Case #4: Barneys / Electric Holiday

Main Ingredients:

Walt Disney + Star Cast (Nicholas Ghesquiere, Alber Elbaz, Guido Palau, Pat McGrath, Julien d'Y, Steven Meisel, Mario Sorrenti, Juergen Teller, Carine Roitfeld, Anna Dello Russo, Cathy Horyn, Glenda Bailey, Bridget Foley, Emmanuelle Alt, Suzy Menkes, Franca Sozzani, Ed Filipowski, Daphne Guinness, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lady Gaga, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Bryan Boy) + Barneys New York + Wide Product Range + Short Movie + Christmas

Recipe:

Direction

Widen brand's appeal through alternative methods

Increase sales via capsule collections during holiday seasons

Increase brand recognition 

Reach new client segments

Strengthen the link between online & offline communication strategies

Mass

So here're some facts regarding this project:

1. For this Christmas, Barneys New York collaborated with The Walt Disney Company in order to create a short film called 'Electric Holiday' featuring our favourite Disney characters on a fashion adventure in Paris, with special guest stars along the way.

2. Barneys New York decided to offer exclusive limited-edition holiday gifts from designer Mickey Mouse merchandise to delicious cookies.

3. Sarah Jessica Parker revealed the film to the public at Barneys New York window unveiling event. 

4. %25 of the retail price of all items in the Electric Holiday collection is donated to American Red Cross disaster relief.

5. The shopping windows had huge screens showing the short film continuously during the holiday season.

So in means of mass, this project had a lot going on: cobranding, exclusive products, charity, celebrity appearance, a short film, impressive visual merchandising, etc. 

Velocity

You can watch the short film 'Electric Holiday' here. It got around 775k views in about 1.5 months.

Let's try to see what effected the velocity of the project:

1. Barneys New York collaborated with WWD on an exclusive. The screenshots from 'Electric Holiday' were revealed in this article.

2. The only blogger to be featured in this film, Bryanboy, blogged about the film here. 

3. The cast was chosen strategically. There was Franca Sozzani from Italy, Emmanuelle Alt from France, Suzy Menkes from UK, and so on. Besides the cast was divided into different categories: designers, photographers, editors, characters, etc.

4. A facebook tab was dedicated to the launch of the film. You can still view it here. 

5. Lady Gaga was included in the cast which helped the virality of the project as her 'little monsters' shared the news on their social media networks. Some of them reuploaded the video on their own Youtube channels, see one example here.

So we see that when doing a special project especially for special periods of the year (Christmas, St. Valentine's, Mother's Day, Father's Day, etc.), it's important to keep a 360 degree approach. Barneys New York picked a great brand for cobranding, chose the cast strategically, created a wide & exclusive product range, did a great teasing strategy prior to the launch, organized an event with a celebrity, aligned the windows with the digital project so linked their online project to the offline one, teamed up with American Red Cross for disaster relief. Barneys New York should be credited for pulling off such a big project with an almost perfect communication strategy.