Kate Spade is hopping on the mobile photo-sharing trend with a new campaign that uses both a third-party application and Instagram to get consumers participating and sharing pictures.

The clothing and accessories retailer is using the Snaps! mobile app and Instagram to push its new KSNY X Darcel line, which is a limited-edition collection created with artist Craig Redman. The primary purpose behind the campaign is to collect user-generated photos while also building up Kate Spade?s social media followers.

?Kate [Spade]?s audience loves photos, and more than that they love photos of themselves,? said Alex Kutsishin, director of business development at FiddleFly, Columbia, MD.

?Photography is at the center of the fashion industry, and photo sharing is at the center of the mobile industry,? he said. ?For a fashion company to incorporate photo sharing into its mobile campaign is simply an evolution in fashion marketing.?

Mr. Kutsishin is not affiliated with Kate Spade. He commented based on his expertise on the subject.

Kate Spade could not comment directly on this story.

How it works
To participate in the campaign, consumers first need to download the Snaps! mobile app for either iPhone or Android devices.

Users are then prompted to create an account by registering an email address and password. A registration can also be made by synching to a Facebook profile to automatically fill in parts of a profile.

Consumers can then find the Kate Spade digital photo booth under the discover tab of the app.

From there, consumers can either take a picture using their mobile device or use a photo from the camera roll on their mobile device and add a themed graphic to it.

There are 11 graphics from Kate Spade?s KSNY X Darcel line that consumers can rotate and scale to create their custom photo.

Kate Spade is leveraging its email database to spread the word about the campaign and is also incorporating mobile-targeted ads as part of the campaign.

The mobile call-to-action via email

Share on mobile
Consumers are increasingly taking and sharing photos via their mobile devices, and Kate Spade is smart to use the medium to build up its social media presence.

Other fashion brands that have leveraged mobile photo sharing to reach young, tech-savvy audiences include Oscar de la Renta and Rebecca Minkoff.

For example, Oscar de la Renta released the images for its fall 2013 campaign via Instagram in July instead of waiting to debut the collection in September magazines as the company has done in the past (see story).

Kate Spade's campaign will also let the brand curate some user-generated content so that it has a better understanding of how consumers choose to interact with content.

Using a third-party app in addition to Instagram is also interesting since Snaps! likely has a smaller, but possibly more valuable user base if consumers come back to the app on a regular basis.

Moreover, Instagram has been a hot market for brands to tap into this year because the social platform has substantially higher engagement levels than other platforms.

In fact, a recent study from L2 Think Tank found that Instagram posts register engagement levels 18 times greater than Facebook (see story).

?People smeared Facebook for the billion dollar purchase of Instagram, but now you have to applaud Mark and his team for having this sort of vision,? Mr. Kutsishin said.

?Mobile devices are taking over the photo industry,? he said. ?Apple promotes that more photos are taken with an iPhone than any other device. Nokia has launched a 41-mega-pixel camera inside a phone.

?On the other side, we have social media which has experienced an enormous push in usage thanks to mobile.?

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York