Engage:BDR and fashion icon ASHLEYlauren launch campaign in tandem with US National Dress Day

Advertising company engage:BDR (ASX: EN1) has extended the reach of its growing programmatic ad platform, and more specifically, its IconicReach client, with the launch of a targeted ad campaign to support leading US-based women’s fashion label ASHLEYlauren.

Today also marks US National Dress Day, originally founded by the fashion label’s creator Ashley Lauren. Ms Lauren kick-started National Dress Day as a way to “relive and celebrate our dearest dress memories” and has continually promoted “the power of fashion” that’s immersed in design that is both timeless and modern.

ASHLEYlauren is a “red-carpet ready” evening wear fashion brand which offers social event, cocktail, mother of the bride, bridal, prom, homecoming and pageant dresses.

engage:BDR and ASHLEYlauren launched a campaign targeting an increase to in-store and online traffic, by harnessing key micro-influencers, specifically to support existing retailers of ASHLEYlauren dresses across the globe.

The two companies have said they intend to include influencer-developed integrated content across several platforms including Instagram with content syndicated via geo-fenced display and video ad buys across the engage:BDR programmatic exchange.

The ad company says its new initiative will seek to “hyper-target” retailers within a specific geographic radius and retarget users to perform actions on these local retailers’ e-commerce presence.

Advancing programmatic advertising

Engage:BDR is currently on a mission to expand its market presence in programmatic advertising by commercialising a purpose-built platform that includes hundreds of companies and providers.

So far this year, engage:BDR has introduced five new programmatic integrations and has added more than 175 third-party providers.

One of its core aims is to increase revenue, currently forecast to grow in parallel with incorporating further integrations and third-party partners onto its proprietary ad platform.

The inclusion of ASHLEYlauren represents an important step for engage:BDR and further extends its growing list of commercial partners.

ASHLEYlauren is launching campaigns with IconicReach to increase brand awareness and drive foot traffic into stores and its online sales channels.

According to the fashion label, the ultimate goal is to increase dress sales during the prom season – its busiest time of the year.

ASHLEYlauren approached engage:BDR in order to utilise the company’s proprietary, in-house technology and relationships such as IconicReach. The company is able to source groups of micro-influencers ideal for this particular campaign, somewhere in the region of 15,000-250,000 engaged followers per influencer.

From that pool, IconicReach will select influencers based on audience demographics including age and location – focusing on influencers with teen and young female followings, between the ages of 16 and 18 “in specific geographic regions which match the campaign’s requirements”.

With the campaign already launched, engage:BDR reported that within the first 24 hours, several influencers posted their custom content and yielded thousands of likes, clicks, views and comments. The cost per engagement to ASHLEYlauren was “pennies” and was received as a fantastic start to a very progressive campaign.

The primary goals of the campaign were to drive re-orders and to grow the wholesale network with engage:BDR confirming that it will publish a case study with more comprehensive data about the results of this campaign, once the data is statistically relevant and all elements of the media plan have gone live.

ASHLEYlauren has also reported that it has received many original pieces of high-quality content – an unanticipated positive outcome – which will allow the brand to repurpose some of its products through all of its other marketing channels including digital and offline efforts.

The content created by influencers will also be utilised by IconicReach and engage:BDR for display advertising which will retarget users within a specific geographic perimeter of ASHLEYlauren retailers.

Commenting on National Dress Day, Ms Lauren said “I remember the dresses I wore to my prom, first job interview, first date, competing in a pageant, my first red carpet event, the list goes on.”

“This is a fun day to cherish and celebrate those memories.”

“To me, this day is about empowering women to celebrate our femininity and cherish memories of wearing dresses. It’s the women and their stories behind the dresses that make this day so special.”