One of my mantras now that I'm back in the saddle again at Just For Laughs is Change Everything! which ranges from the little jokes we put on our checks to an entire overhaul of our underlying attitude. In between those extremes lies things like our website (coming April 1) and, of course, our merchandising.
Now JFL merchandise has been a sore spot forever, even during my first go-around last century. The designs and stuff were relatively bland and uninspiring (aughhh! see some at right), leading to feeble annual sales and even worse...like having employees wear Montreal Jazz Fest t-shirts while working for us.
So this year, the call went out to a new breed of merch-co. Working in conjunction with Charles Rozon and Marc Beaudry back at our ranch, we chose a hip company called The Cardboard Box Project, which designs entire merchandising lines for artsts like Socalled and the white-hot Arcade Fire.
The result, which I feast my eyes upon only last week, was phenomenal. Three different looks-and-feels (Tourist, Fashion and Funny) for three different customer groups.
But here was my conundrum--To whom do I show them? And when?
On one hand, I want buy-in, so the easy answers are "To everyone. And now."
On the other hand, I want buzz, and a full disclosure may serve to generate backlash, not buy-in. To paraphrase Kenny Rogers (ask your parents or click here), "You've got to know when to hold, know when to show."
On the third hand, I want the truth...but on the fourth hand, sometimes I believe that the consensus is wrong and I'm right.
Oy. All this for t-shirts.
Anyway, here's what I did. Like an old-school stripper, I revealed a little bit at a time to small audiences; "sneak previews" to those whose aesthetic opinion I trusted and to those who I knew would be good "spreaders" (or "sneezers" in Seth Godinese).
It worked like a charm. Not only were the designs universally revered (Phew!!!)*, but I had people come to my office and email me to see 'em.
This time was pretty easy; no better way to see if people would buy and wear stuff than to show it to them before it gets made. But it's not always that cut-and-dry.
Now I get the whole "crowdsource" thing and letting the collective make your decisions for you. However, sometimes when you're running a company, you have to "nuance" the decision and influence its direction.
So...this week's learning? You can't keep a secret these days, but you need not open the kimono (as we used to say in the tech biz) all at once. Take it all off, but one piece of clothing at a time.
And speaking about clothes and t-shirts, wanna see our designs? Click the JFL Merch link below and pray you get the PDF (which has been a little wonky downloading).
We ain't doing all of 'em, but we'll choose a good 18 or so from this batch. Lemme know what you think at andy@hahaha.com.
If you're nice, who knows, I may even send you one once they're done.
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*P.S. What would I have done if the opinion was one of unanimous revulsion? Well, that's where the tough business calls are made. If I really loved 'em, I'd say Damn The Torpedoes and power on full speed ahead. And if I didn't, well, I'd skulk away quietly and re-start with the knowledge that at least, by revealing sparingly and selectively, I'd have mitigated the damage.