Fashion 2.0: Wal-Mart's woes on FaceBook, while American Eagle and J.C. Penney rule

Fashion 2.0 news: You may remember that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago Wal-Mart's foray into Web 2.0 with its Facebook group called "Wal-Mart Roommate Style Match". I noted that some users from the target, college-aged young people, were using the group as a forum to criticize Wal-Mart's employment policies. But are the other retailers really doing a better job?

I found today a very detailed and interesting article on IT Business Edge confirming Wal-Mart's woes. The auhtor, Anne All, does a great job of putting together a short article packed with useful information and links. Take the time to read her original article.

Wal-Mart's Web 2.0 problems

According to her, Wal-Mart has the following problems:

- The retailer was found to have hired a PR company to create a fake blog, purportedly pushlished by two guys parking their RVs in Wal-Mart parking lots all over America

- Its Web 2.0 initiatives on its retailing site wal-mart.com are timid (e.g. customer reviews)

- its Facebook roommate group is attracting rants from students not really in love with the retailer ( I told you so)

- Wal-Mart is not as savvy as other retailers to target the 13-24 demographic. For instance, American Eagle has "a MySpace page with more than 46,000 friends and discussion topics such as "popped collars yes/no?" (Source: Washington Post).

Great Washington Post article on retailers online

I had missed that Washington Post article, thank you Anne. Yet, I find the article a little too enthusiastic about what Amercian Eagle and especially J.C. Penny are doing online. Here are some other interesting snippets from this article on Fashion 2.0:

- American Eagle is also successful with its 77e website, which mixes reality show and an online video series "titled "It's a Mall World" directed by "Heroes" hottie Milo Ventimiglia. The three-minute episodes follow the adventures of two girls and two boys as they explore the wonders of life, love and working in a mall, all while wearing American Eagle clothing. (see a video episode here, article continues after the video).

It's a Mall World by American Eagle

- Another retailer doing well, with its online reality show about two young designers, Chip and Pepper, is J.C. Penney. Check out their JCP and C7P YouTube page, where you can see Chip and Pepper hiring 4 would-be fashion designers and testing them out à la reality show. (See first video episode here, article continues after the video).

Chip and Pepper "Reality" Show for J.C. Penney

Are the teenagers, like, totally interested in these videos? I doubt it.

Well, I like the concept from J.C. Penney, but I wonder how fresh the idea of yet another fashion reality show is.

It may be because it seems staged that it the first video has attracted only 1 comment on YouTube after a month. Meanwhile, the American Eagle has attracted only 24 comments as of today. I believe that the number of comments real YouTube users leave under your video is a good stick with which to measure the effectiveness of your online video campaign.

It is easy to pick on Wal-Mart (Schadenfreude, anyone?), but I am not sure that teenagers will fall more for things such as the C7P videos. They are nice, but they are really just another form of advertising. Of course, it is, but it shows. The American Eagly videos, at least, are well shot and can be funny. The final goal is to get the merchandise moving out of the door and it seems that it working well for American Eagle's 77e.

What do you think of these Fashion 2.0 initiatives?