2012 aiga minnesota Design Show

Blu Dot’s mission is to bring good design to as many people as possible. But not everyone who loves modern furniture can afford it. To increase traffic to Blu Dot’s website during recessionary times, we wanted to create a new type of shopping experience – one that would attract both current customers and an aspirational market.

Our solution was to temporarily eliminate cost barriers to Blu Dot furniture by celebrating creative currency. The Blu Dot Swap Meet was a two-week online community auction where participants could bid for items by posting creative offers on Blu Dot’s website. The entire catalog was available for barter, from a $50 lamp to a $3,000 sofa. Offers started rolling in immediately and ranged from a motorcycle made of 9,000 Popsicle sticks to a share of Enron stock.

Delivery of Work

A quirky online instructional video featuring indie rocker Har Mar Superstar spread the word about The Blu Dot Swap Meet within the design, music, and pop culture communities, introducing the brand to a whole new marketplace.

On bludot.com/swapmeet, bidders created a profile, uploaded their offer, and selected a piece of Blu Dot furniture from the catalog they desired. Bids were ranked based on “likes” from the community, though Blu Dot had the final say on swaps. Simple navigation enabled everyone to easily surf new, accepted, and random bids, allowing for maximum time-wasteability.

The Blu Dot Swap Meet enticed participants to explore Blu Dot’s online catalog not as traditional shoppers, but as players of a creative game. We designed site commentary to enable Blu Dot to chat back-and-forth with bidders publicly. As a result, Blu Dot was able to connect with current and potential consumers not as a company, but through fun, one-to-one conversation.

The Results

In total, 2,000 people uploaded bids for furniture, and 36 of those bids were accepted by Blu Dot. More than 60,000 visitors stopped by the site and spent an average of 8.5 minutes per visit. The project gained attention from the LA Times, GOOD Magazine, and Fast Company's Co.Design, who called it “genius marketing.” And by its second day, The Blu Dot Swap Meet was the #2 trending topic for tweets in Minneapolis (behind, ironically, “budget deficit”).

(Fun Fact: Blu Dot built its business on bartering. Back in the day, the Blu Dot logo was designed in exchange for a custom treehouse.)