Hello Molly steps into Sydney universities

Dean Blake

21st Aug 2018

Sydney-based online fashion boutique Hello Molly has launched marketing activations at three of Sydney’s top universities in an effort to strengthen its relationship with the student community.

A partnership with UniDays, the activations were dubbed the ‘Hello Molly Campus Tour’ and sought to provide university students fun and excitement, while also giving the online retailer a physical presence.

“It was great to see so many students engage with our activation, we had such a great response from our first university campus tour,” Hello Molly brand creative manager Jasmin Fraser said.

Since launching in 2012, Hello Molly has grown largely through digital channels and social media.

“Being an online based fashion boutique it is sometimes difficult to have an IRL touchpoint for our marketing, as naturally everything for us has its roots online,” Fraser said, adding that the activation gave students, who are used to interacting with Hello Molly through their phones, an opportunity to look up and engage with the brand.

The retailer believes this engagement will provide a memorable association for brand recall the next time customers see the brand online.

“This has really shown us the importance of experiential marketing and engaging with our customers outside of a typical e-commerce environment,” Fraser said, “with a digital engagement component of the campaign running alongside our university activations, we have a brand new, engaged audience and database to speak to.”

Hello Molly is not the first millennial and Gen Z-focused retailer to see universities as fertile territory to find new customers.

Asos Australia held a similar activation two years ago, with the retailer’s country manager Carly Cazzolli telling Internet Retailing at the time that students are highly engaged in fashion, social media and digital content.

“From Asos’ perspective, students are strategically very important to us,” she said.