French Connection: Move over f-commerce, the YouTique (YouTube boutique) is here

by Paul Marsden
in Social
— 8 Oct, 2010

With other brands jumping on the f-commerce bandwagon, French Connection (UK) has just gone live with a social shopping channel on YouTube – the Net’s third most popular website that is also the search engine of choice for Gen Y. YouTique is a ‘YouTube boutique’ showcasing French Connection gear and offering personal shopping advice (somewhat kooky – see below) that links seamlessly through to French Connection’s e-commerce site via YouTube’s annotation tool repurposed as a buy button.

Like f-commerce, which is still embryonic, YouTube commerce is in the very earliest stages of development, and it is easy to dismiss French Connection’s social shopping channel as simply video and comments linked to a store. But with Google TV just around the corner, it’s a safe bet to think that the future of social commerce will see YouTique as a v. 0.1 of the video-based future that what was to come.

And sometimes the simplest ideas are the best – the French Connection YouTique – YouTube videos with annotated buy buttons – is social commerce that is elegant in its simplicity. Imagine where this could go. A YouTique on/off button on all music videos, TV series, and movies on YouTube – that displays a YouTube buy button on gear you are interested in (based on your personal likes), all within a YouTube-integrated shopping cart. It’s product placement for the YouTube generation – and with a digital trace to sales.

Less dangerous to brands than French Connection’s recent ChatRoulette contest and less risky than the increasingly ubiquitous sponsored haul video (you never know what those shoppers will say…), the French Connection YouTique is a simple, smart and safe way to harness YouTube as a social commerce channel. We Like – in a YouTube Like sort of way.

Introductory video to the French Connection YouTique…

And some YouTique shopping advice – with YouTube buy buttons…

But we still love you Blair – queen of the haul video!

Tags: Frech Connection

— Paul Marsden

Psychologist specialising in consumer psychology, innovation and technology. Author, speaker and researcher for consumer brands, technology companies and marketing agencies.

10 comments on “French Connection: Move over f-commerce, the YouTique (YouTube boutique) is here”

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Fabio De Bernardi on October 8, 2010 at 11:20 said:

Interesting move by French Connection, I like to see big brands exploring new ways to engage and interact.
A fellow UK start up – http://www.quick.tv – is doing something similar (and neater) for any business and I guess they’re aiming at what you envisaged when saying “A YouTique on/off button on all music videos, TV series, and movies on YouTube – that displays a YouTube buy button on gear you are interested in (based on your personal likes)…”

I’m looking forward to seeing how this area develops!

Reply ↓
Julien C on October 11, 2010 at 09:55 said:

This is also called Plinking (Product-linking) : http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/114/next-emerging-web-jargon.html

If you read French, you should have a look at http://www.plinkers.fr/

Reply ↓
- Paul Marsden on October 14, 2010 at 17:07 said:
  
  Merci Julien, je conaissais pas l’expression plinking. Interessant.
  
  Reply ↓
  - Julien C on November 2, 2010 at 12:38 said:
    
    Hi Paul,
    
    do you read French? If so, I wrote a book that I’d be glad to send to you (http://amzn.com/2953801200)
    
    Cheers,
    Julien
    
    Reply ↓
dirk worring on October 18, 2010 at 08:25 said:

A while ago, I was really impressed how Ad Agency Boone Oakley (www.booneoakley.com) totally neglected to build their own website, but instead using the just introduced annotations tools and only (till today) have a series of youtube vids as their only website replacement.

So it was a matter of time, until somebody would jump on that train to use it more excessive for commercial use. This example is great, well executed.

What they could have done better, is pausing the video for a while (you can do this in the editing options of your youtube video). Because one thing still sucks at youtube: video ends and gives you are black dimmed version where you can´t click anymore.
Maybe this will be a future option for paying customers and then it is almost perfect.

Thanks for the link Paul.

Reply ↓
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