Dressbarn leverages SMS, mobile Web to drive donations for breast cancer

October 5, 2012

Specialty apparel retailer dressbarn has a new multichannel campaign to support National Breast Cancer Awareness Month that takes advantage of mobile to help drive donations and raise awareness.

The Paint the Country Pink effort includes a mobile site where users can virtually swipe a paintbrush over their state to show support. In-store signs will also encourage mobile users to text “PAINT” and their state to short code to paint their state pink.

“More and more we are seeing that our consumers and target audience are extremely receptive to using both SMS messaging and their mobile phones to stay in contact and receive updates from brands with which they associate themselves,” said Kristen Link, director of client services at Conversation, New York.

“We want them to be able to participate easily in the channels they are most accustomed to using,” she said.

“Mobile plays a big role in the overall effort as we are providing two destinations for participating: on mobile Web and through SMS. We will also be messaging dressbarn’s existing SMS users to paint their state.”

Dressbarn worked with marketing agency Conversation on the campaign strategy as well as designing and developing the desktop and mobile sites.

States turn pink
For each person who paints their state, dressbarn will donate $1 to the American Cancer Society up to $100,000.

As more people paint their state, the pinker it becomes on the map.

On the mobile site, users can select which state they want to paint and see updates on the top states.

Thereis also information about how to purchase the Ruby plush puppy who is the face of the campaign. Consumers can purchase Ruby for $6, with the net profit going to the American Cancer Society.

The campaign also includes in-store, online, social media and blogger elements.

On the desktop site, users will see an inspirational gallery with images that can be pinned, saved and shared with others. There is also an Instagram feed populated by consumers’ shared photos of their own puppies.

Dressbarn operates over 800 women’s specialty apparel stores and is a subsidiary of Ascena Retail Group.

Mobile cause
Ascena has been getting more active in the mobile space this year with its other retail business Maurices rolling out a mobile site and application that lets consumers shop the latest looks and find a nearby store in April.