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Client: Vardagen, an Indianapolis-based clothing company, specializes in design and hand-printed apparel. They use eco-friendly processes and are a creative outlet for The Art Press, a screen-printing company.
Challenge: Just in time for the 2010 holidays, Vardagen released the Ugly Christmas Sweater T-shirt. We 
know what you’re thinking – puff paint and appliqués – but forget grandma and think of comfort. These quirky shirts began to build their own buzz on blogs internationally, and Vardagen came to us just nine days before Christmas with the charge of getting more mainstream coverage.
Solution: Bohlsen Group knew time was of the essence. In just eight hours, we wrote targeted press releases and researched and built media lists with more than 12,000 media contacts worldwide.
We began reaching out to these media contacts a week before Christmas, targeting outlets that covered topics ranging from men’s and women’s apparel and the fashion industry to green living and pop culture.
Due to the influx of media contacts, we sent daily (sometimes hourly) results reports to Vardagen, which included outlet interest and T-shirt sample requests.
We supplemented our traditional efforts by using social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, scheduling regular tweets and status updates about the products and the coverage we generated.
Results: While usual lead time for holiday gift guides can be up to six months prior to December, we were able to overcome the time challenge and garner exceptional results that extended beyond Christmas on an international scale.
The shirts were featured by such outlets as Good Morning Sacramento, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Steppin’ Out Magazine, Utica, Winnipeg Free Press, El Paso Times, Skirt.com and Birmingham Weekly. Samples were requested by outlets including The London Times, Us Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, iTV London, Qompendium and BeautyNewsNYC.com.