates and get as many ‘Likes’ as possible.
 
Ted was on the hunt for the most adorable Doe and dominant Stag (metaphorically speaking) in each city – who each won a £500 shopping spree.

Guided had to be sympathetic to and drive awareness of the TRON franchise (Disney’s flagship film release in 2010), and provide a credible experience that wouldn’t alienate core fans – but also deliver HP the results they needed – a balancing act.

Guided set out to create an experience and visual spectacle using the stunning TRON: Legacy visual style… and in doing so, create photo opportunities for smartphone users.

Once they had taken pictures, product demo was offered – visitors were able to print their photos from the event. We knew that a stunning spectacle would also create engaging online content which would take ePrint to a far wider audience that just the live event.

The HP ePrint and TRON: Legacy experience was a week-long visual spectacle and immersive experience on London’s Southbank (the perfect architecture to complement the visual style of TRON). A 10 minute architecturally mapped animation of the TRON: Legacy ‘Grid’ was projected onto the Queen Elizabeth Hall’s ‘sun-deck’, complemented with an edit of Daft Punk’s sound track.

Down at street/river level, we recreated Flynn’s Arcade as the HP ePrint demo area.

Here’s the case study film…

Results:

- Numerous online listings such as This Is London and View London
- 38 print articles and 2 radio mentions
- 1200 Tweets with a combined reach into the millions
- Tweeted by the likes of Creative Review, Boing Boing, StyleBubble, Contagious Magazine
- Official videos featured on sites as diverse as Wired, Esquire, Fubiz, The Awesomer, Motionographer, FormFitfyFive and AgencySpy…
- 120k combined views of 3 official videos
- 600k combined loads (OTS)
- 526 Vimeo likes
- Numerous UGC uploads across Youtube, Flickr and social networks
- 76% increase in HP UK Twitter followers
- Video content embedded on over 560 blogs, websites and social media profiles
- 5k visitors to the event, each spending at least 15 minutes there
- 1200 competition entrants (TRON: Legacy Premiere tickets)
- 35k footfall at street level
- Overall OTS in 1st week of 2.5m+

Here’s the teaser trailer film…

And for any animation nerds, here’s the full 10 minute animated projection…

In response, Guided created the world’s first remote-controlled digitally enabled pro-styling studio: a photography studio in Ted’s London HQ was controlled remotely by US-based fashion bloggers… using a live video stream, Twitter and nothing more. 7 influential bloggers each had 15 minutes to style and shoot two key looks.

In a nutshell the bloggers became the puppet masters of a live shoot controlling everything from the models, makeup, hair and clothing choice – but only via tweets @ted_baker – as the readers of each blog tuned in (via Livestream) to watch their favoutite bloggers take the reigns.

After the bloggers had had their turn, the studio was opened up to the public to control it from a far.

Giving bloggers creative control and empowering them to create content was a big part of the strategy… the blogger’s official shots were retouched and watermarked over the weekend and sent to them on Monday for inclusion on their sites. By Wednesday they also received a 1 min film – an edit of their time in the studio – which was embedded on their blogs. A week later their looks were merchandised across Ted’s 13 US stores… all creating more reasons to keep writing about Ted.

Here’s the case study film…

Results:

- 20k live viewers over 5hrs
- Twitter – 5000 related tweets with estimated reach of 2.8 million
- Fashion blogs – over 50 posts with estimated reach of 2.5 million people
- Fashion press – Covered by the likes of Drapers
- Outside fashion – covered by likes of Mashable, PSFK, Notcot, Contagious and Metro (UK)
- Increase to Ted’s Facebook fans / Twitter followers
- Relationships established with top fashion bloggers
- Full suite of content of each participating blogger’s site
- Impressive goodwill…
- ROI 5x investment

We helped provide a platform allowing Westfield to tap into and showcase East London’s creative talent. It needed to be done in an ongoing and therefore credible way – be part of the fabric of the scene – not a corporate leech…

Studio East was born: a cultural initiative that rewards and recognises emerging East London talent.

High profile cultural pioneers including Tracey Emin, Roland Mouret, Mary Portas and Erin O’Connor selected a shortlist of individual talent who could win a £10,000 bursary – The Studio East Awards.

The Studio East Awards launched at the opening of Studio East Dining, a pop-up restaurant run by East London’s Bistrotheque, the first public structure on the Olympics site with stunning views over the Olympic park and London.

The Studio East Website went live allowing the audience to vote for one of the 2010 nominations and also put forward nominations for who will be ‘Hot in 2011’. Creative people like to share opinions on cultural topics, so by giving the opportunity to nominate for 2011, Studio East creates longevity and sincerity.

The inclusion of Foursquare (then in it’s infancy) allowed East Londoners to simply check in at some of the East End’s coolest venues to win tickets to Studio East Dining.

Results:

- PR in Telegraph, FT, Guardian, Dazed & Confused, Wonderland, Vogue, Conde Naste Traveller, GQ, Grazia
- Estimated daily opportunities to see across all titles: 3.5 million
- 440,000 relevant / target audience views in 1 week
- Website received over 160 nominations for 2011 awards
- Foursquare received 90 check-ins in one week (given the limited amount of users in London – approx 5000 active, an above average return)
- Very positive online sentiment in relation to Studio East and Westfield’s imaginative and benevolent approach