Branding Lessons From Warby Parker...[PT.2]

Neil Blumenthal: Brand Building Through Narrative & Vulnerability from Piers Fawkes on Vimeo.

Neil continues on in his talk speaking about how his brand went through the process of  prioritizing its marketing based on their customers buying priorities. In so many cases, brands craft messages based on their attempt to try to sell you their product or service, however this model is not effective when dealing with customers that are empowered. Brands that take the time to find out what their customers truly care about will come out on top. 

What do your clients aspire for? What are their dreams and goals? What are their preferences? All these questions began to  point any brand manager in the right direction.

Two unpopular words that Neil used that helps Warby Parker thrive in the marketplace is transparency and vulnerability. The basis of his philosophy in the Warby Parker company culture is the more they share with one another, the more a trust is built with one another. In turn, this level vulnerability helps them build deeper relationships not only within their company, but with their customers.

Another takeaway from the talk is having a clear understanding that there is more than one way to tell your  business story. One of the things that drive the WP brand is their need to discover new ways of telling their story. It is easy to get stuck on a certain method or channel to display your company personality.

Lastly, it is important that your company remains authentic and true to the values that you start off with. Customers are very discerning and can call when a company is selling a bunch of BS.


Click here to read Part 1.

Branding Lessons From Warby Parker... [PT.1]

Neil Blumenthal: Brand Building Through Narrative & Vulnerability from Piers Fawkes on Vimeo.

If you have never heard of the eye wear line Warby Parker its only a matter of time. Their glasses are known for their modern and stylish design for a price point that is hard to refuse, $99. However, what makes Warby Parker so unique is their business model that allows them to give one pair of glasses for every one sold. Founder, Neil Blumenthal shares nuggets from the brand meteoric rise in this 18-minute video from his talk at PSFK.

One of the nuggets that he talks about is understanding the power of design. When he worked for a non-profit helping women in third countries start businesses helping supply people with glasses, he noticed no matter where he went in the world that people loved a good pair of well designed glasses that actually look good on them. This insight helps me see how important that any project that I am working on it is important to understand the tastes of the people that I am designing a brand experience for. People want to be apart of things that have an aesthetic that speaks to them and represents.

Another take away from the talk is when Neil was speaking about through his research he found out that 100 of millions of people did not have access to eyeglasses. This finding drove his curiosity and need to find a practical solution. This finding also shaped his the brands business model of giving  a pair of glasses to those in need.

What I learned from this was the need to really identify a large segment of the market to serve. Sometimes we have a tendency of developing a business model that does not fully correlate with the market that you are servicing. The reality is that a business model that is viable and sustainable must be molded and shaped by service. Getting real feedback and responses from the variation and iterations of your products and services in the actual market positions your customers to be co-creators of the product or service that is being provided.

In part two, I will discuss,

• 'The Power of Crafting a Narrative', 
• 'Prioritizing Your Message Based On Customers Buying Priorities' 
• and much more...

What I Learned...

My Business Plan Journey
The two angel investor experts that I researched in my last blog was Kevin Rose and Bruce Schecter. Both successful in their own right, yet both have very different investing styles and philosophies. Working on my business plan thus far has been very insightful journey and has led me to some key findings on how to bring my service to market. 

However, after learning more about Kevin and Bruce it gave me a sense on key aspects that will take my blog to the next step. 

Key Findings from Kevin Rose
The three things that I learned from Kevin Rose and will have an influence on my business plan are the following:

1. Be Realistic.
2. Be Disruptive.
3. Be Passionate.

Be Realistic
One take away from Kevin Rose's philosophy on business plans is staying away from having long-term financial projections,  because things are changing so fast in the tech space. It is unrealistic to try to predict where your business will be 6-months to a year from now. Also, he mentioned that the day of the 20-30 page business plan is over. To him, that is not a realistic notion to think that an investor is going to spend a few days to weeks reading a long business plan they possibly will not be investing in. It is more realistic to keep your plan to 2-3 pages.

Be Disruptive
It is important to present a business model that has the potential to disrupt the status quo market place. In today's competitive society, it is not good enough to be just good. As a business you have to bring something to the table that has the capacity to change the behavior of the culture.

Be Passionate
Lastly, Kevin was very adamant about his ability to sense the passion in your presentation. Your passion about the project could make or break an investment opportunity. I believe Kevin is very aware of this quality because he being a successful entrepreneur knows what it takes to break a company. He knows that when things are not going your way it will be your passion that will carry you through.

Key Findings From Bruce Schecter
The three things that I learned from Bruce Schecter and will have an influence on my business plan are the following:

1. Be Detailed In Your Financial Projections.
2. Be Clear On How You Make Investors Money.
3. Be Smart About Customer Acquisition.

Be Detailed In Your Financial Projections
Unlike Kevin Rose, Bruce is a stickler for long-term financial projections. As an investor he wants to know how you view the financial health of your business overtime.

Be Clear On How You Make Investors Money
He has one thing on his mind and that is how are you going to make his money back. This is highly important when you are looking to use someone else's money to build your business. This component is a must when presenting your business plan to an investor like Bruce.

Be Smart About Customer Acquisition
Lastly, Bruce wants to know how you will acquire your customers from your first to your millionth customer. He wants to know the strategies and tactics you will take to make your business a success. 

Summary
Overall, the changes that I will make to my business plan will be making it a 2-3 page plan that outlines how my business model will disrupt the status quo in my market space, that clearly outlays my financial revenue projections for the first 1-3  months. My plan will have a clear description of my ideal client and how I will influence their behavior to choose my services over others. Most importantly, I will be passionate in my presentation because I will show and prove how I will help my investors gain a reasonable ROI.

The Art of The Investment

Kevin Rose: The Tech Wunderkind
Kevin Rose was once the hottest tech founder in Silicon Valley. Reportedly, gaining millions of dollars on the acquisition of his company along with high-profile investments. The investments he made were in companies that are now household names, such as Twitter, Foursquare, and Facebook. Later Rose was hired by Google to be a partner in their Google Ventures subsidiary where he is given  $300 million dollars a year to invest in the next big thing.

Kevin Rose would call himself a intuitive angel investor and goes with his gut when he sees a company that has the potential to be the next Facebook. In the following video (Click here to view video), Kevin mentioned that he wasn't a big fan of the 20-30 page business plan. Especially if they have financial projections that go out beyond six months, because as he mentioned there is no real way to really do that.

He mentioned that he was satisfied with a 2-3 page plan, that is backed with alot of passion and will to be disruptive in whatever space that is being pursued. Also he stated that along with their plan the company should at minimum have a working prototype of the actual product itself.

Bruce Schechter: The Old School Investor

Bruce Schechter garnered his success at Intel Corporation in various executive capacities. He later began investing in other tech companies with success and now is on the rotating board of investing firm Band of Angels, which is Silicon Valley's oldest seeding organization, according to their website.

In the following video, (Click here to view video) Bruce Schechter explains what is important to him when a potential company pitches him an idea. He focuses not much on the product or service, but point blank how will they make money. He expects to see a business plan that details financial projections and how you will grow the business from customer one to customer one million. He also goes as far as saying that if you do not have a business plan do not bother to pitch to him until you have one.

So what are your thoughts, do you need a business plan to obtain an investment?

House of Cards...(I Mean Content.)

At the center of Netflix's new $100 million original series is, POWER. Each character in the series craves and would do anything for it. However, what is more impressive with this series is the power move that Netflix made that sent shock waves through the industry.

 In grandeur style, with the power of data on their side they crafted a brilliant series that leveraged how their audience was observed to view content. Binge viewing. 

Its been said that people have short attention spans, but Netflix proved them wrong as audience finished the show in less than 3 days. Unheard of in the traditional and linear TV programming world. However, there are many lessons that marketers can learn from this bold content marketing strategy.


In Brandon Carter's Tech Crunch article, Netflix's Content Marketing Secret Sauce Is Wrapped Up In 'House of Cards' he outlines some things that content marketers should consider when producing content for their brand.

The first thing he talks about is that content marketers need to aim high when producing content. This is necessary because content marketers are no longer just competing with their competition within their space, but with the major content platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. Overall, content producers cannot afford to cut corners when creating and distributing content to their audience.

The next thing he goes into is how content producers need be adaptive to audience consumption behaviors.  For instance, Netflix knew that their audience binged viewed the content so they took advantage of that. What looked like a big risk from those from the outside looking in was very strategic on the part of the video streaming company. 

So content marketers need to be in tune with their audience consumption behavior.

Overall,  he wraps up the article by highlighting the importance of audience engagement, tracking and optimization. The assumption that the author made was that when you get your audience to be hyper engaged there is more of a chance to convert to loyal customers.

For content marketers, they must be able to build this engagement into their content marketing strategy. It does not stop there though, they also need to continue to track and optimize if the engagement is authentic.

At the end of the day there needs to be a return on investment of time and money that it takes to produce superior content.

How effective is your content marketing strategy?

[Sources:]
Netflix's $100m Digital Marketing Experiment-'House of Cards'
http://mojomedialabs.com/netflixs-100m-digital-marketing-experiment/

Netflix's Content Marketing Secret Sauce Is Wrapped In 'House of Cards'
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/02/what-netflix-can-teach-us-about-content-marketing/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=statusnet

Once Upon A Time...

It is safe to say that we as human beings are creatures of stories. From cavemen painting stories on cave walls to the 140 character tweet, there is an intoxicating element to a story told well. Telling a compelling story has a powerful way of breaking down the barrier of logic to impress and embed messages into the human psyche.

In the Fast Company article,  Why Storytelling Is The Ultimate Weapon the author challenges brands to spend more time creating content that just does not tell the features and benefits of a product or service, but craft a story around the product or service that compels consumers to lose themselves in the story.

He also points out fictional stories are more effective than writing stories that are based on evidence and argument. Claiming that studies have show that, "...our attitudes, fears, hopes and values are strongly influence by stories.

When I was looking to do a documentary film on a competitive eater it was very important for me to make sure that we were able to develop a story that transcended the "sport". Even if a person did not understand or did not agree with the gluttony fest the story of the subject of the film would be told in a way that would resonate  with the audience.

What I have found that there is more in common with humans than differences and its the story that connects us. The foundational message of the film was to persuade people through an unconventional and in some cases unwarranted means that we are all the same.

We all have the same fears, hopes, joys, concerns, etc. and companies for a long time have failed to show the human side of their businesses. However, they are learning due to the more competitive landscape in the marketplace that they need to look make sure that their company story is embedded into the overarching communication strategy.

What Are Your Thoughts On Your Companies Communication Strategy?

Are You 4G?

The article written by Chris Baylis of Tribal DDB Amsterdam was very challenging. As I begin to put together my creative agency one of the traps that I don't want to fall into is doing business as usual. Using 20th century advertising strategies in a 21st century world does not work. 

The way Chris Baylis illustrates it is the difference between being on a 2G network and a 4G network. He uses the mobile phone network comparison to  show how most agencies take a more linear approach to helping clients create advertising relying on the  traditional advertising methods. (TV, Print, etc.) 

On a greater note even as technology changes, going "digital" doesn't necessarily mean that you are being innovative. Agencies are just digitizing old methods.

I admit I fell in this trap when I was working on my first documentary film for a client. It was meant to be for promotional uses and to help establish the company brand, but looking back I can see that I approached it from a "2G" or "3G" perspective. I pretty much looked at other company's in the same space and looked for ways to make a better product. 

However, now I realize I was following a marketing method that was leading me down the road of just interrupting the audience and not offering any real value value outside of producing a "cool" film. Making the transition from becoming a "3G" creative agency to a "4G" agency is helping clients create culture with their products and services, because consumers are more connected and more savvy than ever before.

Consumers have become the center of the value chain because they have the same technology as the brands have. The power has shifted to the consumer and that can be a hard pill for a lot of agencies to swallow.

Chris Baylis leaves agencies with the following  tips to help upgrade them to 4G:

• Remember that you are in the innovation and disruption business, not the interruption business. 
• Truly understand your value in the marketplace and charge a premium for your services, even in an economic slump.
• If your client's do not want to listen to you find new ones.

What Are Your Thoughts?

"Passion Project", Kareem & CrowdFunding

Passion Project 
I am currently shooting a documentary in regards to the world of competitive eating, at first it started off as a “passion” project. I was very fascinated by the sport through a good friend of mind who happen to be an up and coming competitor.

The documentary, like any project had certain costs that I just absorbed because of the nature of the project, but after listening to this podcast I learned something very significant regarding having the capacity to deduct the expenses that I incur from my main salary.

In the Storey v. Commission of Internal Revenue case the court ruled that the filmmaker, Ms. Storey, “had met her burden of proving that she set out to make a profit in her filming of Smile ‘Til It Hurts.” The court also ruled that she was able to deduct her losses from the income that she earned as a lawyer.

This case will have a positive impact on the documentary film industry as a whole, because in most cases documentary films are most done out of the love of a certain topic.

Kareem's Documentary Woes
I grew up watching the Laker star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I even saw the documentary film that he produced that was based on his book, “On The Shoulders of Giants:My Journey Through The Harlem Renainssance.”  Though the documentary was good, I had no idea how much Kareem had to go through to get the film produced.

According to reports, he hired a film production company for $1 million to have the film due to be considered in the Sundance Film Festival.

The hired production company ends up not following through on the promises of producing a full-length film and caused Kareem not to show the film on his desired date. If I was Kareem, I would have been upset as well, seek $3 million dollars in damages.

My take away from this case is, if I am  hired to do a documentary film for a client. I should take the time to ensure my client that I am able to handle the size of the project.  Also, an area where the production dropped the ball is not getting all required liscenses to include in the film, which delayed production.

CrowdFund Your Next Film
One thing that I have learned in co-producing my first short documentary film is that it takes money to actually make it great. Sometimes, finding investors who are willing to bet on you and your film could be hard to come by. Investors automatically want to know how they are gonna make their money back.

In comes President Obama’s, “JOBS Act”, (JumpStart Our Business Startup Act). This act is geared to help up and coming start-ups get access to capital through an alternative method, called crow-sourcing.

Sites like, KickStarter or IndieGoGo have already been springing up, but this Act will give real investors an opportunity to gain equity in projects.This is good to know as I begin seeking investment to help finish the film.

Podcast References:

Passion project

http://www.entertainmentlawupdate.com/2012/05/episode-031-terminations-taxes-and-takedowns/

Kareem’s Documentary

http://www.entertainmentlawupdate.com/2010/04/entertainment-law-update-podcast-episode-10-use-the-force-big-boy-and-watch-out-for-beyonces-undies/

Crowdfunding films

http://www.entertainmentlawupdate.com/2012/04/episode-30-jobs-act-crowdfunding-limited-editions-and-more/

Industry Liabilities

Viacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc.

File Date: March 2007

Case Summary
Bill Clinton signed a copyright law in 1998 with the help of congress that would help move the United States forward into the digital age. Less than a decade later, that act would supply the legal provisions that would be the basis in which YouTube and parent company Google to protect itself against the global media conglomerate, Viacom International.

The name of that act is called The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) and had a primary intent to limit the liability of the Internet service provider’s from copyright infringement from users.

In this case, Viacom filed a $1 Billion dollar suit to YouTube for the copyright infringement of its users claiming that the video-sharing site allowed users to access over 160,000 Viacom-owned videos without permission.

Conclusion

As a personal user of YouTube, this case sets a precedent for protection of the producer or the distributor of video content. If I am a producer of content that host my videos on YouTube I am in favor of the protection of the DMCA, just in case I use copyrighted material that I may not have known about. 

I think in most cases users are not trying to violate any copyright infringements, they are just using the videos for entertainment value. However, YouTube, must be mindful on how to protect themselves of this type of infringement.

References:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/viacom-v-google-decision

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/07/what-the-viacom-vs-youtube-verdict-means-for-copyright-law183.html

Emeco Industries, Inc. vs. Restoration Hardware, Inc.

File Date: October 2012

Case Summary

Emeco Industries is the home to the 68 year old Navy Chair that has been a staple in its furniture business from the very beginning. Over the decades the chair has been a symbol of that timeless American spirit of quality craftsmanship. 

One chair sells for $495 and goes through a process of 77 steps from beginning to end. Recently, Restoration Hardware, a leading luxury furnishing retailer, "knocked off" the Navy Chair with a version of their aluminum chair that is of lesser quality and sells for only $169. 

According to Emeco's press release, they filed for a preliminary injunction in US District Court, that blocks RH from,"manufacturing, marketing, advertising, and selling" their version of the iconic chair.

Conclusion

One aspect of my business will be creating physical objects that help become a staple in the brand that I am helping to build. This case is a classic example on making sure that I do due diligence in the beginning to file for all trademarks surrounding the product. I personally believe Restoration Hardware was fully aware of their version of the Navy Chair.

 In my opinion they should have went directly to Emeco to get licensing rights to the chair or just do a collaboration of a similar chair at a lower price point.

References:

Emeco's CEO, Greg Buchbinder

http://vimeo.com/52378321

http://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/5:2012cv05072/259495/

Penguin Group, Inc. vs. American Buddha, Inc.

File date: January 2011

Case Summary

According to its website, American Buddha online library, "makes available selected artistic and literary works under a system of voluntary, free online lending, under the fair use exclusion from copyright liability." They make these works available to 50,000 members for free. However, Penguin Group, who is an independent book publisher based in NYC who found four of their books that were uploaded to the site without permission and filed a copyright infringement suit against them.

Conclusion

This case got a little messy, because American Buddha was banking on the copyright implications only on "printed literary works" and thought that its users would be protected the DMCA. This is a lesson in making sure when producing and publishing literary works to make sure that the same legal ramifications and protection is applied to the print and the online version of any work to ensure protection.

References

http://www.american-buddha.com/abol.toc.htm

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9b9dd03e-3ac7-4457-b7ec-8215ad39adde