I’m excited to share a relatively new brand in the Brands Worthy of a Weekend series. Beija-Flor Jeans is a transcontinental brand born of necessity and unique knowledge. Emilie Whitaker became aware of an opportunity in the women’s designer jeans market when she spent a frustrating day going store to store with a friend looking for the perfect pair of jeans. The friend was willing to spend whatever she needed to get cute jeans – she just didn’t find anything she liked. Emilie’s co-founder (and mother) Kathy had 20 years of retail fashion experience and an intimate knowledge of Brazilian denim – beautiful quality and merciful with a slight stretch.
Emilie and Kathy put their heads together and realized they had a golden opportunity. They formed Beija-Flor (portugues for hummingbird) and began to design and import jeans made with Brazilian denim for the American woman. Beija-Flor started by selling primarily through home shows and direct through their website and word of mouth took off. It’s not everyday you notice a hummingbird logo on your friend’s great fitting jeans.
What makes Beija-Flor a Brand Worthy of a Weekend?
Founding Story – There is a great founding story for Beija-Flor and they tell it well through all of there materials. Even better is the fact that the faces of Beija-Flor are also the masterminds and founders.
Style Variety – While Beija Flor has extremely cute jeans for dressy/fashionable occasions, they also offer more dressy trouser styles, skirts, etc. They aren’t a one trick pony – you can purchase multiple items to weave into your wardrobe.
Size – Beija-Flor jeans are sold in actual true-to-size 0 – 16 (Dear Ralph Lauren Rugby store who only carries 0 – 12 – J’accuse). For anyone who has looked at a $200 pair of women’s jeans that are a size 29 and look like they are made for a malnourished 12 year old – this is for you.
Unique Features – When you fold their bestselling “Jennifer” jean sideways, you’ll notice that the back is higher than the front. This is to help the forgotten woman who is not just standing in a club, but who will sit down at some point and does not want to hang out the back. This jean is guaranteed to prevent you needing to ask for a booth in a restaurant to cover your exposed assets.
Check back tomorrow for What Beija Flor Fans want from a weekend with the brand.
Even for someone who is privileged enough to have some pretty remarkable work weeks, this one stands out. I began the week as a panelist at an event featuring a presentation from Jennifer James of GfK Roper and with fellow panelists Gabby Nelson of Select Comfort and Jennifer Sparks of the Society of American Florists. The Roper presentation centered on the changing trends in attitude and behavior of the American consumer. The Roper presentation contained a lot of great information on the 2008 search for leadership in an increasingly uncertain world and the assembled group had lots of great questions following.
One of Jennifer’s examples of brands allowing consumer to educate each other was new to me. McDonald’s in the UK has an innovative site called Make Up Your Own Mind. From the home page: “The site has been set up for you to find out anything you would like to know about McDonald’s food, business, people and practices“. Customers are invited to submit questions (15,000 to date) and then other customers are invited to serve as reporters/quality scouts to share their findings with the world through the site. They report on everything from the cleanliness of the restaurants to conditions at the farms where ingredients are being raised & grown. The image I included above is from a part of the site that directly addresses the Happy Meal. Charlotte, a teacher and “Mum”, is featured in a video where she investigates how chicken McNuggets are made and confirms they are made with the same quality breast meat as what she could find in the supermarket. The site also frankly discussed the nutrition content as compared to other options for children. The questions appear to be completely uncensored and this transparency certainly makes me think about McDonald’s brand a little differently.
The interesting thing to note is that McDonald’s hasn’t actually changed (or doesn’t claim to have changed) anything about its organization, practices or food. It has just proved that they are willing to share what they are doing and be open to examination. French Fries are still bad for you (if you hadn’t gotten the memo), but if McDonald’s lets you in on how they are made and what the comparative nutritional choices on the menu are, then isn’t it your fault for putting on those extra 10 lbs? By inviting customers to experience the inner workings of the brand, have conversations, and building a platform for them to take place, McDonald’s has diffused our ability to criticize the wizard behind the screen by bringing us face to face with him. Maybe this is the type of effort that Starbucks should be looking into now – reminding the world of their extraordinary business practices – instead of asking us to hatch up the next latte drink or granting us Free WiFi about 3 years too late over at My Starbucks Idea.
OK, maybe that’s stretching it, but this interview with Rick Astley and the LA Times on the topic of “Rickrolling” may surprise you. If you’ve ever been reading a blog or message board conversation and been led to a link claiming to be something relevant that turned out to be a YouTube video of Rick Astley singing “Never Gonna Give You Up”, you’ve been Rickrolled. Cute, but even funnier when the pranks are taken offline and the song has been played live at Scientology protests then captured on video.
The interview reveals that Rick Astley is not living in the past, has a sense of humor, thinks Rickrolling is hilarious, and strongly believes that him taking part or trying to capitalize on it falls somewhere between killing the internet magic and being quite sad:
“If some DJ wants to remix Never Gonna Give You Up and put it out as a record, if he did a good job, I’d be flattered…I think the artist themselves trying to remix it is almost a bit sad, really…Either that or I’ll get myself a pseudonym and remix it.”
This is cross posted from Ogilvy’s 360 Digital Influence Blog.
Check out some wonderful examples of small businesses getting a boost from the blogosphere in today’s WSJ. Bean Bag chair maker Sumo Lounge International was able to work with technology uber-blog Engadget to achieve a chain reaction of business success that that $60k in trade show exhibitions hadn’t produced – getting exposure for his product with the audience that would most appreciate it. 2 years after the initial deal with Engadget, Sumo Lounge has been reviewed by 250 bloggers and has tripled profits.
The article maps tightly to our evolving Blogger Code of Ethics, but also illustrates the golden rule for blogger outreach efficacy – inviting a blogger to participate in an experience is infinitely more powerful than sending a press release. Inviting a blogger to review your product, attend a demonstration, live chat with your engineers, enter your contest, tour your headquarters, etc, is a better course for blogger outreach for 3 major reasons:
- An experience is something that the blogger/social media creator can capture and interpret in their own style, chosen medium, and on their own time.
- Experiences provide bloggers with conversational capital that they can in turn share with readers.
- The final benefit of inviting bloggers to participate in an experience is that, because it is more involved than sending a press release, it will force you to tightly focus on building relationships with the bloggers most relevant to your offering.
What type of remarkable experience can you offer your key constituents?
Forrester Research’s Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li recently published Harnessing the Power of Social Applications in the MIT Sloan Management Review. The article highlights some specific cases of social media being used to address a particular business objective. One of the lessons – leveraging social media to energize sales – featured the Fiskateers, which I was lucky enough to be intimately involved in while at Brains on Fire.
I am particularly thrilled that they chose to interview Fiskateer #99 Wendy Jo Avey (Fiskateer of the Year 2007) and share one of the many “Wendy Jo stories” of her truly remarkable accomplishments as part of the movement. Last summer, Wendy Jo took vacation from her day job and stepped in to fill a role representing Fiskars at an important consumer trade show when one of the (paid) lead Fiskateers fell ill. Not only did she step in, she stepped it up by hand making and distributing magnets made with Fiskars tools. The magnets promoted one of the movement’s mantras – Performing Random Acts of Crafting – and led recipients to the community website. Wendy Jo’s creativity and good works are a great example of the unexpected fruits of Fiskars active choice to invest in their relationship with their current customers as well as their customers connecting with each other. The customers who feel the benefits of that investment will support you in good times and bad.
