Make sure your #ootd is looking extra spiffy today — the world's biggest shoe store will be watching. Today, Fashion and Mash reports that Zappos, the e-comm giant with the blessedly liberal return policy, is rolling out a program called Next OOTD. Zappos is inviting followers to tag their daily outfit pics with the hashtag #nextootd. And, those who do, will receive a personalized shopping recommendation from the Zappos team. Recommendations will be based on both the tagged selfie, and pretty much any other pic in your public Instagram feed. Any and all brunch and duck-face pics will be up for scrutiny, here.
With over 23 million Instagram users posting outfit-of-the-day pics, it's no wonder that Zappos would want to ingratiate itself into this large market of fashion fans. It also sees this service as an extension of its famously un-corporate customer-service policies. After all, in an industry that often cuts labor costs by keeping customer-service calls as short as possible, Zappos is the retailer who boasts that its longest-ever call was nine and a half hours. Compared to that, a scroll through your Instagram feed is probably a walk in the park.
We can't help but have reservations about yet another brand that wants to troll our feeds for marketing purposes. But, with Google already reading our Gmail, and Facebook just happening to place those Tibi boots we've been stalking online in our news feed, it's clear this style of selling isn't going away anytime soon. And, unlike these other marketing methods, which we assent to in the most indirect way by agreeing to, say, Facebook's terms of use, at least Next OOTD is completely, transparently opt-in. If you don't use the tag, they (probably) won't be creepin'.
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So, what do you think? Will you be using the #nextootd to pick up some shopping tips from Zappos? Or, is your fashion sense so flawless that you don't need any help, thankyouverymuch. Better yet, if you have used it, let us know in the comments if the recommendations were any good — or if you wouldn't be caught dead in those booties. (Fashion and Mash)
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