Irish startup wins deal for M&S 'shwopping' campaign

DUBLIN STARTUP Betapond has developed the social media elements behind Marks & Spencer’s high-profile “shwopping” campaign, which is encouraging people to recycle old clothing rather than sending it to landfill.

Actor Joanna Lumley launched the initiative for the High Street store and it is ultimately hoped the scheme will divert 350 million items of clothing from landfill every year.

Betapond, the only Irish company to enjoy Facebook’s “preferred developer” status, has created a Facebook app so that shoppers can share details of their shwopping activity on their timeline.

According to Betapond chief executive Declan Kennedy, Marks Spencer is the first British high streer retailer to launch an app for Facebook’s recently introduced Timeline feature.&

“This is a game-changer for us because it is so far out there,” said Mr Kennedy. “It’s probably a year ahead of the market.”

The shwopping campaign encourages customers to exchange an old item of clothing when they buy a new one at any of the 340 MS stores in Britain.

A unique SMS number and QR code is printed on the returns box in each store so that the shopper can easily share their activity and location on Facebook.

“This is really bridging the real world and the social and, by using SMS, it means its not just people with smartphones who can take part,” said Mr Kennedy.

Shoppers can earn virtual rewards for their activity, such as achievement badges and the chance of winning prizes if they are a “top shwopper”.

M&S customers can also use the app to ask other users whether to donate items or not by uploading photos of clothing and then asking the community if they should “shwop or not”. Fans who vote get extra points for engaging in this way and can see where they ranks on the leaderboard.

“The idea is to make it fun rather than just giving people vouchers, but this is a long-term play as well,” said Mr Kennedy. “In six months time, we’d like to be able to show that 100,000 people have shared their shwopping activity.”

Large retailers are increasingly trying to “gamify” their marketing efforts – ie adding elements of gameplay to the process. “They want to do things like making it more social and fun to use a loyalty card,” said Mr Kennedy.

He said Betapond is seeing big demand from retailers across Europe for this kind of work and is engaging with five of the top 10 retail brands on potential projects.

Betapond was founded in Dublin in 2009 by Mr Kennedy, chief operations officer Conor Ryan and chief technology officer Peter Elger.

The company’s business development and sales efforts are now focused on its London offices as it is where large brands marketing budgets are managed.