New era shopping for the digital generation

When we heard that digital shopping site Honeyshed had been revamped, we couldn’t help but pay attention (thanks to Greg Verdino). Honeyshed got off to a not-so-good start about a year ago. It launched in October 2007 as the brainchild of Droga5, Publicis Groupe and Digitas. After a year of hibernating in beta-mode, during which period the maximum number of hits they were able to garner per month was 7000, they recently officially relaunched. It has been billed as ‘QVC meets MTV’ by its creators. The truth of that – ahem – description is for the site’s users to decide. 

The advertising-as-content model, as commented on by Adweek, has been taken up by a handful of sites of late. Honeyshed’s competitors will be TBS’ online commercials site veryfunnyads.com and the yet-to-be-launched didja.com which will be an aggregation of favourite film and TV clips. Anheuser-Busch’s Bud.TV, also following a similar model, flopped early on. The newcomers in the field would do well to learn from their experience. To be honest, Honeyshed has already drawn a range of criticisms, from the fact that it is disconnected with its target audience (17-27 year old fans of pop culture), to a blatant dislike of the site’s hosts (whose resemblance to the original Charlie’s Angels we at Made By Many feel is striking!). To their credit, Honeyshed seem to be listening (they would have to, being a completely digital venture) – they have a rather active Twitter account which they use to communicate with users. 

Nevertheless, the Los-Angeles based Honeyshed has a lot to accomplish in the next few months: projections call for the site to reach 550,000 visitors per month after launch, 1 million by February and 2 million at the end of 2009, according to Adweek. More than 150 brands have signed up to advertise on the site and Honeyshed promises them 9 million content views by end-2009. They have started the ball rolling by entering into partnerships with Glam Media, Heavy and MSN, (as a beginning) to distribute their video content, which they will certainly need to help them hit their ambitious target. 

My comments on the site: it’s got a definite Gossip Girl feel, which is a show that demographic loves, if that’s any indication at all. The creative idea dreamed up by Droga5 CEO David Droga has zing, but whether it can deliver the bucks, only time will tell.