How Old is Too Old for Trendy?

Christian Siriano launches his new beauty collaboration with Victoria Secret. It is a sweet little group, and sure to be picked up by many a PYT on a shopping bender.

Watching his video, I was struck by something I've heard for the second time in a month: marketing geared toward the 20-something.

When Christian mentioned the "young, trendy girl" could wear the blue eyeshadow OR the nude look, I had to cringe. After years of companies chasing after baby boomers, are they now tossing everyone aside for "youth"? Haven't marketers spent the last 30 years convincing the world they are eternally youthful? That you can have a wrinkle and wear blue eyeshadow, too?

My second experience is around the relaunch of Gap jeans. A brand that is trying to reinvent itself is focusing on winning the 20 something market. Ok, I get the youth thing, but it seems puzzling Gap would not want to woo back the demographic that put it on the map. They'll put 1969 as a historic point on the marketing materials, but they don't want anything that old pushing their jeans?

Are 30 & 40 somethings merely the lost marketing generation? If you fall in this bracket, do you feel marketers do a decent job of addressing your needs?

From A to Z: Amazon becomes sole Zappos stockholder

Breaking News: $807 million in Amazon stock. $40 million in cash & restricted stock. Break out the bubbly! (this is another breakdown going around)

Letter from Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos:

The following email was sent to our employees today:

Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009
From: Tony Hsieh (CEO - Zappos.com)
To: All Zappos Employees
Subject: Zappos and Amazon

Please set aside 20 minutes to carefully read this entire email. (My apologies for the occasional use of formal-sounding language, as parts of it are written in a particular way for legal reasons.)

Today is a big day in Zappos history.

This morning, our board approved and we signed what’s known as a “definitive agreement”, in which all of the existing shareholders and investors of Zappos (there are over 100) will be exchanging their Zappos stock for Amazon stock. Once the exchange is done, Amazon will become the only shareholder of Zappos stock.

Over the next few days, you will probably read headlines that say "Amazon acquires Zappos" or "Zappos sells to Amazon". While those headlines are technically correct, they don't really properly convey the spirit of the transaction. (I personally would prefer the headline “Zappos and Amazon sitting in a tree…”)

We plan to continue to run Zappos the way we have always run Zappos -- continuing to do what we believe is best for our brand, our culture, and our business. From a practical point of view, it will be as if we are switching out our current shareholders and board of directors for a new one, even though the technical legal structure may be different.

We think that now is the right time to join forces with Amazon because there is a huge opportunity to leverage each other's strengths and move even faster towards our long term vision. For Zappos, our vision remains the same: delivering happiness to customers, employees, and vendors. We just want to get there faster.

We are excited about doing this for 3 main reasons:

1) We think that there is a huge opportunity for us to really accelerate the growth of the Zappos brand and culture, and we believe that Amazon is the best partner to help us get there faster.

2) Amazon supports us in continuing to grow our vision as an independent entity, under the Zappos brand and with our unique culture.

3) We want to align ourselves with a shareholder and partner that thinks really long term (like we do at Zappos), as well as do what’s in the best interest of our existing shareholders and investors.

I will go through each of the above points in more detail below, but first, let me get to the top 3 burning questions that I'm guessing many of you will have.

Click here to read Tony's letter for more info and legalese.

Crocs about to go extinct

Free falling from a 2007 fiscal year profit of $168.2 million to 2008 loss of $185.1 million, Crocs are nearing extinction.

In a classic example of too much, too fast, the company expanded in multiple locations worldwide to meet sales demands - 100 million pairs in 6 short years. In a waning economy, and perhaps total market saturation, sales have plummeted. Factories and shipping locations that were shoring up now stand empty.

John Duerden replaced Ron Snyder as CEO this year, and believes Crocs have a revival in niche markets for medical, catering and people with troubled soles. It is rumored George Clooney will be on board to rep the shoes.

Does the company really stand a chance? Growing too fast is almost more deadly than no growth.

The image overhaul may not help. One reason Crocs went where others did not is that they were able to entice men and children to buy. I've seen this new style on and have to admit, they were pretty attractive. But decidedly feminine.

By fall, Crocs, with the popularity of Beanie Babies, could just be another chapter of plastic shoe history to add to Jellies. Do you wear them? Would you miss them?

Biting off more than they can Choo? H&M launches luxury accessory collaboration

H&M launches their first accessory collaboration this November with luxury shoe and accessory line Jimmy Choo.

The line will be available to the masses with a limited rollout. Prices will float under the $300 range. Jimmy Choo proper can retail over $1000 per pair.

It isn't all stilettos either. Men will also have an opportunity to afford staying stylish.

Will the public warm up to such an exclusive line going mass (the art of massclusivity)? If past launches of lines in Target, TopShop and the like are any indicator, there will be long lines and sold out success at the end of the day. Mark your calendars, shoppers.

Spotlight: Teecyle Tim of Teecyle.com & his SXSW Pepsi Win

This is a transcript from the interview with Tim Cigelske. Photo at left by Troy Freund

~~~

Welcome Back to Solessence BlogTalkRadio, and right now we’re going to have a little Spotlight. We’re going to be talking with Teecycle Tim (of recycled t-shirt biz, Teecycle) and discuss his winning Pepsi's 60 Second Pitch grant.


Why don’t you give us a little background on your company?

TT: Sure. Well, Teecycle started a little over a year ago, and it's kind of a hobby that evolved into a little bit more. It’s still a side business. I don’t know if I should call it a hobby, or a part-time business or what, but my full time job is at Marquette University, and this is growing bigger and bigger by the day. But the background is, it is just a used t-shirt website. It started off with the idea that I just like vintage, old t-shirts, and I couldn’t believe no one was selling them online in a centralized spot, so I just started with the website and it’s kind of picked up steam ever since.

So did you initially do this to boost your own inventory? Or really was it the intent to resell?

TT: It was a good excuse to get as many used shirts as I could in my house, with the rationale, to my wife, that I would get rid of them someday. And I made a deal with myself that I wouldn’t really keep any shirts that I found through this. You know, there are previous shirts in my closet that I wouldn’t get rid of anytime soon. But if I started keeping some of the shirts I gained from this, it would just be game over for our house, because there have been quite a few that have come through the doors, and gone out now, all over the country, all over the world. But the nice perk of it is, I do get to sample the shirts, I do get to wear them, get to model them, get my friends to model them, so it’s a nice little side perk of it.

I think that is one of the fun things about your site, is that you – for people who haven’t visited – you’re putting on these shirts, and you put people in funny modeling situations, then you go all over. How did you come up with that?

TT: Well, when I first started the site I just had shirts on the floor that I took pictures of…

That’s a pretty common format you see (on ebay, etsy)

TT: Right, yeah, pictures of the shirts themselves, and it is really boring. Not just someone visiting the site, but for myself. I’m like “I’m going to get really bored of the business if all I’m doing is taking pictures of shirts on my living room floor.” And I think I first convinced my wife to put them on and go in the backyard. And she had no clue (embarrassed laugh) that her photos would end up all over the Internet. There have been some articles written about Teecycle and they’ve pulled her photo, and it kind of evolved from there. I realized its kind of fun to model tee-shirts all over the city, in all different kinds of situations, and since then we’ve done photo shoots everywhere from Lake Michigan to the Washington Monument to the National Mall in Washington DC to when we go hiking. Just wherever we can just to add an element of fun when you throw in a silly photo shoot with it.

So you’re saying it’s a hobby, but even as a hobby you’ve got a lot of things to do to get it all into an action. Did you have this name beforehand? Was it a nickname into a business, or has the business handle become the nickname?

TT: Oh the Teecycle? The origin of the name, I had some lame name to start with, like The Tee Shirt Recyclery or Shirtcycle or something, and my wife Jess is like, “That’s not going to appeal to many people if you call it that.” I don’t know where it came from exactly, Teecycle. It became my online entity. Merged into one where Teecycle Tim became a way to market Teecycle.



It seems to have all flowed so easily for you. Have you had any real challenges up to this point? You’re getting press, selling shirts.

TT: I guess you hear this from most people who start projects that grow more than they expected it to, but it is more work than I thought. I’ve now kind of reinvented the format a few times. It started out as, well, it was going to be a website first and I thought that was just going to be too hard, so it became a blog. And I’ve changed it from Blogger to WordPress, and now I have my own software, so I’ve migrated it to that. Just some of the format changes and how I have just had to deal with certain things that came up – like shipping overseas. That came up pretty early on. I was thinking, you know, this is a small potatoes sort of thing, and right after I got started it got picked up by a t-shirt blog in San Francisco. I immediately started getting orders from England and I’ve had orders in Australia and Malaysia and, it’s little things like that you didn’t plan or expect in the beginning that you learn to deal with along the way.

Who knew? Now, do you have any outside help at this point, or is your wife working with you (other than in the “unsuspecting model” position)?

TT: (laughs) Yeah, I think we trade me doing household chores for convincing her to model as much as possible. We definitely bartered – you do the dishes and I’ll model for you now. She’s definitely now doing more of the business side of things that I don’t necessarily have expertise with. She has a background in management so it works well with that. But it’s been primarily me, and then an outpouring of support from people who have like-minded environmental ideals on the Internet, and a lot of local business and local organizations have helped us out when they can. It’s pretty encouraging.

Do you have an idea of how many shirts you’ve shipped worldwide?

TT: I don’t know how many I’ve shipped worldwide. I think about 329 total. I keep a running tally on the site, so I don’t know globally, but Europe, Asia, Australia, North America, so a couple more continents to go, but we’re getting there.

You’ll probably hit them, especially after the news of this award. Now, Pepsi thought your simple idea was pretty impressive, and gave your a $4500 grant. Congratulations.

TT: Thank you.

There was a lot of competition for that – why don’t you give us a little background.

TT: Sure. It was kind of just a whim I entered that contest. There was a “60 Second What’s Your Pitch” contest. All you did was call a number and say in 60 seconds or less why you have a business idea that’s both viable from the business side, and has a positive impact on the community. When I got the first email from them I was expecting it to say “You didn’t qualify.” Instead it said “You are a finalist,” in this nationwide contest, and a couple of weeks later I got an email that I again was not expecting that said “You’re the winner”. So I ended up getting a $4500 grant, which is kind of overwhelming for a company whose only revenue has come from selling $7 used t-shirts and donating a dollar of that to a local non-profit. Now, suddenly having a budget. So we have to be smart about what we’re going to use it for and plan on the long term, hopefully, and not just “Oh we have this money now, what should we do with it.”

Will Pepsi offer you any guidance on it or are they just cutting you a check?

TT: No, they are just handing it over, just mailing a check. Fortunately in Milwaukee there is a pretty good budding entrepreneur business organization named BizStarts. I have not been very active with them and I hope to be more active in the future. And because I work at Marquette, it is kind of a nice deal that they are starting a certificate of Entrepreneurship this fall and it’s good timing. I’ve enrolled in that, so during the Fall I might get more business savvy, more business sense to go along with this crazy idea.

You’ve got a real life lesson for the class.

TT: Exactly.

Now, you also mentioned the dollar donation. That’s pretty cool. You are doing green in two different ways: 1) recycle t-shirts, which would normally end up in landfills and 2)donations. Let’s talk about the donations you are making.

TT: When I first started this, a couple of things: I had done river cleanups, we live right by the river, and I wanted to help a non-profit. I’d also read, right around the time I’d started, a great book I recommend to everyone called “Let My People Go Surfing” by Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia. It’s a really quick read, but he lays out his business and environmental philosophy and what they’ve done to be as green as possible, an eco-friendly company. And in their goals, they don’t even have to make a profit, they just have to take care of the environment as best as they can, and profits will take care of themselves after that. So I figured if I am using these shirts in one way to be environmentally friendly, I can also give back. So early on I formed a partnership with the River Revitalization Program and donate a buck to help rivers and trails. To date it’s been over $300, and it’s kind of nice.

I read once, I can’t remember who said it, but someone made a comment that you were one company that did so much with so little, and it is true. You said it’s such a little idea, but it has made a lot of people happy, contributing a lot to the area, and, obviously you are getting rewarded back already, so congratulations.

TT: Well I really appreciate it, thanks for the kind words about that.

Visit the site, Teecycle.org, to check out current inventory or donate a gently used shirt.

Max Factor pulls out of the US Market

Pat McGrath. Giselle Bunchen. Carmen Electra. Old Hollywood. These are a few things a beauty company would kill to be repped by.













Alas, Max Factor had all of these trappings but will still pull out of the US market by the beginning of 2010.













What is ailing the 100 year old company? Strong competitor sales. Rival CoverGirl sales continue to rise yearly according to spokeswoman Anitra Marsh, and are nearing $1 billion a year







Proctor & Gamble, which bought Max Factor from Revlon in 2001, has seen worldwide sales of $1.2 billion a year but seems to fare better overseas. The line will continue to be marketed outside of the US.

This brings an end to the company that developed the first makeup for movie stars, and color matched skin tones. Regardless of where we are now with our beauty, For a look at Max Factor's time line and the revolutionary way they influenced beauty worldwide (indeed, coining the term "makeup") check out P&G's site for the history
or pick up the book about the founder.


From my point of view there are a couple of reasons this brand struggled:

• I remember Pan Stick fondly, as it was what my mother wore. Sadly I don't think formulations kept up with the times, because when I graduated from liquid to semi, I did go back to what was familiar but found it didn't work well for me.
• I think the last campaigns, while getting great modern talent, featured looks that were too esoteric, too out of reach for the modern woman. It seems Max Factor was trying to woo the makeup artist community, when it really needed to go after the masses.
  

I have sentimental feelings toward the brand and hate to see it leave. It is a lovely piece of history for US beauty.