Value Village is a visionary reuse company. Instead of buying ten brand-new shirts, we can enjoy the thrill of finding a unique item that others aren't wearing. By choosing a thrifted garment over a new one, we can reduce our own clothing footprint and, over time, help decrease the demand for new products and the natural resources that go into making them. It is no longer enough to simply talk about the environmental impact of discarding unwanted goods; we must take action to make changes that have real, lasting impact. It's time we all 'Give a Sh!rt™' about the environment and our communities.
In 2016, Value Village stores repurposed hundreds of millions of items, including 224 million tops, 31 million shoes, 74 million pairs of pants, 19 million coats, 26 million dresses, 19 million bags, purses and wallets and 7 million pieces of jewelry.
This year, Value Village is challenging consumers to help divert even more textiles and household goods from landfills by reducing their clothing footprint, and turned to ZEFR's full-service influencer marketing solution to activate relevant creators to spread the message. After all, customers who follow a social influencer are more likely to be aware of social causes and engage with the cause mentioned by the influencer.
To drive awareness and ultimately store visits to support Value Village's 2017 goal of diverting clothing & home goods from landfills, ZEFR first analyzed the fashion/DIY space in social video to identify the video formats that resonate with female fashion enthusiasts. A key trend emerged to guide the campaign creative, realizing that the "lookbook" format garnered 53,200,000 views (14% of all Fashion-related views) amongst fashion enthusiasts on YouTube. Lookbooks allow creators to share original styles with their fans and in the case of our creators with Value Village, find a totally unique item of clothing to add some DIY flavor to.
After analyzing the fashion digital space to guide the creative concept, ZEFR utilized its proprietary influencer technology to identify 3 highly relevant Fashion and DIY influencers based in Canada. Each creator was invited to show that "I Give a Sh!rt™" about reusing the Earth's resources. Influencers discovered a thrifted shirt from Value Village to transform into a totally unique piece of clothing. Through original videos on Instagram with amplification on Facebook, the creators showcased their selection, the redesign process, and sent the shirt onto the next influencer to further share and encourage new ways to rethink/reuse with their audience. Fans will see the evolution of the shirt from one influencer to the next and be encouraged to create their own wardrobes starting at Value Village.
In total, ZEFR activated Top Canadian Fashion/Lifestyle influencers Alex Centomo, Adelaine Morin and Brianna Renee to create custom content for the Canadian brand. The fashion-forward influencers were activated across a 3-month campaign flight to grow engagement during the campaign, each waiting to post content until they received the Value Village shirt in the mail from the previous influencer to add their own DIY touches to. Value Village turned to ZEFR for their expertise in social video in the fashion space, knowing that video formats like DIY Fashion and Lookbooks resonate with the core female audience, especially when executed by highly relevant talent.
While the goal to divert textiles from landfills is still being achieved and measured by Value Village, the results of the "Give a Sh!rt™" campaign have already helped contribute to the greater goal. To date, there have been over 100,000 total likes, comments, views and shares of the content and awareness continues to grow daily. These 100,000 total engagements have been achieved across multiple platforms including Instagram, Facebook & Twitter. Support for the program among audiences has been incredibly positive:
tae_limThis is an awesome idea!! Clothes are a HUGE factor to global warming as old/worn out clothes all end up in landfills. DIYing clothes is good for the environment and most importantly cute haha ily thanks for the inspo! 😍🍩
kmcrazy8Thrifting is the best ❤️ I more luck finding things I like in a thrift store than at the mall. Plus it's a double bonus of helping the environment and saving money!
