Our solution was to temporarily eliminate cost barriers to Blu Dot furniture by celebrating creative currency. The Blu Dot Swap Meet was a 2-week online community auction where participants bid for items by posting creative offers on Blu Dot’s website. If Blu Dot liked a bid, the swap was accepted. A quirky instructional video featuring indie rocker Har Mar Superstar spread the word about the swap meet within the design, music and pop culture communities – introducing the brand to a whole new creative marketplace.

In total, 2,000 people uploaded bids for furniture and 36 were accepted. More than 60,000 furniture-hungry and curious visitors stopped by, with an average session duration of 8.5 minutes. Social media was a large driver, with more than 14,000 visitors from Facebook and nearly 3,000 from Twitter.The Blu Dot Swap Meet gained attention from the LA Times, GOOD Magazine and Fast Company's Co.Design, who called the project ‘genius marketing’. And by its second day, the swap meet was the No.2 trending topic in Minneapolis (behind, ironically, ‘budget deficit’).