Forever 21 has teamed up with BREAKFAST, a rapid product and prototype company, to build one of the coolest marketing campaigns ever done. Having launched unique campaigns in the past that gets shoppers involved with their brand, Forever 21 found it had been two years since their last campaign. They teamed up with BREAKFAST to come up with something that hadn't been done before, and the Thread Screen concept was created for their "Tried and True" back to school campaign.I chatted with BREAKFAST's co-founder and chief creative officer Andrew Zolty about the inspiration behind this crazy concept: "Forever 21 was looking to experiment with something quite different than what they've done in the past, and BREAKFAST happens to specialize in doing the never-been-done before. They gave us a rather open brief, and from the start we knew we wanted to build a web-connected experience that anyone could try from anywhere in the world."
The F21 Thread Screen displays your photo from Instagram, identifying it by the hashtag #f21threadscreen. Comprised of 6,400 spools of thread that continually rotate making 36 different colors to create your photo, thread was a no-brainer for this campaign, says Zolty, "with it being the most basic element of fashion and quite versatile." Zolty shares that Instagram was the social platform of choice, "as it's the most artistic/creative of social networks." Fun fact: Forever 21 is the 45th most followed account on Instagram.
So how do you get involved in this massive campaign? All you need to do is make your Instagram public and tag your desired photo with #f21threadscreen, and your image will go live on the Thread Screen at f21threadscreen.com.
Because there are so many fierce shoppers out there, your photo may take a while to display with the running queue of submissions. Anticipating this popularity, Zolty and Forever 21 came up with the perfect solution: "[we're] commenting back on everyone's Instagrams after their image goes up with a url where they can watch a video of their image on the screen. They can also then download their video to their phone and share back to Instagram or the like."
I tried this out myself (and even sported some Forever 21 rags), and the results were rad.
It's not too late for you to get your own video to share with your besties - the campaign runs 24 hours a day and ends on July 28. Not wearing something from Forever 21 in the photo you want to tag, but still look #onfleek? Go ahead and tag it - Forever 21 doesn't want to limit their fans, "the F21 Thread Screen is open to everyone!"
Check out this behind the scenes photo, and tag your fabulous self today.