Sears, Roebuck and Co. is placing mobile social media at the center of a campaign targeting teens and tweens during the back-to-school shopping season.

Sears is on the hunt to find the top tween style-makers through its "Crush Your Style ? The Search for America's Top Style Crush" campaign. Just in time for back-to-school, the new Sears digital program issues one style challenge every week for six weeks to find America's top style talent, with a $50,000 family trip as the grand prize.

?Sears is running an integrated marketing campaign that includes TV, offline and mobile elements, including viewing contest details, entering the contest and voting for friends via mobile,? said Cameron Friedlander, vice president of creative technology at Designkitchen, Chicago.

?The campaign is specifically targeting teens and tweens for back-to-school fall fashion skewed toward the female demographic,? he said. ?Last year Sears was a bit leery of adding a mobile component but this year with tweens they brought in mobile elements and folded them into the overall campaign.

?In-store signage has a call-to-mobile, a TV commercial shows contest entry via mobile and there?s a Web site pushing mobile call-outs.?

Sears, Roebuck and Co., a subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corp., is a broadline retailer providing home merchandise, apparel, automotive products and related services.

Designkitchen, a digital division of WPP?s Wunderman ad agency, helped power the Sears campaign.

Crush you phone
Participants in Sears? Crush Your Style campaign can visit the PC and mobile Web site to enter challenges issued by the elite Style Crush Panel of online movers and shakers.

?We set up a mobile site that tells you what the contest is for this week and allows you to submit either a video or still image to enter the contest,? Mr. Friedlander said.

Consumers who enter http://www.crushyourstyle.com into their mobile browser will automatically be redirected to the mobile-optimized version at http://m.crushyourstyle.com.

The site has a call-to-action asking consumers to text a different keyword each week to the short code 66746.

Here is a screen grab of the site with the mobile call-to-action:

?We use the short code to initiate the whole age-gating process and entry into the Web site,? Mr. Friedlander said. ?There is an under 13 firewall until parents approve, and we destroy the entry if we don?t hear back from the parents.

?We?ve also allowed entrants to share and syndicate their entry to their friends via mobile, and they can also vote for their friends via mobile,? he said.

Panelists including teen celebrity Kylie Jenner, YouTube fashion and beauty celebrities and sisters Elle and Blair Fowler, and fashion blogger and upcoming jewelry designer Diamond Downs.

To kick off the program, Ms. Jenner will be featured in a series of Sears Crush Your Style TV ads airing this fall.

The Crush Your Style Web site will host a video-based Style Room, weekly style challenges delivered by the Fowler sisters and Ms. Downs, and an interface for girls to submit their photos and videos into the competition with their parent or guardian's approval.

Over six consecutive weeks, the Style Crush Panel of Experts will issue nationwide style challenges online to America's tweens in order to find the top tween stylist.

Each week participants will be issued a new themed challenge and be charged with choosing a fashionable look at Sears that fits with the theme.

Participants are encouraged to choose an outfit that reflects their own personal style.

Then, participants will upload a photo or video with them modeling the fashions they handpicked to the Crush Your Style PC and mobile Web sites.

The contestants with the most creative outfits will be selected by the Style Crush Panel of experts to become a finalist to compete in the final challenge for the grand prize?the title of Sears Style Maker plus $50,000 and a family trip to a global fashion destination of their choice.

Plus, every week one finalist will be chosen to win a family vacation for four worth $10,000.

?Sears understands that most teens and tweens are having conversations with brands via mobile?we didn?t need to sell them on adding a mobile component this year,? Mr. Friedlander said. ?By going mobile, Sears is able to not only hit the upper demographic, 13-plus, but also the demographic of 12 and under, as most of these kids have a mobile device.

?We?re pushing them to engage with these contests while they?re on the move, in a store or with their friends,? he said. ?Mobile fits well into the overall campaign and the contests we are promoting, because it lets teens and tweens enter contextually, while they?re on the move.?

Sears exec reveals mobile strategy
Mobile Marketer's Dan Butcher interviewed Imran Jooma, senior vice president and head of ecommerce at Sears Holdings, Chicago. Here is what he had to say:

What was Sears? strategy behind adding mobile elements to the Crush Your Style campaign?
Overall, Sears Holdings is here to help customers shop with ease and convenience, while constantly evolving the online shopping experience, providing our customers the ability to ?shop their way.?

Whatever program we develop or new feature we offer, we execute it with the customers in mind.

From our interactions with customers through our MySears and MyKmart social communities, we learned that teens are texting and interacting more using their mobile phones.

We introduced mobile elements in the campaign to reach more people, and offer them even more choices on how they shop, interact with their friends and communicate with the people of Sears.

Our innovative campaign is just another example of our long standing commitment to provide choice and convenience to our customers.

Whether it?s giving them the opportunity to shop online, in-store or through the text messaging deals or through Sears2go, Kmart2go or mygofer2go mobile applications, our strategy is to empower our customers to better manage their lives.

How is mobile an effective vehicle to help Sears drive engagement and participation among tween/teen girls?
We're reaching out to customers via various social mediums, finding and connecting with our customers where they work and play, on Twitter, Facebook and through mobile SMS.

Mobile technology is just another platform that allows us to reach more customers and provide them with more choices on how, and when they would like to shop, ultimately providing a more personal and social shopping experience for everyone.

Mobile elements of the campaign also help encourage entrants to share their entries with their family and friends to collect ?crushes,? which are similar to a like on Facebook.

Kids can email a deeplink to their specific entry, and their friends can even ?crush? their style via mobile by texting their friend?s entry ID to a SMS short code.

Entrants can share that entry ID with their friends via SMS or email.

Final Take
Dan Butcher, associate editor, Mobile Marketer

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