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On Tuesday, October 26th, the Open Runway team took their operation on the road to Northeastern University. The purpose of the trip was to tap into the minds of Northeastern University’s MBA Marketing Club and generate some creative and low cost marketing ideas for Open Runway’s launch strategy.

Monika Desai, our CEO, opened up the event with a brief introduction about Open Runway and our mission to open up the runway and democratize the world of fashion. From there, the Marketing Club broke up into groups to brainstorm. This was no easy feat, but the bright minded Marketing Club at Northeastern was up to the task.

Here are some of the ideas that came out of the groups:

Group 1:  Reach out to magazine editors and bloggers and offer them a free opportunity to design their own shoes on Open Runway. Once they realize how much fun it is they’ll just have to tell the world right?

Group 2:  Crowdsource a viral video with Geniusrocket.com. An Open Runway viral video? We love that idea –  especially the crowdsouricng part!

Group 3:  Target a few influential haul vloggers. With these futuristic fashionistas racking up somewhere in the area of 8 bajillion views, how could we go wrong?

Group 4:  Do a local marketing push by targeting local Boston magazines like Stuff at Night, and events such as  Shecky’s Girls Night Out and Fashionably Late Thursdays. We think a local marketing strategy is a great way to get some love from Boston and get Open Runway off the ground.

Group 5: Partner with fashion design schools. Professors can incorporate Open Runway into their curriculum by having students design their own shoes with our design tool as part of a graded assignment. Stylish and educational? We like that!

We had a lot of fun and are looking forward to putting some of these ideas to work as we launch.   We’d like to thank Lynne Sarikas, the MBA Career Center Director, for helping us facilitate the event at Northeastern. We’d also like to thank Katherine Baroutgian and the Northeastern MBA Marketing Club for their time and feedback.

Have some ideas you’d like to share? We’d love to hear them!

Here are some photos from the event.