Drive-by Posting: Social Suicide plays with Social Networking
By Xiaochang Li | January 10, 2011
As part of my 2011 resolutions, I’m making an effort to blog again, even if what I post will necessarily be significantly more abbreviated and less in-depth by virtue of time constraints.
Last March, I wrote Social Suicide’s digital savvy — the boutique menswear retailers decided to demonstrate their appreciation of the value of their fans social networks by letting the level of digital buzz dictate a dynamic sale rate for their winter clearance.
They’re continuing to play and experiment in the digital space, linking social capital to purchasing in interesting ways by turning their products into facebook profiles:
Finally, every jacket shipped is already a member of Facebook. It’s anonymous profile is in turn a member of a closed Facebook Group along with every other Holidaze jacket. Use it or loose it, it’s a way of networking which we’ve invented but have no idea where it will go…!
While it’s still unclear what they intend to do with these profiles, or how much control the jacket-buyers will have over them, it is a pretty novel way showing how your product serves as a form of social capital, providing both symbolic and literal access to an exclusive affinity group of culturally (and aesthetically) like-minded individuals.
Plus, I love how there’s a foil-lined pocket meant to cut-off phone signal, so that you can go off-grid with a gesture. Yet another way the company shows a whimsical, yet thoughtful approach to how our material lives interact with our digital ones.
Leave Your Comment