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getting into the motherhood

It's a show so simple in concept you wish you'd thought of it yourself.

Get moms to write in about their wackiest real life experiences and have funny girls Chelsea Handler, Jenny McCarthy, and Leah Remini act out a weekly favorite.

The result, InTheMotherhood.com is *BRILLIANT!*

The show/website's ability to harness corporate sponsorships through Suave and Sprint is destined to be a huge trend in on line media - somewhat akin to soap company sponsorships of daytime dramas way back before Erica Kane married her 12th husband (shameless All My Children humor). 

In The Motherhood has attracted more than 1000 stories posted each week, and the site has become one of the top mom themed destinations on the web. 

The wickedly funny show has gone through two "seasons" and has attracted more than 21 million views.  Webisodes are between 5 and 6 minutes in length and are viewable on suave.com, sprint.com and the Sprint Exclusive Entertainment (SEE) network, which allows mobile access to the content on select video-enabled Sprint phones.

Both Sprint and Suave have strong marketing efforts focused on moms.  

"In the Motherhood creates a unique platform to allow moms to share their stories with millions of other women. Our customers love the show, and our phones and services are the perfect fit to help mothers stay connected," said Anita Bajaj Newton, vice president, media and digital, Sprint in a recent press release.

“[Suave] is on a mission to help Mom remember the person she often forgets—herself, and to make herself and her beauty a priority again,” said Piyush Jain, Suave senior brand manager of her company's sponsorship of the show. 

MindShare Entertainment, a unit of the media services agency MindShare, developed the series about 20 months ago.  It’s a new world out there,” David Lang, the president of MindShare Entertainment, said. “It goes to show that great ideas and great creativity can come from anywhere.”

Mr. Lang said the online campaign was intended to reach busy mothers who use the Web to decompress and share stories. “The content is very honest and authentic for moms,” he said. “It’s not tied with a bow, it’s not saccharine sweet.” It shows grocery store tantrums, vacation mishaps, and other scenarios inspired by true stories submitted by Web users.

The show is now being developed for ABC, and I hope the broadcast version retains the edge and silliness of the net version, which strikes me as a vehicle more appropriate for HBO to sink their teeth into.  Certainly by making this into a network show it removes the interactivity that moms enjoy so much about the concept and transforms it into something else.  But lets wait and watch before kvetching!

For a taste, watch this episode below.  I have more episodes on my vodpod in the right hand column of this blog.

In The Motherhood Grocery Disaster - The funniest home videos are here

Los Angeles Times shines spotlight on kid's clothing trends.

The Los Angeles Times ran a story over the weekend spotlighting trends in the kid's clothing industry.

Naturally, it being based in Los Angeles, the article had a decided celebrity slant.

The article, written by Emili Vesilind, details how some parents style their children based on the much photographed mini-duds of celebrity kids like Kingston Stefani and Suri Cruise.

Of hard sales numbers the paper reports:  "...while women's national apparel sales have followed the economy downward, kids' clothing sales have dipped less profoundly, according to retail research company NDP Group. And sales for infant-toddler clothes are the only clothing sector that's significantly up, from $14.7 million in March and April 2007 to $15.3 million in the same period this year".

It's a fun piece with a great slide show of kid's looks pulled from a variety of companies.   I was quite surprised to read that Suri Cruise actually had a pair of custom Christian Louboutin shoes made for her recently.

DeNai Jones is super hot!

How HOT can one mom be?  Super Hot - this according to people who should know - the Hot Moms Club.

Our client DeNai Jones, head designer at Petunia Pickle Bottom, is the website's hot-mom-preneur this week.

In a very revealing interview, DeNai discusses the trials and triumphs of starting and growing her company (together with her husband, Braden Jones, and best friend, Korie Conant).

To read the article, skip on over to HotMomsClub.com. 

Sarah Jessica's hat debuts in London

Sarah Jessica Parker and her amazing Philip Treacy hat made their debut in London yesterday.  As you can see in this photo, the duo were all the rage, signing autographs and posing for cameras.  Love it or hate it, the hat made a grand statement about embracing British fashion - as well as their love of the unusual photo-op (see Bodacious Book Launch, & Foodie Photo Call. 

It also most likely gave Philip Treacy exposure like never before as those of us across the pond got a taste of his work.  Read more about SJP and her recent fashion statements on Bloomacious.com.

Petunia tells Cal Poly Magazine how it all started ...

Cal Poly Magazine recently profiled our client Petunia Pickle Bottom.  What started as a standard profile revealed some inspiring facts about Mom-&-Dad-Preneurship the Petunia way! 

We've excerpted writer Jo Ann Lloyd's piece below:

Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani, Salma Hayek and Heidi Klum all have one.

Oprah Winfrey presented one to Julia Roberts during an Oprah show. Even Sheryl Crow sings its praises.

It all started while on an extended trip to Alaska, where [married couple DeNai and Braden Jones] had time to explore their career options. “We had no mortgage, no children. It was the right time to take a risk, to pursue our goals of building a business,” Braden said.

His first challenge was to convince a “totally risk-averse” DeNai, who thought a teaching career would offer security, a regular paycheck and summers off.

When the couple returned to Ventura, they got right down to it. DeNai did everything by hand. In a room above her parents’ garage, she traced the patterns and cut them out. She soon found a store in Santa Barbara that she knew would be a good fit for the high-end diaper bags she was designing.

“We started out slowly, from scratch. Soon our bags were appearing in celebrity magazines,” DeNai said. “It got to the point where I could'nt’t cut them fast enough. So we risked it … we took out a personal loan for $30,000 and had a few hundred units made.”

As business grew, they realized they needed someone to help market their product. They brought Korie Conant on board as vice president and director of brand development. The three of them worked for years with no pay. “Korie worked as a waitress at night. We were totally boot-strapping this thing,” DeNai said.

The company now employs nearly 20 and distributes to more than 1,200 retail outlets nationally and internationally. Their bags, ranging in price from $150 to $325, are sold in high-end baby boutiques and stores such as Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue.

But DeNai and Braden recall more humble days. “In the beginning, we had to create a façade larger than we were. We didn’t want people to know we were working out of a room above our parents’ garages. We had one phone with nine extensions, and family members who would answer, ‘This is John in Shipping.'”

After five years, DeNai is finally getting to do what she loves – designing. “I always wanted to focus on just the design aspect of the job, but I was busy packing boxes, putting out fires, making phone calls.”

Petunia Pickle Bottom headquarters is the kind of place that nurtures creativity.
A large loft-like space with wood floors, high ceilings, huge windows and a view of
the Pacific, the offices are open and airy and light. “We’ll pay a little extra for a good working environment,” Braden said. “We want it to feel like family.”

And no wonder. Both DeNai and Braden have nothing but the highest praise for their families, especially their parents. “Our parents supported us all the way,” Braden said. “They gave us strong foundations. You can’t jump far without a good foundation.”

What’s next? “We want to expand the brand, make it more noteworthy,” Braden said. “We want to grow the company, too. We’re on the next five-year plan, which includes multi-product launches in the baby industry.”

And multi-baby launches, as well. DeNai and Braden are the proud parents of two-year-old Sutton and are awaiting the arrival of a second son in March. Korie had a boy last October.

fling into spring with NYT narrated slideshow

The New York Times has a lovely slide show all about spring in New York on their site which is enthusiastically narrated by reporter Bill Cunningham.

I love the way the Times produced this hybrid of narration juxtaposed with still photography.

Artful, but personal.  A great way to demonstrate a collection of ideas without getting too elaborate or technical.

If you really want to get into a spring mood - check out Cunningham's narrated video on spring hats.

Hermes and the marketing machine

Perhaps no modern branding has worked as well as the Hermes It bag mystique.

The much sought after Birkin Bag, and it's little sister, the Kelly, have been seen on the arms of celebrities and socialites alike for decades.

Many dream and long for a Birkin of their very own, believing the mysterious bag is well out of their sites.

The bags are beautifully made, that is irrefutable.  But the price, which starts at $9000 for a plain brown bag is driven mostly by the well cultivated image of low supply and immense demand, not by actual manufacturing and marketing costs.

This carefully crafted image evolved out of the urban myth that there's a limited supply of the handmade bags, to such a degree that a wait on the Birkin master list takes more than 2 years.  And while the lovingly designed, detailed, and crafted bags are indeed something to treasure, the myth of the long waiting list is just that, more or less fictitious.

Socialites and serious fashionistas love to regale fashion writers with lists of the various exotic Birkin bags they own as if to underscore how very special and apart from the crowd they are.

Now, Michael Tonello, author and intrepid Birkin buyer is poised to crack the Birkin wait list myth wide open.

Tonello, a beautician turned fashion buyer, spent several years visiting Hermes stores around the globe, buying up bags and reselling them (which seems to have curious legal implications to my mind).

"I would go into a store with a list in my Hermes Ulysse notebook and pile up scarves, shawls, bracelets, worth about $2,000. This made me seem a regular Hermes client," Tonello is quoted as saying.

"Once I had that pile ready to buy at the last moment I'd ask for a Birkin and they would usually produce one of the back room.  In 2005 I bought 130 Birkins in a three-month period -- and you tell me there is a waiting list?"

Tonello, wrote the book "Bringing Home the Birkin," which releases this month.  I could have told Tonello that he didn't need to go to such extreme measures to aquire a Birkin or two - of course his project involved reselling them at a markup, which further extended the myth to the customers he catered to.

A few years ago I talked with a the salespeople at various Hermes stores, who told me the waiting list myth was just that, a fiction that had evolved over time.  Those wishing to aquire a Birkin just need to establish a good repoire with their local store, which basically involves showing up reasonably attired on a Friday, and asking for a Birkin.  It's sort of a first come first served system to my understanding more than anything else.  True, if you want special materials or have a specific color in mind, you will have to wait through a custom order wait list, as you would with any hand made luxury item.  But your run of the mill Birkin brown is a relatively easy catch if you have the cash. 

The cache of the Hermes label, Birkin or not, is nothing to sniff at.  Every detail about a  customer's experience buying something as simple as a scarf from the company is impeccible - which is the reality a serious Hermes customer would never wish to miss.  From the way the merchandise is shown, to the manner in which it's wrapped and finally presented, you'll enjoy every precious moment as though you'd been made queen for a day.   

The interesting history of the company is detailed with no holds barred by New York Times writer Dana Thomas in her book Deluxe (shown in the left column).

No telling how seriously customers, fashionistas, and others will take Tonnello's book.  I think the public likes to enjoy its image of the brand... the ability of being able to buy into the dream, or having to wait endlessly for it. 

The book I would really like to read would be written by the Hermes people themselves.  How the company went from its simple roots as a purveyor of horse tack to global luxury icon is the story that intrigues me.  That is simply branding at it's best to a level rarely achieved in this day and age.   

   

Bodacious Book Launch

When I first saw this photo I thought someone had hired a stripper to promote a children's book.  (Now that's a take we have yet to see).

Turns out it's just little 'ol Katie Price (aka Jordan the British Playboy model - not quite a stripper) launching her new series of children's books 'Mermaids and Pirates' at Waterstones, Harrods today in London.

I will say, she's well covered up in her fuchsia mermaid costume (I thought mermaids always wore green!), but there's just something so un-children's-book like about Katie (and I suppose this is the primary reason we're all posting images of her on websites across the globe).  I understand that Katie/Jordan is all the rage in Europe, with millions of hyper dedicated fans - licensing this and that (most of us have no clue who she is over in the US BTW).

Anyway, the kid's books are apparently semi-autobiographical to make the photo op even more humorous -the stories feature a blonde mermaid called Katie and a pirate called Peter (her real life hubbie).   Oh those crazy Brits!   

 

Thinking inside the box. Does it Matter?

I came across Matter the other day - a UK based firm that offers boxes of goodies intended to educate the public about brands.

I find this notion intriguing - the idea that periodically a shipment of randomly assembled logo strewn gadgets and toys will show up at my office or home. 

The Matter folks have already started distributing their boxes in the UK and will soon migrate the concept to the US. 

The first box contained a Sony Ericsson Music Monster (shown below) that comes in a clever straw lined box and represents your personal music desires (...hmmmm.  I think I need more definition here). There's also an enamel lapel pin from Stolichnaya; a wristband from Nintendo Wii; a sample of Original Source Mint Shower Gel; a very cool looking Virgin Atlantic calendar; crayon shaped soap from Nissan; pots of Play-Doh from Sony Bravia; and my personal favorite, Cereal Poetry, which is poems on a box of Jordan's Meusli.

The concept of promotional toys and tools with logos on them is certainly not new, (remember those sock puppet dogs from Pets.com a few years back?) what is interesting here is the way Matter is distributing them.  Sign up with them and the boxes, which are sort of like goodie bags that you might get at a function, arrive in your mail.  It's quite ingenious!  Naturally since there's a good screening process in place, only interested recipients will be getting the goods.  As the concept progresses I'm certain that Matter boxes will be assembled according to more important demographics and personal interests.  Can't wait to Matter?  Visit their blog with all sorts of ideas and notes about graphic design.

Schweppe's is bursting; Adida's is Pink

I came across Debbie Millman's very intriguing eponymously named blog this morning and was really knocked out by these two promotional video/ads from Schweppes's and Adidas.  Millman, who is the President of the Design division at Sterling Brands, a brand identity firm in New York, is also a gifted painter.  Her work, and the art of others makes the site interesting and a breath of fresh air.   

Naturally I love the creativity of these videos, the way they get you to think about their products in a new light.  They lift the notion of viral video to a new level and put art into pop culture without being too esoteric.   

Branding in a Fishbowl: Makeup artists step up

This article, It's Your Makeup Artist's Autograph I Want, in the New York Times caught my eye.

The story, about the growing celebrity of makeup artists, demonstrates that we're long past Andy Warhol's maxim of everyone having 15 minutes of personal fame... (it's up to at least a half an hour at this point).  This is the era of the personal brand, where the personalities of the people behind the products are just as integral to the marketing of a brand as the product itself. 

Now, it's unclear whether the trend discussed in this story is really a New York and Los Angeles phenomenon, and if women in Kansas and Ohio are also focused in on the doings of Pat McGrath (shown here with a model), but it does further the notion of promoting personality.  With all the blogs, websites, pod-casts and video stations devoted to the minutia of every market segment (cosmetics being carefully documented with each product roll-out and spokes-model hiring) it's easy to see the wave of things to come.   

As a publicist working with consumer brands like beauty, and baby, I have always felt that product comes first.  Package design, market positioning, and product performance are keys to successful branding - however in this day and age a charismatic CEO helps the effort immensely.   Blame it on the paparazzi and our fascination with the doings of celebrities when they're off the clock.  It's gotten to the point that even snaps of Jennifer Aniston at the grocery store have grown tedious.  We now want insight into everyone's personal lives ... there's more and more swimmers inside the fishbowl and fewer of us benignly watching from a safe distance.  Fantastic looks aren't a requirement as they were some years ago for getting ink and airtime.  Being knowledgeable, speaking well on camera, and the ability to tell a joke go just as far these days.

Call it hyper-market-democratization, Fishbowl Marketing, or Deep Branding....it sure livens things up!   

Petunia founder DeNai Jones profiled

Our client Petunia Pickle Bottom's co-founder and lead designer, DeNai Jones was profiled in the pages of Ventana Monthly recently. 

In a story entitled Modern Mom, writer Leslie Dinaberg starts by describing DeNai's vivid beauty:

"Piercing aquamarine eyes peeking through a wild tumble of blonde curls are the first things that strike you about DeNai Jones. From the funky flare of her vintage dress to the toes of her Betty Boop shoes, she looks every inch the fashion designer she is, known in chic circles for her combinations of bold, sophisticated color and unusual textures and textiles".

The article goes on to discuss  how Petunia Pickle Bottom got its start, and where the company is headed. 

Reading the article you get a feel for DeNai's lifestyle which is filled with art, family, and happiness.  It's this sense of individualism, joy and enthusiasm that comes through in the Petunia Pickle Bottom designs -- and probably the reason so many celebrities carry her bags everywhere (moms, dads, or not!) 

A few of DeNai's fans include Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson, Salma Hayek, Gwen Stefani, Jennifer Lopez, and Heidi Klum to name just a few.

My favorite quote from the article is where DeNai describes what it's like to see her bags on the arms of her customers:

"Jones says it’s still exciting to walk down the street and see someone carrying one of her bags. “I still kind of panic; my breath gets taken away and I usually hide a little bit…and follow them,” she says. “It’s still just as exciting as it was the first time I saw a [Petunia Pickle Bottom] bag on the street.”

Be sure to read the entire article by visiting the Ventana Monthly website.

New York Times: Beauty Bloggers are a hit!

The New York Times ran a really interesting article a couple days ago about the influence of bloggers. There's a few of them pictured above with Lancome spokesmodel Daria Werbowy.

The article honed in on the beauty industry and the many perks the top beauty bloggers enjoy.

This story, which came out shortly after a similar WWD Beauty Biz list was published, underscores the shift of influence in the media.

After 14 years of doing publicity for a good variety of lifestyle categories, beauty being one of them, the PR industry has transformed dramatically (as it always does). 

In the olden days (of the roaring '90's) we had a handful of magazines to work with and a few network TV shows.  We designed clever press kits and shipped them via fedex to not more than 100 (300 if also focusing regionally) recipients.  Websites were considered irrelevant to most of our clients back then, since many of them were (and still are) small and trendleading startups who can only dole out samples of their products very sparingly.

Today we work with thousands of writers through every sector of our business.  Websites, blogs, YouTubers, Facebookers, socialnetworkers, anything celebrity focused, reality shows, film and tv, cable shows, the sectors go on and on. 

And the way we work with them has changed as well - videos and online press kits are a must!  Getting useable info to writers within minutes is mandatory.  And the evolution will go on and on as technology gives us more opportunities. And maybe that's what I love about PR the most!