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September 2007 - Strategy Magazine
Upfront

Fluevog tries on user-generated media buys

by Annette Bourdeau
page 9

Vancouver-based Fluevog Shoes is torn between three magazines to buy ad space in - Alarm, Beautiful Decay or Juxtapoz. So the shoe brand is getting consumers to decide for them on the "VogPopuli" section of fluevog.com (which it used last year to help select creative for a new campaign). Voters are eligible to win subscriptions to one of the three publications.

"It made sense to us to let our existing Fluevogers choose the next magazine, as they are the ones who will see us in it," says Stephen Bailey, Fluevog's marketing and communications director. "We received so many valuable comments from the last VogPopuli sessions that we're eagerly awaiting the feedback."

Bailey says last year's consumer commentary included gems like this: "Brilliant idea. I get to feel important, but without any of that nasty smugness aftertaste."

Fluevog's current print buy includes mags like HoBO, Bust, Vice and Radar. Bailey says the user-gen route is particularly apt for the brand, given that its target is hard to pinpoint, being more psychographic than demographic. "We have everything from 45-year-old lawyers to starving students, celebs to industrial designers, waitresses in Iowa to retired Mums in Ottawa. We usually just revert back to our tagline: 'Unique Soles for Unique Souls.'"

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