Honeyshed

It’s official. Honeyshed has launched.

If you haven’t heard of it yet here’s the pitch… pure and simple… It’s QVC-meets-MTV-generation. Very ambitious idea but an interesting mash-up of concept, demographic, and technology. Founder and chairman is David Droga. His pedigree includes being Worldwide Chief Creative Officer of the Publicis network, Executive Creative Director of Saatchi & Saatchi London, and Regional Creative Director of Saatchi & Saatchi Asia. Mr Droga is heavyweight champion of Ad awards with a track record of getting over 50 lions (the most awarded creative at the Cannes International Advertising Festival).

(Comme des Garcons wallet, $185)

Flash forward to 2006. David gets bit by the DIY bug after years of building visions for other major corporations. He finally opens his own banner called Droga5 in New York. Droga5 was the agency responsible for the famous guerilla video of Marc Ecko (of Ecko clothing) where he tagged President Bush’s Air Force One jet with the words “Still Free”. The clip was anonymously dropped on 20 websites. Then 24 hours later, it was the most viewed and discussed video on 3500 + websites (see original video here). It turns out, the whole video was a brilliant hoax that furiously traveled the internet. After the prank, it got even MORE media! Every major network and over 100 major newspapers covered the graffiti scam — it even got the attention of the White House and the Pentagon. Online analytics counted 23 million unique visits in the first 2 weeks only — with a total combined print+press audience of 115 million. Media dollars spent on broadcast and print? ZERO. Truly a victory and recordbreaker for viral video marketing. Conclusion is David is the only person to win “Agency of the Year “ in four separate countries.

Back to Honeyshed, his new baby. It’s Home Shopping Network with a street sensibility. The shopping cart instead is called “Stash”. We asked David a few questions about the big launch last week.

(European Inspired Lingerie, Carol Malonv Bras, $40-45)

Jauretsi: Who came up with this idea of an edgier QVC? Any interesting tales about the birth process of doing something so different?

David Droga: HoneyShed was the brainchild of a collection of industry friends in 2005. It was Patrick Milling-Smith (co-founder of Smuggler), Brian Beletic (director at Smuggler), Jae Goodman (currently at CAA), and me (pre-Droga5). We decided that the time had come for a more playful digital shopping site … a place where like-minded brands could come together and be transparent about their sell.

We wanted to make online shopping fun, silly, informative, and social… a site that could act as the pre-commerce to everyone else’s e-commerce sites. We also wanted a destination that allowed brands to have spontaneous and authentic conversations with their consumer. The objective was never to be creators of entertainment but rather curators of desirable brands. We then pitched the idea to Maurice Levy (CEO of the Publicis Groupe), who agreed to back this exciting venture. In late 2006, a joint venture was created between the Publicis Groupe + Droga5 + Smuggler.

(MPC-4000 player, the drum machine used by Kanye West and Dr. Dre, $2,299.00)

What is the role of Droga in relation with this channel?

Based out of LA and NY, HoneyShed is its very own ecosystem. With its own P&L, offices and staff, (CEO, CFO, production staff, sales teams and creative department). But while Droga5 and HoneyShed are completely separate entities, they do share the common element that I’m the Chairman of both. I was instrumental in putting the together the team that built and designed Honeyshed which includes the amazing Brian Beletic and Kim Howitt (formerly of Viacom). Together they established the Honeyshed look, attitude, and feel. Honeyshed is not a traditional creative department. It is a pool of young freelance directors, producers, researchers, writers, and editors. It is worth noting that almost all of them are actually within our desired demographic. This allows for greater versatility, spontaneity and an ability to collaborate more. Turn-around time for creation is weeks not months. Droga5 has been working closely with Digitas to handle all the advertising and marketing for the Honeyshed launch.

(Disney Couture, Tinkerbell Bamboo Hoop Earrings, $92)

How did the opening weekend go?

We’ve come out of the box strong. The site was in really good shape for the launch and we’ve made some further tweaks to make it run faster and better to smooth out a couple of small bugs (can’t launch without a couple of bugs). The audience is building quickly, and people are staying on the site and looking at multiple channels and videos. We’ve gotten a lot of good positive feedback and reaction, and a few blasts in the blogosphere, but HoneyShed really seems to be engaging people and getting them talking! We’re not for everyone, but our target audience is responding very positively. Bottom line: “opening weekend” has more than met our expectations!

(The doPi Karaoke System that plays through your iPod, $44.95)

Where do you see Honeyshed going in the next 5 years in terms of e-commerce?

Honeyshed should always be evolving. By collaborating with a myriad of creative and listening to feedback we aim to be a nimble site. Staying relevant is only possible if we have the freedom to react and innovate appropriately. Obviously we have no desire to be one dimensional. At the moment Honeyshed is deliberately silly, fun and casual, however in the future we may want to include more expertise for appropriate categories and more boutique UCG. As e-commerce continues to grow on the web, Honeyshed will be poised to continue to deliver an evolving home shopping experience to our audience. Through partnerships and enhanced functionality, we will make transactions easier while keeping them secure, and we will also continue to offer great products, appealing to our target, at good prices. Our discussions with MSN Live Search, for example, are designed to deliver enhanced value and low prices to people who shop on Honeyshed.

(Alexander McQueen’s collaboration with Puma, $250)

We will also evolve a recommendation functionality that will deliver product recommendations based on past purchase behavior and submitted profile information. And we will continue to deliver product information that drives e-commerce in a way that only Honeyshed can! In short, we will deliver on our goals of offering excellent variety of products, including trend-setting cutting edge products (at good values) through secure and convenient/easy functionality. We will also continue to enhance our ability to deliver shopping as a social experience, with opportunities to share and showcase products that pique our shoppers’ interest — also to show off, if they like, what they buy!

To experience the digital shopping experience for yourself, go to Honeyshed.com.

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