July 18, 2008

Call it mega marketing. Ladies from Flirt, a local lingerie shop, have carved out a new niche for themselves in the Charlottesville social scene.

Business is good. And now, buzz is beginning, but it's not the product that's stirring up all the attention. It's the promotion.

Lingerie Shop Owner, Allison Hurt says, "We've just been doing it for fun, for [the] extension of the marketing, PR concept at Flirt. But we do anything from pouring wine and greeting guests...to we're gonna be at a local media event in August where we'll be getting the party started."

It started as a local lingerie shop here in Charlottesville, and now it's generating a lot of buzz because of these "flirtresses."

Liz Withers hired the models and she says, "People use these promotional things all the time."

Liz Withers has hired the "flirtresses." She has them pump up her events at the Woodlands of Charlottesville.

"You'll find that when these girls go to these parties, everyone's having a good time," Withers says, "They're helping to promote the event. Many more people show up."

"It is Charlottesville so it is a bit conservative," adds Hurt. "So just as I had some flack about this lingerie store near the University...people's first thought were 'oh my gosh, girls for hire."'

But these women are not for hire. They're for publicity, and they're raking it in.