Real PR Opps Impact Virtual Customer Behavior

Early November 2010.  It's 5P California time.  The phone rings at Thinker Clothing(tm).  Archana Ram, editor of Style Hunter in "Entertainment Weekly" magazine, is calling from her Manhattan office -- still at work at 8P EST.  She's warm, polite and enthusiastic.

"We'd like to feature one of your Ts that 'Sheldon' wore on 'The Big Bang Theory', 'Atmospheric CO2'(c), and we need it in our office by 10A tomorrow for a photo shoot.  Can you do it?"

Such an unexpected put-it-into-gear opportunity gets a native New Yorker's blood rushing, and we know the only answer is "Of course we can!"  It's a wonderful thing to have your local crew of UPS and FedEx guys at the ready, the ones who do cartwheels to help make things happen.

I ask Archana when the issue will "drop", i.e. when it will hit newsstands, and I assume that means the publication date.  She says 5 November 2010, and promises us tearsheets, .pdf files, any visuals they create.  We publish this date on our website, then scour San Diego stores for copies, to no avail.  A call to Archana reveals she's gone on holiday, so we wait.  She informs me upon her return that our coverage is on page 26 of the 12 November 2010 issue, sends us a stack and I realize I've been walking right by it in stores the whole time -- it's the "Harry Potter" "The End is Near" cover issue with Daniel Radcliffe.  A look inside reveals further that we're the lead feature sharing a page with Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair" video jumpsuit.  Doesn't get much better.

We correct the date on our site and, within hours, the orders start coming, and coming, and coming.  We have our best holiday season by far, perhaps?, hopefully?, as a microcosm sign of a recovering (or at least settled out?) economy.  We're completely surprised to see that the vast majority of orders for holiday 2010 are from North American and Australasian customers, and a large percentage of new customers ordering quantities -- whereas our holiday 2009 business was 50% global and much more European.  (Perhaps due to the financial crisis?)

With orders have come the customer calls and comments:  "We just found you!"  "I just saw your T in the magazine!"  "I just discovered you -- sorry it's late!"  

See Thinker Clothing(tm)'s press page for the full size tearsheet.  

So now we've experienced the Hollywood/celebrities connection, the TV show costuming placement connection and the national press connection.  So ....

It was Christmas and customers/colleagues had long encouraged us to send a package of Ts to the Obama family, supporters of Science, Tech, Engineering and Math ("STEM") education.  So this year we did.  Keep your eyes open to see if Thinker Clothing(tm) appears on the First Family, and please let us know by e-mailing a link or press reference; we'd be happy to gift you a favorite T.  

What a difference one kind act of market excitement at the holidays can have on real and virtual customer behavior.

Happy New Year.

(c) 2010 Lisa C. Clark
All Rights Reserved.