Barbour readies first social commerce drive for Land Rover tie-up (but it still hasn’t replaced global e-commerce head)
Barbour wants to be seen as a retail innovator, selling its latest Land Rover Rugby range directly within Twitter despite failing to replace its global ecommerce chief who stepped down from a 4-month tenure in January.
England Rugby captain, Lawrence Dallaglio, features in the campaign
From Monday (17 August), Barbour will be the first UK retailer to trial Twitter Collections, a feature that lets brands promote a full range of products from their page before giving customers the option to go directly to Barbour’s e-commerce site.
Barbour will use the feature to launch its new Barbour for Land Rover Rugby range – a capsule collection to celebrate both brands' connection to the sport.
The trial comes despite a reshuffle at Barbour, which saw ecommerce chief David Cottage step down just four months into the role. He was hired to help realise the retaler's aims of becoming “the best British lifestyle brand worldwide by 2020”.
Commenting on Barbour’s launch on Twitter Collections, global digital marketing manager Joanna Lambert, said: “Given how engaged rugby fans tend to be on social media, we decided that the Barbour for Land Rover Rugby range would be the perfect collection to launch on Twitter Collections, especially with it being such a special year for Rugby in the UK with the impending World Cup.
“Barbour and Land Rover are both brands that are steeped in heritage whilst being known for always evolving to offer modern customers what they need, so it’s very exciting for us to be at the forefront of this innovation in social commerce”.
Barbour follows a string of brands leaning heavily into social media to test direct selling strategies. Last month, Coty created a pop-up Twitter shop for the launch of Katy Perry’s new fragrance Mad Potion, which generated 12 tweets a second at its peak. Similarly Nike launched a shoppable Instagram feed for its @nikewomen handle, which allowed fans to click on an image before being taken to the product page for the item. Nordstrom, Target and Michael Kors have also trialed shoppable feeds on Instagram.