Ep.1: From DTC with Gen Z to Merc Rx
How Telfar dominates DTC with Gen Z, what the ANA Masters of Marketing sponsor roster says about the state of the metaverse, and why Optus' data breach is a peak Mercury Retrograde moment
Telfar’s rainbow drop
A few days ago I waited in a virtual queue for the privilege of purchasing an eggplant- colored luxury handbag.
The (30-minute) wait eventually killed my impulse to buy, but that probably didn’t stop thousands of other women around the country from grabbing a Telfar bag during the brand’s “Rainbow” sale.
Telfar is a prime example of how to build a multi-million dollar DTC brand by leveraging word-of-mouth, social commerce and youth culture. (Because of course, I learned about the “Rainbow drop” from my squarely Gen Z sister).
By releasing limited edition drops online, Telfar creates scarcity and fervor around specific production runs, and mobilizes tens of thousands of sales in a short period of time.
It’s a strategy that’s led to the brand being name-dropped by Oprah and Beyonce, founder Telfar Clemens being featured on Good Morning America, and inspiring such devotion that people will wait online in a virtual queue to buy.
(Others will pay for the privilege of waiting even longer — up to six months — by using Telfar’s Bag Security Program that guarantees delivery of a bag in their desired color at a later date).
Telfar also does this while being Very Black and Very LGBTQ+ friendly.
Which may be why it won’t look like most of the case studies that I’ll hear/see during the ANA Masters of Marketing Conference in October. (Although, I feel like the Retail Brew team might spotlight this kind of thing at their upcoming IRL event The SKU).
Speaking of which …
No metaverse for Marketing Masters
Will you be at the ANA event in Orlando next month?
I’m headed to the Masters of Marketing conference the week of Oct 25 to do some interviews with Beet.TV, and looking forward to chatting with some smart people about the future of big brand advertising & marketing.
The program agenda looks good, but what piqued my interest most (aside from not seeing any really successful DTC brands featured) is who the sponsors are:
Media Companies:
Including A+E, Bloomberg, Disney & Comcast. Worth noting that G/O Media and DotDash Meredith are holding court as the only two publishers that don’t have linear / broadcast TV backgrounds.
Adtech meets TV platforms:
Vizio and Simulmedia and Teads and TiVO and … So many other companies that each offer a slightly different flavor of buying and/or measuring and/or targeting for TV. (The team at TVRev does a great job of categorizing it all, btw).
And since an event’s sponsors are a barometer of who thinks the audience and the content format is valuable — the absentees are also very interesting.
Notable omissions:
TikTok - Everyone’s darling … except the traditional, big brand marketers? (Or maybe with all the collaborations & ability to wildly sell lots of products on its own, TikTok doesn’t feel the need to pay to play in this particular way).
Roku - Seems like they’d want to court direct relationships w/ big brands, but maybe not?
No metaverse partners - Outside of Snap & Meta, of course.
SXM - This may be a category exclusivity thing, because Audacy is there, and IHeartRadio is sponsoring the marquis performance by Michael Bublé.
Key takeaways:
It’s safe to say that adtech has finally infiltrated (infected?) the “linear TV” market.
Audio / radio has kept up to meet the changes in audience behavior (e.g. the shifts to podcasts and streaming) and help brands bridge the gap
But the metaverse still hasn’t quite cracked the code for legitimacy in terms of securing big brand dollars.
When Mercury Retrograde gets too real
Optus, one of Australia’s largest telecoms, is in the midst of a very bad customer data breach (although it de-escalated from a “hacker holding people’s data hostage” situation).
Aussie astrologer Mystic Medusa has a provocative take on the connection b/w the hack and Mercury Retrograde (as well as the broader themes of Pluto in Aquarius). An excerpt:
To put it in perspective for non-Australians, [Optus] is akin to America’s Verizon or Vodafone in Europe and to say “hack” is flattering.*
Telecommunications companies are already supremely annoying and a number one perp for any Mercury Retrograde fuqery but this situation raises deeper concerns that go beyond transient inconvenience
Indeed, the breach even has the Australian government working with the FBI to figure out what happened.
Meanwhile, here’s my own Merc Retro anecdote for context:
I’m working with a production company to build an exhibit for an upcoming trade show. This includes precise measurements of materials (e.g. the size of walls in meters and millimeters), the exact placements of support wires for rigging a banner from the ceiling, as well as details on things like insurance coverage and the number of hard hats required. (No, I’m not kidding).
The production company (and the trade show) is in Portugal.
We are based in the US.
So layer in nuances in language, different ways of measuring (metric vs. imperial) and multiple stakeholders across different time zones.
Of course we hit a snag in terms of getting our designs in by the deadline. Of course details have been lost in translation. Of course, this all had to be done in the midst of Mercury retrograde.
But because I tune into astrology, I knew delays were gonna happen, I am not pushing for anything to be fast, and I welcome every revision of every document. (To me, every revision equals another chance for someone to catch what could be a very costly error).
This is what it means to manage one’s everyday life and business decisions during Mercury retrograde. It’s not panic. It’s not hysteria. It’s just an informed recalibration.
Sundries:
I interchange i.e. & e.g. pretty frequently, so this was an fun and enlightening Twitter thread:
Test your “Astro Level” in this quiz by Astro Butterfly (How advanced of an Astro student are you?)
More on the power of social commerce from my Cannes interview w/ Twitter’s Chief Customer Officer Sarah Personette
That’s all for this edition.
LMK how your retrograde is going, if/whether you’ll be at the ANA event in October (or The SKU in NYC), and any DTC brands that you think are crushing it in social commerce.
And thanks for reading!