Images magazine Digital Edition April 2018

www.images-magazine.com 40 images APRIL 2018 that you can’t afford to make. And believe it or not, the answer to making either mistake in social media looks about the same. First, learn from the mistake. What happened? Social media is still really uncharted territory and is constantly evolving. Currently Facebook is king. There is an incredible Facebook chatbot that helps you define your audience and is quicker at getting useful information. When mistakes happen you have to address them. Ideally with humour that resonates with your brand. Be real. Be human. That authenticity is what drives good social media. The takeaway: Good mistakes come from experimentation. Bad mistakes come from carelessness. Experiment carefully and measure. Ryonet – Ryan Moor Ryan, founder of Ryonet, challenged the entire industry to do more than sell product. He delivered a masterful presentation with the theme ‘Stand Up or Shut Up’. He pointed out that the apparel industry is the second worst polluting industry in the world. Fifteen million tonnes of waste is generated every year in the US alone by our industry, and the resources needed to back up our industry are set to triple by 2050. One T-shirt takes 500 gallons of water to produce. If a shop prints 60,000 T-shirts, then that one shop alone is responsible for 32 million gallons of water. That’s a lot considering some countries don’t have access to clean drinking water. Ryan pointed out that not a lot is being done about it. Starting with the idea ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’, he emphasised that this industry can do more. The takeaway: In the next 10 years there needs to be sweeping environmental changes in the industry. His question to all garment decorators was direct and to the point: ‘Are you talking about it, or part of it?’ Catalyst Accelerator – Mark Coudray The talk from decorated apparel industry expert Mark was called ‘Transition Strategies in the New Economy’, and it was concerned with how the industry is moving away from older forms of marketing and selling. With the advent of venture capital- backed firms, accelerated growth is the new normal. Our past industry growth is inefficient, which makes us perfect targets for disruption. We’re on their radar, as they recognise the opportunity. Their main role is to migrate our customerbase to the new way of doing things. The more new users that adopt the new strategy, the better. This creates a buzz that’s then in all the business articles. That sets up a big IPO. They make their money and then step out. The future will be handled with artificial intelligence and machine learning. Chat bots are already in use to guide social interaction and experiences online. Customer relationship management tools will be tweaked to reflect the new paradigms. The takeaway: Data is the key to customer connection and relevance. For example, with Facebook data you can create hyper-targeted audiences for marketing. You can use collected data to build clone audiences of your customers on Facebook to engage and scale without much risk. Johnny Cupcakes – Johnny Earle Johnny Cupcakes is a brand that delivers on the experience through highly developed marketing ideas. It springs from the eccentric happenings of its founder, Johnny Earle, and everything it does is a complete experience. The Johnny Cupcakes brand is a twist on a bakery. Its stores are built to emulate a cupcake bakery, but they don’t sell any food. Every part of the experience is curated. In fact, Johnny even stores his business cards in a plastic bag with vanilla scented air fresheners so that they smell like cupcake icing. The brand creates limited edition shirt designs at least twice a week. It uses humour, creative design details and fun marketing to drive sales. The weirder the marketing stunts, the more traction the brand gains with its followers. It’s not uncommon for Johnny to post a picture of him somewhere obscure with the announcement that the first six people to show up get a free T-shirt. This drives his followers to instantly engage. He has collaborated with major brands: a Hello Kitty collaboration sold $250,000 worth of T-shirts in the first 24 hours of launching. Johnny recommends being different. In fact, he says, “Your uniqueness separates you from the crowd.” He advises being authentic and true to your customers. The takeaway: T-shirts aren’t just apparel: they are memories. It is the experience that people are buying. Make sure the experience is fun and memorable. ( ) BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT