Relationships, Quality, and Duckies
Oct 25th, 2006 by Dan Blank
There is something going on that illustrates just what I love about the web. Not only that, but it involves duckies.
This guy in Brooklyn does a daily video blog each weekday. It is called “the show with zefrank.” His topics are all over the place, but he can talk give Jon Stewart-like commentary on issues in the news, discuss street signs he encounters, or any other rambling from his daily life. He is typically very funny, and he has gained a large following.
Ze seems to be a master of building involvement with his viewers. He often has contests, and regularly features fan submitted pieces. Lately, he has come upon a unique way to turn that fan appreciation into some monetary goodness for his site.
Would you like to sponsor a duckie?
You will notice on the bottom of his most recent video blog entries that there are tiny little duck images, little gem images, and larger duckies. Each of these images was purchased by his viewers for $5, $10, or $50 each. He calls this sponsorship program “Gimme some candy.”
Every time you hold your mouse over one of the ducks, a short appears. That’s it. That is what you get for your sponsorship dollars. So for yesterday’s show, he made a little over $1,000 dollars.
The thing about it is, I find myself scrolling over each ducky to see what they say.
Ze’s idea illustrates just what I love about the web. He built a community online by creating something intelligent and engaging. Instead of constantly trying to syndicate himself, and grow grow grow, he finds small ways to strengthen his relationship with viewers. Even when he thinks of ways to earn money from the site, he sticks to the same ethos, and people lovingly embrace his sponsorship opportunities. How often does that happen?
This appreciation for QUALITY is something that many growing companies face. Companies who are at a crossroads face it as well. An example of two companies, who in my opinion, took different paths when they hit this crossroads are clothing brands North Face and Carhartt.
The “prosumer” trend has been building for decades, and really hit the fashion world in the 90’s. When people discovered the expensive, quality, technical gear of North Face - they adopted the brand as the expensive jacket of choice for trips to the foodstore, instead of trips to the tops of cold moutains, for which the jackets were designed. From what I can tell, the brand lunged on this opportunity to get as big as they could, at the expense of quality. The company’s label is everywhere, but I question their ability to sustain this, and simply ebb out of the fashion scene as tastes change.
Carhartt is another brand that hit this prosumer crossroads with their rugged work-wear. Over the past decade, it has become easier to get Carhartt clothing, but they never turned the brand into fashion wear, and still stick to high quality clothes that perform for their core audience.
I can’t say that one path is better the other - each has its benefits. But one embraced its core audience, and has built its brand by strengthening this relationship based on quality. The other follows trends like the wind, and counts on the coolness of its brand to allow them to find an audience wherever it goes.
Or perhaps I just like duckies.
Interesting take on Carhartt, thanks. (Google beta blog search is a wonderful thing.)
We’ve thought a *lot* about the whole fashion-vs-function thing, as well as who our customers are and what they expect from us. Fundamentally, we know from 117 years of experience that our customers expect durability, comfort and fit from our clothes. If we can do fashion without diluting those core brand attributes, we will. If we can’t, then we won’t. (There’s some new products we’re developing along those lines that’ll be out next year.) We try to make every new product a logical outgrowth of our existing lines, or to fill unmet needs among our existing customers. That’s why we’re launching a women’s line, for instance, or developing workplace-tough foul-weather gear, or creating pants that are appropriate for workplace-casual environments but still able to stand up to a job site. Evolution, not revolution.
Brands are powerful things, but you can ruin one very quickly if you’re not careful — just ask Firestone. At some point during the life of a company, you need to decide if you’re going to try to extend your brand to cover new areas or if you’re going to stick with your sweet spot and forgo some potential opportunities. Very few companies manage expansion well, with Nike being the most famous success story. There’s a long list of companies that tried and failed.
We’re fortunate in that we’re still family-owned, so that we’re not being pushed by Wall Street for short-term expansion with no regard for long-term loss. I think that’s an underappreciated factor in these kinds of decisions.
John - thanks for the comment! You touch upon some great points, and I think overall - the measured growth that you speak of is sustainable and incredibly valuable in the long term. Even the fact that you do a blog search for Carhartt to see what customers say about your brand is indicative of the company ethos. Thanks!
-Dan