JanSport invites granular sharing of ?Live Outside? campaign
The backpack and luggage marketer is making social sharing more personalized using Issuu Clip, a publishing technology that allows consumers to share specific elements of photos and other content from digitally published pages easily from mobile and other devices through a variety of social networks. Issuu, a platform for digital magazines and catalogs, launched Clip on July 9 in partnership with content publishers such as JanSport that are seeking to use the service to drive more eyeballs to their pages.
?JanSport is in the business of really telling stories about their brand, and stories are meant to be shared,? said Greg Martinez, founding partner and director of accounts at Teak, JanSport?s ad agency of record. ?I think Clip is an interesting way to share those stories in unique ways. Every part of a story resonates with people differently, so now they can go in and identify that part of the story they like and share it with someone else.
?For JanSport, in terms of marketing, it provides a new network of users to spread the net of the story, because of its share-ability.?
JanSport was founded in Seattle in 1967 and now has its headquarters in Alameda, CA. It is a division of VF Corp., Greensboro, NC, which also owns brands that include Lee, Wrangler, Timberland, The North Face and Nautica.
The Clip function, unveiled July 9, allows readers of publications on the Issuu platform to use a framing tool to grab any piece of content ? a piece of a photo, a paragraph, a word from a headline, or a whole page, for example ? and share it through social networks or other means. A link to the full article or catalog page from which the snippet was selected is included in the clip, so recipients can then read the full article or an ad attached to the Clip, or other messaging.
?Publishers need to be getting content to readers in whatever format they want, whether it is in apps, on desktop, in print, or on tablet or smartphones,? said Joe Hyrkin, CEO of Palo Alto, CA-based Issuu. ?With Issuu Clip, we are combining ?snippet? sharing with the depth that readers want from their content.?
The system potentially allows publishers to monetize more content as individual pages, photos and pieces of text can be digitally shared by readers readily. By allowing readers to grab pieces of photos or snippets of articles, Clip seeks to facilitate posts on popular social sharing sites like Pineterst, Twitter and Facebook.
Issuu is a fast-growing platform for digital publishing, with a total of 17 million publications available. The platform functions on a freemium model for publishers, who can upload content to the site for free and pay an additional $20 to $40 per month for additional services from Issuu such as more control over content and the ability to post additional content.
Nearly 40% of Issuu content is consumed in mobile format, Mr. Hyrkin said. It is used by both magazine publishers and catalogs.
Catalogs next for JanSport
JanSport launched on Issuu with two lookbooks focused on its ?Live Outside? ad campaign. The content-based campaign revolves around the photo and video documentation of artists who have been commissioned to create outdoor wall paintings in San Francisco and in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.
?One of JanSport?s main messages is self-expression, and that dovetails nicely with this outdoor project,? Mr. Martinez said.
Likewise the use of Issuu Clip is an extension of that theme, as readers of the JanSport lookbooks can select any elements they like to share on Pinterest or other social media.
?We have so many consumers of the younger generation who are constantly connected, and now this provides them with the ability to share something that specifically resonates with them,? Mr. Martinez said.
He said JanSport will gauge the response to the initial effort with the lookbooks before moving forward with publishing catalogs on Issuu. The platform allows JanSport to link the Clip snippets to its online shopping cart to drive sales transactions.
?We think this is a cutting-edge platform,? Mr. Martinez said. ?We think it will be used for JanSport catalogs for the most part in the future.?
The data gathered through the use of Clip for social-media sharing will be especially rich, Mr. Hyrkin of Issuu said.
Mr. Martinez said the use of Clip ties into its overall messaging strategy.
?It brings people back to the issue that JanSport has published, and the story we are trying to tell overall,? he said. ?It is all wrapped into that brand container.?
Final Take
Mark Hamstra is content director at Mobile Marketer