OSOYOU appoints Unanimis to help advertisers stare, shop and share

Unanimis, the UK’s number one online ad network, has been appointed the sales house for innovative start-up http://www.osoyou.com/, the glossy shopping and social networking site, launching out of London this Summer.

The agency will handle all online advertising, including integrated campaigns and seeking partnerships and sponsorship deals, helping advertisers to fully integrate their brands into the environment, whose brand proposition is ‘STARE. SHOP. SHARE’.

‘Unanimous impressed us with their industry reputation and also their understanding of the need to create branded, integrated commercial propositions in high quality environments to appeal to quality audiences,’ said Osoyou.com MD, Dawn Bebe.

‘The agency will have a unique relationship with the content and commercial team at Osoyou to ensure advertisers harness the enormous capabilities of this sophisticated web 2.0 site and get the best creative result, which will deliver real return on investment’

Osoyou.com is headed up by Bebe, who developed Grazia in the UK, and reinvented Red and New Woman magazines. Bebe quit her coveted role as managing director of Emap Elan last December to set up OSOYOU, which goes live this August. Her latest offering combines retail therapy with social networking, replicating shopping chat and advice amongst friends on the high street - online.

The main feature is the option to create your own "Osome" high street - a personalised shopping space where you build up a cyber ideal of where you would like to shop by "dragging and dropping" brands into a separate file. There will be fashions and looks as worn by celebrities, showing users how to copy the look; hot new product features; and the chance to join any number of groups - "such as the Prada handbag club or the I'm-size-16-and-I-don't-know-what-to-wear-to-a-wedding club", says Bebe.

OSOYOU users will not be able to actually buy clothes on the site, but will click through to retailers' own websites, giving OSOYOU a percentage cut of any eventual purchase. They will be trusting the opinions of other shoppers shown in blogs in this new online shopping community.

Bree Stamp, Client Services Director for Unanimis says ‘OSOYOU.com is a great win for us- the market is ready for a premium female site that offers unique content coupled with community and shopping. It is going to be a huge success and has strong people behind it so we are delighted to be on board from the beginning.’

Mandy Key, Commercial Director for OSOYOU.com says ‘We are delighted to be working with Bree and her team at Unanimis, they understand the importance of the OSOYOU premium brand sell and are in a great position to help us bring the most creative and integrated solutions to our advertising clients optimising the unique functionality and environment the OSOYOU site will offer.’

Funding has come from Bright Station Ventures, the $100m (£50m) venture capital fund that owns half of the blogging company Shiny Media, another of Unanimis’ publishers.

OSOYOU's full launch will be timed to coincide with London Fashion Week in September.