LG Fashion Week Wrap Up

While everyone is reveling in the return of warm weather, some of us are already looking ahead to Fall ’09. Last week the city’s fashion elite gathered for Toronto’s 10th anniversary of fashion week, newly minted as LG Fashion Week marking a change in title sponsorship with L’Oreal staying on as a presenting sponsor.

In an economic environment where sponsorships are becoming fewer, we tip our fashionable fedoras off to LG for finding an innovative way to market to the gloss demographic. At the end of last fall’s fashion week, LG sponsored Fashion Fusion – a marriage of fashion and live music which gave us a glimpse of their goal to set the bar even higher for upcoming seasons. It also added a touch of glam and was reminiscent of Condé Nast’s Fashion Rocks concerts. With their inaugural fashion week under their belt the reviews are in: LG uniquely incorporated their brand into the week’s events by hosting a ‘The Fashion of Texting’ charity challenge, adding LG laptops to the media room helping to deliver fresh content quickly and setting up plasma TVs that allowed those who didn’t quite make it into the show to be able to get a live eye of the runway.

The union of fashion and technology allowed LG position their brand as stylish and trendy while breaking through the clutter and adding a fresh hype to fashion week, definitely attracting the Jen-eration’s attention.

Finding love in 140 characters or less

Looking to date without going broke? As Josey Vogels writes, online dating services are becoming increasingly popular as an affordable strategy for finding love. With the current tough times, some Jennifers are turning to online dating sites to find their match instead of spending money on blind date dinners and drinks at the club.

Taking the idea of affordable dating one step further, the micro-blogging Twitter service MyTweetheart offers users the opportunity to connect with other relationship seeking Twitter users for free. With over 3,000 followers, MyTweetheart shows us that many Jennifers are interested in finding that special someone online without having to spend a lot of money or time to do it.

To sign up for MyTweetheart, users need to send a Twitter Direct Message to @MyTweetheart indicating which gender they would like to connect with. From there, MyTweetheart adds your Twitter profile to their public list of singles. To connect with a MyTweetheart interest, simply follow that person on Twitter and start a conversation.

MyTweetheart is offering dating convenience through the use of social media. To the busy Jen-eration, could we be seeing a new version of speed dating, where singles can search for a match and connect in 140 characters or less? The popularity of MyTweetheart could mean that Jennifers are looking to connect in a comfortable environment catering to the mobile, multi-tasking woman who is used to developing meaningful conversations online. The use of Twitter as a dating site suggests that marketers should be open to the possibility of offering services within Jennifer’s already established social network, instead of requiring her to join a new platform or leave her familiar online world.

What do you think about finding love through Twitter? Are online dating services an affordable alternative to traditional dating, or simply another new media trend? We’ll be watching for your tweets.

Extra, extra! Read all about it!

Without a doubt, the media landscape has undergone some significant changes in the last few years. The current economic environment has sadly resulted in the closing of many media outlets and publications. Also, with the evolution of social media, many consumers of news (certainly gloss girls) turn to the internet and blogs for their information. The specific type, or genre, of sources we look to for information have changed as well.

While consumers are still looking to well-respected publications for the latest, many are also turning to new media. One source comes to mind particularly: TMZ.com. When I personally first learned about TMZ a few years back, it was my equivalent of the National Enquirer at the grocery news stand: something to glance at for a quick chuckle while bored, but never one to be taken seriously. I stand corrected!

TMZ has since evolved from a scandalous, gossipy web site to a television show (that yes, is still scandalous and gossipy) with even the Globe and Mail turning to their site for information when recent images of a bruised Rihanna surfaced.
When talking to the Jen-eration, marketers have to go where she goes to speak to her directly. Sites like TMZ.com are solidifying their place in the world of media as a credible source for entertainment news and the lesson to be learned is to not brush off any information resources too quickly – even those that may seem frivolous are getting news to a targeted audience.