Q & A with Diesel USA: Leslie Hall of Iced Media

Diesel partnered up with Foursquare to do a one day promotion in New York for users of the location-based social networking tool.  Foursquare users who checked into a venue within a three city block radius of the Diesel Store at Union Square were then alerted of a special promotion at the downtown flagship.  Once they checked into the Diesel venue, they would have their choice of a specially printed tee shirt in red or purple.  I had a chance to check out the event  (of course, I had to check in myself to get the tee) and had a brief chat with Leslie Hall, co-founder of Iced Media, who is Diesel’s social media agency of record.

FMM: Foursquare is an interesting choice for a Diesel event.  How did you choose this partnership?  And how did you choose to promote the event?

Leslie Hall: It was a good fit, at least from a demographic point of view.  Diesel’s audience is mostly male, between 18-30 years old, and Foursquare users are about 65% male.  So it made sense for the Diesel customer.  So we thought: Let’s do a test.  Location-based marketing is really the future of retail marketing.  Doing this event today for me and my company was really a test: Can you do a Foursquare promotion and bring people into a retail store who otherwise may not have entered that store?   Within the first hour, we saw four people come in and do just that.  To me, that’s tremendously exciting.

In terms of promotion, I really decided NOT to promote it.  Because  I wanted it to be a true test.  I didn’t want one hundred blog features going up beforehand.  I wanted the promotion to roll out in a very organic way.

FMM: So do you think you will try to roll out this event in other cities?

Leslie Hall : It’s definitely not a one-time test.  But today’s event was about learning how it works and coupling the test with consumer behavior.  I still think Foursquare is for early adopters, so something like this might not make sense from a mass perspective.  Foursquare has been a great partner to us.  I get a sense that people who use Foursquare feel like they are members of a club.  So when you as a brand can show people that you totally get it, then you are part of that club too.  It created an additional affinity that you might not otherwise get.

FMM: Tell me a bit more about what you do for Diesel as their social media agency?

Leslie: We maintain the @DieselUSA Twitter profile, conduct blogger outreach and produce and implement brand events such as the livestream of the Diesel Black runway show.

FMM: Can you tell us a bit about the background of your agency, Iced Media?

Leslie: I started the company with a partner in 1999.  Before that, we were at Vibe and Spin magazines, working in the media ventures department.  We saw a huge opportunity to get brands involved in advertorial and original content.  A lot of people were calling us because they didn’t have experience in that area.  So we decided to launch our own company.  The agency is definitely rooted in music and entertainment.  We would actually self-identify as an online grassroots or non-traditional marketing company.  Over the past two to three years, our growth has been tremendous.

FMM: What new social media initiatives do you have planned for Diesel in the near future?

Leslie: We’re really excited about our BE STUPID retail contest right now (Radar agency created the offline component and we are handling the online component).  It’s a contest where people come into the store to get a sticker that reads “BE STUPID.”  They can put it anywhere on their person and then take a picture of themselves and send it to our contest URL or email.  Once a person sends us a “stupid story” – they are entered in the contest to win one of a number of great prizes, such as swimming with sharks off South Africa or cutting a record in Jamaica.

STUPID to Diesel is different from DUMB; to Diesel, being stupid is about being brave and courageous, doing things that are risky that other people may not do.  Another campaign we are working on for Diesel is a partnership with Universal Pictures and the Get Him to the Greek movie.  We’re looking to do something interesting online with Russell Brand and Jonah Hill.  For us, it’s all about finding the right partner for each of our clients.

Discloser: Deanne did take home the Diesel T-Shirt provided during the in-store event.