The definition of “soap opera” comes from the Fifties: companies like Procter&Gamble started creating radio entertainment contents to promote soap and detergents. Today, agencies managing product placement in movies, reality shows, but also songs and music videos (like the Beverly Hills based Kluger Agency) are crucial players in the marketing scenario, even in the digital one. Jessica Noguez shows us a new evolution of product placement: digital and in real-time!

While watching Sex and the City or the Hills, have you ever wanted to get the look of Sarah Jessica Parker or Lauren Conrad? With its new internet series “What should I wear?”, the Spanish high street label Mango has made this possible.

The first season received more than 2 million hits. Mango thus decided to bet on the same format for the second season, and adapted the script to a more adult target (hiring professional actresses). The season started just in time to show the autumn-winter looks. The eight episodes of ten minutes each can be viewed in ten different languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Turkish and Hungarian.

For the pre-launch of What Should I Wear, on Wednesday 5^th of October the brand invited fashion bloggers from many countries to attend a special event in Madrid, hosted by a famous Mexican stylist and blogger Andy Torres (stylescrapbook.com), who is also the current It-Girl for Mango.

This new online experience combines entertainment and fashion sense. The way to interact with the series is very simple: if you see an outfit you like, you can pause the show and press ‘Get the look’ at the bottom. The different looks appearing in the show are sliding under the video, in real time! Of course, prices are included; and from there, users go through the classic purchase procedure. As of now, the series on Youtube you doesn’t support this product placement format: make sure you watch the episodes on Mango’s website!

This fresh and smart formula enables Mango to show the latest collections and interact with customers. It is also possible to exchange ideas with other fans of the series on Twitter and Facebook. And – of course – Mango has a corporate blog.

Lately, product placement has become one of the biggest trends in modern marketing: let’s just think about music videos (Britney Spears in her new video Criminal douses herself with her own perfume!). Now, fashion-films and branded series are becoming some kind of a standard.

Inditex Group is also a pioneer in Europe with Massimo Dutti, another fashion brand which is using this format since last year. Last trip is a short film made to launch their new online store. In this case, the protagonists (a man and a woman) went to a trip for a month. Both had to create a complete outfit by choosing a piece of clothes or an accessory in each of the cities they visited (in a Massimo Dutti store, of course).

In Italy, other clothing brands such as Prada are following this trend. The Chinese artist Yang Fudong directed First spring. This short movie was actually part of the Prada mens spring/summer 2010 advertising campaign.

Dior also made a short film: Lady Blue Shangai, starring Marion Cotillard. The brand approached the director David Lynch and asked him to make a film for the internet with 3 elements: the Dior bag, the Pearl Tower and Old Shanghai.

We can say that fashion is following what some car companies did a few years ago: the most impressive example is the BMW web series The Hire, in 2001, starring the british actor Clive Oven and involving directors such as John Woo, Guy Ritchie and Ang Lee (and generating 100+ million total views for the German automotive brand).

Yves Saint Laurent also presented its film, Ain’t nothing like the real thing. It was directed by the famous photographer/videographer, Bruce Weber, for the fashion house’s upcoming Fall/Winter campaign… and by the way, you have to be 18 or older in order to watch it!

The fashion film festival A shaded view on fashion film has contributed to make this method of ‘launching collections’ more and more popular. The next edition will take place in Barcelona in January 2012.

But let’s go back to Mango: in addition to the series What should I wear, the label is interacting with its audience with several dynamics such as the VIP Facebook user. How does it work? Well, it’s easy: you just have to be the most active Facebook user of the week by sharing, commenting, giving opinions, and so on. The VIP Facebook user of the week receives a Mango Touch accessory. But there’s more: the most interactive amongst all the VIPs will win a trip for two to Barcelona, Paris or London. Of course, the prize includes flight tickets and a two-night stay in a five star hotel. This strategy seems to work: every post from Mango generates hundreds of comments and Likes.

Another weekly dynamic to interact with customers is to offer €150 in Mango products by finding, for example, the perfect item for a photo shoot or the best garment for a girl’s night out. Once you pick the perfect item, other customers can vote for your choice. The weekly winner will be the user who obtains the highest number of votes.

Finally, Mango is posting secret videos related to its series. In order to watch them, customers have to share them on Twitter, Facebook, their blog… do you remember where we were talking about influencers marketing? Well, that’s basically it!

Mango was the first clothing brand using online series; will all the other clothing brands follow this dynamic way of selling their collections? It seems to be the perfect advertising campaign, since many customers can’t wait to watch the next episodes, to follow the everyday-life adventures of the girls, between New York and Los Angeles.

The series became a virtual ‘shopping window’ for the new collection. It can be called “product placement”, but it’s not just this: Mango is interacting with its customers by using funny dynamics, fresh ideas and entertaining contents.

Jessica Noguez