Featured Case Study

To understand what we can do for you, start by understanding what we've done for others.

Timmy Taylor

Offensive T-shirts

We were fortunate enough to get on board quite early with Timmy Taylor Clothing. Because of this timing we were able facilitate change with minimal disruption to their brand. Timmy Taylor started with a logo, a lot of t-shirt designs and a strong desire to create a brand that is funny, witty, with broad appeal.

The Target Market: Working with Timmy Taylor we decided to concentrate our efforts on the American 16-25yr male demographic with interests in skateboarding/surfing either finishing high school or in college.

Research: Our research activity was varied. We started with a report by New Strategist Publications called: "The Millennials: Americans Born 1977 to 1994, 3rd ed." to find trends in leisure time, income, interests and spending patterns. Next was an email- based mail out for reaction to the t-shirt designs and products. Then we canvassed printers, wholesalers, couriers and other associated services.

Strategic Plan: From the defined goals and objectives, budgetary constraints and information uncovered in our market research we set about putting together a strategic plan for the Timmy Taylor brand to realise it's full potential.

The strategic plan is set-up in three distinct phases:

  1. Beginning as a web-based brand
  2. Adding a physical retail store
  3. Growing into a manufacturer and distributor

Beginning as a web-based brand

 

To minimise initial investment and also to test the market for the next phase, we recommended initially building a website and having it optimised for search engines under key search terms.

The next step would be to set-up an account with a Print-On-Demand (POD) supplier. We deemed Cafepress to be best suited to Timmy Taylor as it was more easily integrated within the website, they handled payments and delivery of the products and they supported the file formats used by Timmy Taylor.

Most of the promotional activity would take place through Myspace social networking site, the most popular website on the internet. A high proportion of its users are in the target market and can be searched by location, interests or friends.

The first step was to build a Myspace page that was instantly recognisable as part of the Timmy Taylor brand. The Myspace page should be updated weekly with news, new products and links so there is a reason for viewers to return.

Next we recommended was to develop a 'Friends' list, which is actually an 'opt-in' contact list. As this grows, other Myspace users will want to become part of your Friends networking, making the opt-in list self-perpetuating.

Care must be taken with this sort of marketing as blatant advertising through this avenue would detract from the brand image. With this in mind we made the recommendation of weekly bulletins with new designs and electronic coupons on birthdays.

When pre-determined thresholds regarding sales, profit and website hits have been reached, it's time to move to the next phase.

Adding a physical retail store

Timmy Taylor currently based in Hawaii but will soon be moving to Las Vegas. While average retail rents in Clark County (the County in which Las Vegas is situated) are quite reasonable, finding a good-value site that exposes the business to tourists from all over America and the world will take some time.

At this stage Timmy Taylor should start purchasing t-shirts in bulk and sourcing a local screen printer to do longer runs. It would not be financially viable to print all of the designs in Timmy Taylor's portfolio, but patterns will have emerged concerning the most popular designs.

Promotion should be based around the local skate events, the University of Nevada Las Vegas and the local music scene, with Myspace and search engine optimisation continuing to play a part in the popularity of the brand.

When the pre-determined thresholds for this phase have been reached it will be time to move to the next level:
Adding a physical retail store, which will warrant another marketing review.

Execution: It has been a little over three months since we launched the Timmy Taylor website, Timmy Taylor Myspace page, constructed web-advertising banners and optimised the website for the major search engines. Timmy Taylor's early successes include:

  • Website 'unique hits' have grown 100% per month
  • Sales have grown 100% per month (and are on target to continue)
  • 62% of website hits have been generated through Myspace
  • In addition to America, products have been ordered from Australia and Great Britain
  • 40% percent of the customers are female
  • Timmy Taylor is appears second for the search term 'Harsh T-shirts' in Google