balupton
commented
10 years ago /cc
@orendav as you're in the custom clothing industry, what are your thoughts on this idea? Do you think it could hold weight in other areas? Do you think the partnerships are viable?
@strevat as I know you're interested in activism and are a great designer, what are your thoughts? Do you think there could perhaps also be partnerships with designers to design the shirts? Would activist designers likely design the shirts for free themselves for others to improve and use?
The Problem: Which shirt performs best?
As a vegan, I believe in my cause. Part of that of that belief, is being an activist to help inform people of common misconceptions and raise awareness of grim realities.
Clothing is a fantastic way to raise awareness of this, partly because you were it all day and people see that. Also they serve as a quick way to get over a fact that can initiate a conversation or thought.
However, a large problem with this - is which shirt to buy? If I go with this shirt, will I get my face punched in. If I go with this shirt, will it have any impact at all?
To illustrate this, veganism shirts are in two categories:
Personally, I feel things like the happy vegan options to self-fulling to make a difference, and the righteous vegan options a bit too confrontational and opinionated to achieve enlightened and thoughtful conversations.
Which is a problem, as I definitely want a shirt, but I want a shirt with a high conversion rate for my cause.
The solution: Shirt analytics and discussions for informed choices
It is a hub where people can discuss how there shirts are performing. What type of discussions does this shirt promote. Does it get your face punched in, or does it help someone realise something new? Does it spark that many conversations? Do those conversations feel good?
With all this information, people can select a shirt with high conversions, and the level of confrontation that they are comfortable with.
How it could work
People can design a shirt on third party websites, as well as link to existing shirts on existing websites. From a technical standpoint this provides leverage and reduced complexity. From a end user perspective it provides instant relevant use. From a business perspective it provides partnership revenue opportunities.
With this shirt listing on another website, they post a link onto our website. We extract the image from it.
On our listing, people can then engage in discussions about how the shirt performed. More or less in a review styled comments system.
When you post a review, you are asked about particular metrics - "how many interactions did this shirt spark? were they positive interactions? did they lead to conversions?"
Initially, it could just be simple text based commenting perhaps even via disqus to keep things light. With metrics added on top later.
Example flow
I'm considering designing a shirt "You wouldn't steal breast milk from a baby" with a picture of a baby feeding from it's mother, than on the back of the shirt "Would you?" with a picture of a baby cow feeding from it's mother.
I'd like to gauge with other vegans on there thoughts, and perhaps improve the formatting before it goes to print. I use our website to do that.
We then print it off, and start posting comments on how well it performed. And enter discussions about people's concerns wearing such a shirt, as well as relevant material for them when they enter into an interaction to make sure they have the facts ready.
Over time the rating of the shirt, the conversion rate that is, will appear from the comments, it will be listed accordingly in order on the website.
When I'm ready to buy more activist shirts, I can just search for my cause, find the best performing shirts, and fill my wardrobe.