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0:00:02 - Brian
All right, what's up everybody. This is Brian from Flow Candy, one of the co-founders, and I'm here with Will, my other co-founder, and this is Why Brands Work. This is the first episode we're going to be recording for you all and it's on Skims, the massive brand started by, famously, Kim Kardashian, which I think a lot of people might underestimate in terms of what is actually important about this brand. They might just look at it as another influencer brand that has gotten overhyped and is just riding the coattails of somebody with a large following on social media to then become this big brand. But Will and I are going to go deeper today, really talk about why you should actually, you know, pay attention to this brand, why there's maybe some stuff that you don't know that could actually help you grow your own business, what they're doing right and stuff that they're really paying attention to and how they're operating at just the next level. So, Will, how's it going today? How are you feeling? 

0:00:58 - Will
Good, great, super excited to jump in. I thought you hit on it well. I think that you know to build on what you said, I think a lot of people underestimate them. They think that this is just like. This thing is totally about Kim Kardashian and actually, the more you and I investigated, we realized, yes, she was important and she still is an important piece to the brand, but there's a lot of other things going on with this brand and it makes this brand work. 

0:01:25 - Brian
Yeah, no, I mean mean, this brand is actually super cool, like, um, there's there's a lot of really really interesting stuff that they're doing. Um, I think that they're really innovative in the space, uh, which is something we'll talk about when we jump into the product and and and what they're selling and how that's gone. Um, but, yeah, it's been. It's been such a cool thing to research, just in terms of, like, getting to know the brand a little bit better, jumping into the other kardashian brands too. I think there's so much to learn from a lot of them and then this kind of power couple that we'll talk about, that are behind some of this other stuff as well, um, but you know, as far as why brands work, let's talk about why. Why should people even care, like what, what's happening right now? That is that. Is you a reason for us to even pay attention to SKIMS. 

0:02:06 - Will
What's worth a? Pop of mine for you I think the biggest thing people should care about is it's worth $4 billion. So we can start saying or at least that's what it's been valued at. So that is a you know that's a big number for a D2C business has been around for like five years, yeah four or five years, something like that. 

0:02:27 - Brian
Sure, I think they did a 750 million in revenue in 2023. Valuation of $40 billion right now. Yeah, it's a, it's a. It's a massive, massive business. You know, and actually one thing I will say this is not Kim's first attempt at a business. You know, it's definitely the biggest that she's had so far. But you know, obviously that's another reason to care about this. 

There's a lot of focus on this in the spotlight. It's in the spotlight quite a bit because of how prominent the you know Kim is. And then I think another reason to pay attention to this too is like the they were just named the underwear or like undergarment partner for the NBA and the WNBA. You know, that's a massive positioning thing to talk about. They're also already catapulting themselves into the ranks of other, you know, like legacy clothing brands like Ralph Lauren and things like that, or Ralph Lauren I guess it's probably how you say it the right way um, in terms of they did the uh, they, they were a clothing sponsor for Team USA for the Olympics. You know, that's like a very coveted position, um, in the, in the fashion world, to like design that stuff and be the be the designer for for the, for Team USA, um, and so they're. They're quickly like very, very fast. They also won awards recently, um, that an innovative uh know, design innovation award they won for their line. 

So there's a lot of stuff that is really showing that not just, you know, through social media and keeping up with Kardashians and you know the kind of service level things that people think about, but really at the next level, they are a true, really crushing it business, and so let's dive a little bit deeper and talk about why this is happening. So let's jump into the product first. What are you seeing about the product that really is standing out to you? What do you think is kind of the reason they're having so much success right now? Or what chord are is? Is there what, what, what's? What quarter are they hitting right now that works? 

0:04:27 - Will
Well, I think that, um, there's a lot to unpack there. I think that, from from a product point of view, the what sticks out to me the most is is the market that they originally chose. I think you got to talk about the market and the product itself and how it's evolving, but just being in that shapewear market, I think, was really huge to their success in getting started. That's a very massive, big market. You know, a lot of people know about Spanx and that business alone is a billion dollar business. But also this, this sort of market, has been around. Even Spanx, kind of like, was a paradigm shift on what do we call it? Like girls or foundational garments. This, this is this category has actually been around for a while. 

0:05:19 - Brian
It wasn't just sort of years when you go back to, like you know, corsets, even in, like the Victorian era. 

0:05:26 - Will
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think it's. The shapewear market is big and sort of they were able to kind of come in and really find a gap in the market there initially when they launched. I think that that really stands out to me. Also, another thing that we could talk about, too, is how they've been able to position themselves as premium too. I think that the positioning and just the market selection, the table selection of where they went into I mean, you talked about this wasn't Kim's first brand, but I think that this market they chose was very strategic and a big reason why they're successful too. 

0:06:03 - Brian
Yeah, agreed, I think that that's huge. Um another. Another point I'll bring up is like the they launched with um, I think 12 different skin tone, aligned colors for all of their different products. Yeah, so inclusivity was a huge thing. They also have everything from like, I think, xxs, like extra, extra, all the way to 4X, so a lot of body positivity, kind of like in their DNA here. You know something I read that I thought was really interesting. 

Obviously, kim has been a part of fashion for a long time. You know she does all of these different shows with you know Gucci and all you know. We'll talk a little bit later about some of the partnerships that they have now through Skims, but Kim is obviously like through and through in the fashion world and one thing that I saw she said is that this product, in her eyes, has been under development for 15 years. She says she's been working on this like on her own, kind of buying other shapewear and like cutting it to fit her the right way, or she would put it in her bathtub and fill her bathtub with like with tea, to like get the right skin tone that she was looking for. So she's like home dyeing different clothes to try and better match her skin tone. She's cutting it to make it fit her a little bit better. 

So, at the end of the day, when it, when it comes to developing a product, that's what you really want, right? You want to be the customer of that product. You want to know it so well that you're innovating on it at home, because you know what it's used for and how it's being used for. You have friends and family and you know people around you that are also using it that you can hear their feedback on that kind of stuff, and so you know I think that's one area that they really struck gold here or not necessarily struck gold, but they found the gold that they already had and found a way to to really optimize on that. You know, you take what you know and start working on that, start improving it. 

I think that's where you end up being. You know, being able to be super successful around a product is if you actually have an idea of why you're doing what you're doing, instead of just, you know, going and doing a keyword search and trying to figure out what you can order off of Alibaba, like this is. This is as far away from that as I think they could get, which is probably why it's hitting better than some of her other. You know, I'm sure she's an avid, you know uses a lot of makeup and fragrances and things like that, but you know, it seems like is showing in the product line. Yeah, for sure. I mean I, I I did not catch that. 

0:08:27 - Will
That's a really good point. I didn't. I did a lot of research. I did not know she was actually cutting things up and using tea bags to uh to actually come up match skin tones and stuff, and I think that is. That was something. If you go back and read her tweets, um, like when she first initially started, when they first started sort of rolling this brand out, um they were. 

0:08:55 - Brian
They were using that inclusivity angle as a huge sort of part of the launch. Yeah, no, I think that that's huge um, inclusivity. You're going to see kind of like throughout all of it, right, the skin tones, the sizes. They're moving into other, you know, um, they're moving into other, you know they're moving into men's line and things like that as well, which you know that also brings up another huge, not just positioning of the product, but advantage of the niche, right, so they are developing a brand that can eventually have as deep of a catalog as you can get. There's really no other type of store that you can have that can give you as many SKUs as an apparel company can, especially if you're opening up men and women. Because they launched with shapewear and, I think, a couple other things I think there was maybe some swimwear in there in their initial launch as well, mostly around the shapewear stuff, though, right, um yeah, they want. 

0:09:49 - Will
They started with like body suits, underwear, leggings. Yeah, it's like just traditional shapewear sort of stuff. Um, yeah, and then you know that is obviously you can branch out into like women's apparel. From there, I think loungewear is really successful. 

0:10:05 - Brian
And then yeah, they really did yeah, yeah, immediately, I think it was. You know, they, they caught the wave of covid everyone's at home wearing pajamas all day long, um, and so that's when I think it's called skims cozy came out. Um, they, they did the swimwear release, I think for the summer, summer. After that, um, yeah, there's, there's. It's just a very logical kind of move there when people are buying stuff to, to or, you know, in the, in the mood to buy clothes, having all the different options of being able to kind of grab everything you know. So they've just been, you know, over the last four or five years, just gradually adding new lines and new lines and new lines and new lines, which has been huge because it's not only a way to draw on a new type of customer, because maybe shapewear isn't for everyone, or maybe swimwear or that kind of thing, but now you're opening yourself up to these different demographics. 

That are looking for specific types of types of clothing. Um, and one thing I thought was really funny was uh, uh. Kim said in a different interview that you know, I really knew that this product was hitting. When I was at a party in hollywood and a girl took off her top to show me that she was wearing skims underneath it, like oh wow yeah, yeah. 

0:11:19 - Will
So some girl like I was like look, look, I'm wearing skims right now. 

0:11:21 - Brian
You know it was some girl that came up to me. I was like look, look, I'm wearing skims right now. 

0:11:25 - Will
Wow, I did not see that either. Yeah, that's crazy. That's like true, sort of like the raving fan, sort of. 

0:11:32 - Brian
Ultimate raving fan. 

0:11:34 - Will
Ultimate raving fans. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think another thing you brought up there around the deep catalog too, would be the ability to also. I think that really has an impact on their lifetime value as well, probably, and their average order value too. If you're able to sort of cross sell this stuff, a cross sell across all these different categories and now different sexes, it's really quite remarkable. 

0:12:04 - Brian
Totally no, I agree, and you know. And then it they did another line that wasn't exactly launching men's clothing but they did like the I think you know the, the other um, kind of like side items that would work for for both men and women, um, and that was kind of how they like soft launch some of the men's stuff before they fully did the men's launch, and I think it was somewhere of last year like 2023. 

Um, so another great way to kind of test the product into that, into that new, uh new niche. And yeah, it's been a, it's been a really interesting. You know that they this is exactly where they want to be. You know, if you have the brand power, like they do, you want to have a deep catalog where you can make this kind of a, a brand that is just going to continue to add lines. I wouldn't be surprised if there ends up being skims, dresses and skims if there isn't already. 

0:13:10 - Will
You know, like yeah, well, there's like skim shoes or something like that. 

0:13:14 - Brian
Yeah, I could see it becoming even formal wear or something at some point where it's like oh, you know the, the cocktail dress, and that kind of thing, so it it fits. You know, in my personal experience you know my partner, she loves like the. You know it's kind of like this mix between like athleisure as well as stuff that you could kind of like wear out to dinner or something like that, and so it's a very, I think, clear path for them. So I'm excited to see where it goes from here. 

0:13:43 - Will
Yeah, and you know, like, I think like where they're going right now, though, mostly, is the men's line. I mean, they're obviously building on this one, but this men's line is a huge push. And, like when I started researching the men's line, I think this is when I really started to be like oh, oh, now I understand how just talented and the opportunities brand has, because I think that this, this is like you can't. I mean, yes, kim was a part of we kind of talked about that at the top of the show, how kim is. Kim was a catalyst to launching the brand, but I think now you're seeing like really the, the mastery from the whole team here and really the whole the product line as well. I don't know where we want to go from that, but I mean just like the, the way they launched the men's line, I was like this is how it's done. This is like total, total. This is like a very, very solid job in X in executing and launching this. 

0:14:43 - Brian
Agreed. Yeah, no, I think that's a perfect segue into talking about the team here and like why? Why this team is really working. You know, we already, as you said, we kind of already talked about Kim. She's one of the biggest influencers in the world, has been for a long time. 

0:14:58 - Will
Her entire family 300 million. Is that what we saw? Yeah, 360. I forget where. 

0:15:14 - Brian
Yeah 364 million followers on Instagram, exactly. So you know she's got a platform built in on top of having been on. 

you know one of the a reality TV show, for I don't know, it was like on for like a decade. It felt like maybe even more. Um, all of her family, all of her ex-husbands and boyfriends and everyone is is extremely famous and so they have this platform that already is going to. It can can be launched. You know, um, I'm pretty sure uh, kanye was partially, not, he was somewhat in rumor, rumor to be like the ghost creative director when they first you can't yeah. 

There's the key member of his. His creative team is actually like listed on some of this stuff as well, Like somebody who worked on Yeezy and all that. Yeah, I think I can't remember what their name was, but they were like a primary component in the early days of like designing the brand and the brand aesthetic. I think it's rumored that Kanye even like drew out the Skims logo at first or something like that. You know, so like there's, yeah, so there's there's some deep, you know, kind of involvement here of like you know, say what you will about Kanye. There's a lot of divided, you know, opinions on him and I'm not here to say one way or another, but you know that guy has had a lot of success in this space, whether in music and in clothing and apparel and business in general. So you know there's some real powerhouses behind the creative aspect of it. 

And that's before we even get into the power couple of Jens and Emma. So let's give a little background to this first off. So Jens and Emma married. Now they met early on. I think Emma started working at jens's uh agency. He he, I think co-founded an agency in london. 

0:17:14 - Will
He is swedish, um, he took out an agency and uh eventually they started a denim or like a, a company called frame right, was that so? The agency was before he started. He was before yeah, okay, yeah, so they. 

0:17:29 - Brian
They had an agency and it was very steeped in like fashion. So it was a very like they did a lot of. They did a lot of like big, big fashion type things. And that's actually where, where Emma came in because she is, she went to the London, she dropped out of like the London Fashion Institute or something you know one of the big London schools, um, and ended up getting a job there as kind of like a you know partnership manager type thing, you know account executive, where you're kind of trying to secure brands to work with agency, with the agency, um, and so that's where they initially met and worked together for a year or two before they ended up, you know kind of getting together, um, and at some point jens, I think, either left the agency or kind of like started a side gig, which is what you're talking about. 

Frame um the denim company he was like hey, you know we've been doing this for for a bunch of other fashion houses and things like that. Why can't? 

0:18:22 - Will
right, we do it ourselves, like why? 

0:18:23 - Brian
yeah, why can't I do it? Um, which they did? They they very much did it. I don't know, but do you know what the numbers on frame and and what? No, the bro. 

0:18:33 - Will
Yeah, I mean they're still around today apparently. Yeah, like I was on their site and like I saw uh, giselle, I can't pronounce her last name, tom brady's, I guess ex-wife now so they're obviously still like relevant, trying to be relevant and um, you know, I think I don't know the numbers, but I did find in 2016, they were doing 60 billion, 60 million pounds, british pounds, I think. It's a. It's a British company actually in revenue which back that's a lot of money back then, you know this was like early pre-instagram. 

0:19:09 - Brian
I mean, maybe you know like, I don't know, like if you were doing 60 million in revenue in 2016, you were probably pretty big yeah, no 100 and uh, it's interesting that, uh, you, you mentioned giselle um there, because you know the they've, they've really this fast forwarding, even to like today. Emma and Jens have catapulted themselves into being kind of this like influencer, celebrity brand, you know, like they are the rainmakers for these huge people that want to start brands, because they now have their own agency that specializes in it. Um, and you know the the first kind of brand that they did was, uh, is it chloe's brand? 

0:19:55 - Will
courtney good american. That was the first one, and I think it was emma who had probably had the relationship somehow I don't know, with chris right, yeah, yeah yeah, it pitched her on the idea and that was a success. A very successful store, I mean, still is a very successful brand. But I think that that probably was once they had that like they probably just that was like the floodgates started opening after that, I mean yeah, I think they. 

0:20:36 - Brian
Yeah, we found that inroad into the, into the community, into, you know, um, and, and now they're. They're there and they're now. You know the reason I mentioned the giselle thing is their, their agency does brady, um, they're there. And now, the reason I mentioned the Giselle thing is their agency does Brady. They're running the Brady a lot of their work as well, working directly with Tom Brady, and so it's obvious that they've angled for this and have made it a thing. 

You know, reading a profile on them, when just the two of them were being interviewed outside of, like the Kardashians and stuff, when just two of them were being interviewed outside of, like the Kardashians and stuff, one of the comments that the interviewer made, like as they were doing the photo shoot, is that you know, they seem as comfortable like in front of the camera as a lot of the influencers that they work with. You know they're, they're put together like to the nines, very, wearing very expensive clothes there. You know you can tell that they have definitely angled themselves into a particular market, cause I couldn't imagine, you know, I don't think you're going to show up to a meeting with Kim Kardashian wearing something you bought at old Navy. Yeah, yeah, they're. They're very much like steeped in that they own. You know like they bought I can't remember who it was, but they bought some famous persons like Bel Air mansion. You know, 30 million dollar mansion or whatever from some they're a power couple. 

0:21:53 - Will
They're a power couple, man, and it's like they, you know they, both of them, I can tell are just like very I don't know what the right word is like, I wouldn't say like aggressive, but but like they have like a very entrepreneurial forward thinking, um, and they really have the track record to back it up. 

0:22:11 - Brian
Yeah. 

0:22:12 - Will
They're hustlers, yeah, they're hustlers, yeah, yeah. 

0:22:15 - Brian
Yeah, yeah, and I know it makes it makes sense Amazon Dragon's Den. I don't know if regularly. Yeah, it's like been on Dragon's Den. I think she's even been on Shark Tank as well, she's been on Shark Tank too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's cool to see it's really she's. She still is the chief product officer of of Skims. Jens is the CEO and Kim's Kim's role is also in product. 

I think I can't remember what her official title is either but yeah, but yeah. There you can tell that Jens is is definitely the kind of like the operational mastermind, which makes sense, I think. Coming from an agency background, we both know just how much operations go into managing a gajillion clients at one time and managing the team you need. 

So I'm sure on his side, especially coming from the Fring background, he was able to leverage that into some of the really masterful work that we've seen come out of Skim so far in terms of the marketing and the launches and the releases. There's a lot of work that goes into this stuff and it really seems like he knows what he's doing. 

0:23:24 - Will
He has to. I think that's one of the things. There's not a lot of research on it, but I couldn't really find a lot of data to back it up. So I'm definitely making the assumption that this guy is a very, very strong operator and while I think that Emma and Kim, especially with it being initially more of a women's I think brand brand, they were focused probably more on product and and um in marketing, which I think they're both good at. 

But like just having that background of already running an apparel company doing 60 million dollars in turnover, because we've talked about this before these apparel stores or apparel brands, they can be tricky to run in the sense that there's a lot of components involved, like logistically, there's a lot of like pressure to come up with, like, oh, this is our fall line, this is our spring line, you know. So there's this constant like logistical, operational, budgeting, buying, workflow going on in the background. That has to be done. That that a lot of people, if you're a customer of the brand, you have no idea is going on behind the scenes. 

0:24:36 - Brian
Right, right, no, I mean it's, it's. It's a ton of work. We've talked about this before. It's like you know, if you're at the scale of doing $750 million a year, you better be playing. You're planning how much inventory you're buying a year in advance and that kind of thing. So this is a very, very difficult thing to get right. This is where we've seen a lot of brands that we've worked with kind of hit a snag right. It's like oh, we don't have the inventory to support the scale that we were able to hit, or we're waiting for three months to be able to get this product out. You know, know, there's we're, we're just buying too much inventory. 

0:25:10 - Will
I've heard this before too, for apparel stores. They bought too much inventory and they're just, they're like they have no cash now and they're just like yeah yeah, exactly, and so, yeah, this is. 

0:25:21 - Brian
this is definitely a hard thing to get right, um, but it doesn't seem like sitting on too much. Inventory is a problem that Skims is having right now. They've been selling out pretty much every line that they come out with, which I think this is probably a good segue into. Let's talk about why their marketing is working, because there's a ton oh my God, there's so much stuff that they're doing right. Oh my god, there's so much stuff that they're doing right. Um, you know, just just to come back to it, we talked about a little bit in the product, but I would be uh, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's my job to pull up the marketing fundamentals. That's, that's always my my thing. 

Right is the is talking about the marketing fundamentals, and so we got to go back to this like intrinsic value of the inclusivity, right, there's just. So they got so right and this is one of the things that I think so many brands miss early on. It's like, oh, we're building this product because of this thing. Well, we're not. You don't buy, you don't build a product because of this thing or this idea. 

You build a product because of the problem that people are having, and they really, really solved a problem here. They have all of the sizes that you need, they have all of the skin tones that you need, and so that just intrinsically gives you so much value in the market. And that's, at the end of the day, what we're all trying to do right is create value, and so, you know, that's that's they got that right where they can start listing benefits to their customer. They really be driven in a way that is, that is aligning with something that somebody feels, you know, somebody is like I deeply feel that it sucks to not have shapewear that works for for my skin tone or that comes in the size that I'm looking for, and that's that's a really personal kind of thing, you know. And so, and they were able to fill that gap, and so that was the gap. 

0:27:06 - Will
That was the gap, yeah, yeah, and. 

I think that's a great point and you know, in general too, just shapewear solves a problem as well, you know. So there's that, and then you add on to that point that there was this gap in the market. It's like those two things are really really important. To come back to what you originally said, like it's not just kim kardashian, she's had other businesses that you know before this. So it's like there are some foundational pieces like this marketing fundamentals that you talked about. They were, they were put in place and kim was just sort of a catalyst that came in. And then you know, obviously this power couple too behind it that we just talked about you you know was really big and scaling it. 

But yeah, I mean it's really important that people know like that, you know like you can't there's no way to like hack it. You know you have to have, you have to solve like problems and you have to create value for your customers yeah, okay, so they're creating value. 

0:28:09 - Brian
Yeah, let's talk about, you know, let's talk about what the, what the, the star power of kim, actually does for a brand, right? So let's, let's, let's kind of jump into that what's coming to mind for you. 

0:28:22 - Will
Well, we talked about how many followers she had and I think that she was a big part of the launch. I mean, she's still very much involved today but like she definitely was very valuable to the launch of the business. And it wasn't just her too, like all of her sisters were involved. You can go back and look at on the skims youtube channel and they literally had a video um on uh, not just all like a bunch of select, not a bunch, but a lot of like sort of influencers and they kind of took that include inclusivity I can't speak angle, um, you know, and a lot of them were kind of vulnerable too. 

I don't know if you've watched some of those videos. It was like kim did one, chloe did one, kylie um, courtney I think there's the four of them uh and kindle, so all five of them had a video and like on youtube and I'm sure they dropped it on other channels snapchat I know kylie's got a big snapchat following and I think that that like alone I mean what would it? Was it they rumored to sell out or do like uh, I forget what it was the men's line or I think it was the very first drop. 

0:29:31 - Brian
It was like two million or whatever. 

0:29:34 - Will
Yeah, two million in profit right away within the first. 

0:29:37 - Brian
Yeah, it's like 10. Yeah, 10 minutes like that's something ridiculous yeah well, it's something that only somebody with 350 million followers can do. Um, yeah, on, on a drop like that no, I think that's a huge point, is you know the? The following just of the kardashians is unreal. Yeah, you know it's. 

It's, it's stupid, how, how much attention they can, they can gather and get you know. I think something else that's really interesting is, you know, one of their strategies that we've seen that is just constant it's in every launch that they have every other email or so is that there is another A-list celebrity in every week there's a different person endorsing Skims. That is, you know, and often they're topical as well. You know there's been. So you know, you have Patrick Mahomes during football season, right, and then you get Usher for the Super Bowl, yeah, you know. And there's all of these different, all of these people, and that's one of the other poles of having Kim Kardashian right, because it's not like they're going after trying to figure this out, no, it's a text message. This is, you know, kim probably already having somebody's phone, you know, being able to reach out to so and so to get them in there. And it is insane the number of celebrities like I, I, you know, we we pulled some emails that you and I went through together and we're looking at all the different people in there and I think I counted like 15 celebrities and that was just in the last like three or four months of emails and I was like, and we're going down to like 90s celebrities like carmen electra is in any. Yeah, it was carla, which is which Right. 

And as I did more research, there was another one. I think. I don't think it was this past 2023. I think it was maybe 2022, but that was right when the new season of white Lotus dropped and so the two Italian girls from white Lotus were in the Valentine's day. You know, they're just aligning with all of the pop culture, with all the references, everything that's topical and working. They're not able to just follow that trend, but they're able to be a part of it and get the person that's actually in the show or doing the thing or whatever. You know, oh, let's bring in Patrick Holmes and his whole family to wear Skim stuff on Christmas morning. You know, like that's. That's an insane amount of star power and ability to pull and actually and actually get somebody into to, to endorse and like be an influencer for you. 

0:32:06 - Will
Yeah, my take on it is, like with the influencers and the celebrities they pulled in, is they're really good at staying relevant? They've been able to, like you know, I think that that's where, like, a lot of people just think this is all Kim. But, like you said, we went and looked at all of their emails, like we went on the millcom and reviewed all their emails. I've been subscribed for months and I think there I saw like one or two emails. We're filming this in march. In february we looked at it all. I don't think I saw. I saw only like one or two emails actually with kim kardashian in them right now you know, um, we talked about usher. 

I mean, he was the uh super bowl halftime show that whole week. There was all this drops around usher, and usher was featured prominently in all of their emails. Patrick, it's just like it's that relevance of being able to time sort of. You know, I didn't even know about that. What you shared about, uh, the white lotus show, um, that just makes me think they're even more capable than I. I mean, it's one thing to like. Okay, we're just gonna go get the one big celebrity that we know is gonna be relevant this month, but they're really niching down yeah, yeah, it's, it's so true. 

0:33:18 - Brian
There's one other example as well, when they launched the men's line, right, um, it's funny because, like I, I only it really shows you, because I only remember one of their names. I know there's two other guys, there's a guy that plays for, I think, the chiefs. There's a guy, uh, so he's nfl. There's a I think it's a point guard for the Oklahoma. 

0:33:40 - Will
I don't know, I'm not a basketball guy, there's the point guard, there's Nick Bosa or one of the Bosa brothers. See, you know, you know the boat. 

0:33:47 - Brian
So this is exactly showing it right. You know, the Bosa brother, we both don't know the point guard, but the one that sticks out for me is Neymar, because I was on the guy and so we're. 

You know, like they align with it, and all three of them are featured in the same launch of the underwear line. Ok, so they're, they're, they're hitting. That's so strategic when you think about it from a marketing standpoint. There is a person from each sport, because most people will be like I'm more of a football guy, or I'm more of a soccer guy, or I'm more of a basketball guy, you know, and so they're, they're angling to each of those different categories without even you know. That had to be intentional there, instead of just going three footballers or three, it was it was intentional. 

0:34:28 - Will
I saw that quote from. There was a quote in the wall street journal, I think from Yens the CEO, and this, this again. This guy is a genius. 

It was like he said if you really want to communicate with hundreds of thousands of men, because that's what they wanted to do when they launched this men's line. Sports is the platform to do it. You know, um, and I mean, like we all know that, I know that, you know, but it's like, it's like wow, you know, like it's the execution of it. I think that is what really sort of stands out here, um, and yeah, I mean, I don't know, if you like, if you heard also, when they launched the men's line, that, um, something like 10 of their traffic was coming from men. This was something that ian's also said in that article that they had noticed, they were looking at the data and the numbers, um, of it. I wonder why, like you might guess, but yeah, I mean, I think that that was interesting too. No, I mean that's a. 

0:35:26 - Brian
That's another. Another great segue here, like the yeah, you know something about the marketing for this that just really works. It's like it's, it's a product and that is designed for social media. Just starting on the level of the get ready with me type stuff, the outfit where did you get that? 

You see, all these trends of the Amazon dress, there's all these things within the fashion world of just people trending products themselves that are great that everyone buys and gets all the time and become viral, right, um, and so it's. It's made for that in terms of the, the consumer itself. And then, on the other side, the thing that you just can't avoid is, like all of these, all of the emails and the ads and everything, it's just people in underwear and, like you know, that is in our, in the world of Instagram, and like the kind of hyper sexualized, you know, social media worlds that we like live in right now. That is just everywhere. Like that, that content does really well. It strikes the virality hook that you need, and so they're just getting a ton of views and, like you said, 10 percent of their, their traffic even even before they had a men's line, was coming from men, um, and so you know it was an obvious segue into just having a product for them once they got there as well. 

0:36:45 - Will
Yeah, yeah. 

0:36:46 - Brian
So it's, it's huge. I think that's a that's a massive play. But you know the one thing and this is the most impressive thing to me you know you have all of these crazy celebrities. You have the insane operational like capabilities that they have for all of this stuff. Um, you have the drops and the like, constantly new, uh, you know lines that they're coming out with. Still, above all of that, the most impressive thing to me, and why I think they're crushing it with the marketing, is the sheer volume of content that they are creating. Like. It is absolutely insane, you know, because, think about it, if you're getting all of these celebrities and we talked about doing four months worth of of email reviews right, just just look at their emails and had 17 or whatever celebrities in it. 

That means there's a photo shoot for every single celebrity in there. So they're probably doing a photo shoot a week, if not more. On top of all of the, you know, they obviously have to get product shots, they have to get model shots for the individual products and lifestyle and stuff like that, outside of all of the influencer stuff that they're doing, and so this is another thing that you know. At the end of the day, the Kardashian empire is built on content, right? Some of some more explicit content started all of it, but you know, there there is a there's content through and through and how the Kardashians do do their thing right. 

It's having a camera follow you around all the time. Pictures, photo shoots, fashion shows, blah, blah, blah, right, and they have brought that dna into skims and I think that's why they're so successful right now. It's just like if you have stuff to talk about, people are going to keep are going to keep coming back yeah, you're really capitalized on those customers who've already created they're a marketing machine. 

0:38:36 - Will
You know we, so we, you, we, you know, we saw it. You know 20 emails, 20 plus emails a month. You know, and that means in each like you know, they're having, like celebrities, like celebrity drops probably you know a couple of celebrity drops a month, yeah, and those need to get, like you said, planned out way in advance sometimes. You know, and those need to get, like you said, planned out way in advance sometimes, yeah, and just like the, yeah, the sort of the capabilities, the workflow behind that. I mean just securing those deals and then the actual production quality and then actually taking that, those photo shoots and those deals that you've signed with influencers and being able to propagate that into, you know, digital assets, like email advertising, like they have card I was looking at their ads. 

They have cardi b in their ads. I think it was cardi b, um and then usher in their ads, but he's also in their emails, he's also on their landing pages. So it's there's, you know, like you said, like they are able to just get a lot of content and then really monetize it. 

0:39:46 - Brian
Yeah, it's so true, it's true. All right. Well, we're coming up here on our 40 minute mark and so let's, let's try and hit, let's get a top three from you, will, on Skims. Why does this brand work? Out of all the stuff we've discussed, what are what are kind of the highlights for you in terms of what you think, uh, you know, really contributes to this brand working? 

0:40:08 - Will
yeah, I think that you know, for me it's probably going to be they. They have a really good team. I think that's huge and I've noticed this in a lot of other brands I've worked with that are successful. They tend to have like a couple people involved the four sometimes I've seen, but certainly two. You know where it's like somebody is really good operationally behind the scenes. And then there's people that are really good at like product and market research and marketing and stuff like that are really good at like product and market research and marketing and stuff like that, and I think that you know they are a total, a player team here, um, with vins, kim and uh emma. I also think that you know, if you were to follow their playbook, I guess they leveraged influencers to get initial traction or they are still. They're really like, if you are a brand that wants to leverage influencers, like just copy what these guys are doing, if you can. You know, I don't know like they have such a big network. It's hard but they're they're really doing a good job of that. 

And I think another thing too, to me the last one would be they. They went into existing markets, you know, um, like they didn't try to like reinvent the wheel here. They went into shapewear. They saw a gap in the market. We talked about their men's line. They're also going into men's shapewear too, and that market is actually not like a slimming market, it's more of like a compression and athletic market and it's similar material. But that's why they signed the deal with the NBA. So they're not really trying to recreate the market, they're just trying to use. They're trying to go into markets that already have a large size and then use, like what you kind of said find the gap, you know, with inclusivity or something else, and really leverage that. 

0:41:56 - Brian
Yeah, no, 100%. And that leads straight into my first one, which is that you know inclusivity, the really identifying of a problem. You know, actually your products got to be good and this one is it actually has to fill a need for somebody and they crushed it with that. It just is too, it's too good, it's too close to people's hearts and their actual feelings to not resonate. If you get all the other parts right, you know, if you get the operational efficiency that you kind of mentioned in your first point right, I think the second thing is the virality, in kind of just being natural within, within the line as well, like it's very easy for them to to get organic TikTok impressions and things like that, just based on the type of product it is. And then, lastly, for me, which which I've already said and still is my top, is just like the volume of content is is crazy. 

0:42:46 - Will
Cause that's, that's really what we need right now. 

0:42:48 - Brian
You know people have to have, it's gotta be fresh. You have to be putting out multiple things a day, you know, basically, if you want, if you want it to stay relevant, and so their ability to do that is just is insane. So, yeah, anything. Any last last things to add on on Skims before we close this out. 

0:43:07 - Will
Yeah, well, I mean thanks. Thanks for listening. It's our first episode. Hope you got a lot of value out of it. We'll be launching more and you know it's not just the episode. We've done a full. We have a full breakdown of their entire funnel Emails as well. We broke down, we did an audit on all their traffic and marketing channels as well and, yeah, if you want to go ahead and download all that stuff in conjunction with this recording, you can just go to floatcandycom backslash skims and we'll have it for you there. Stay tuned for our next episode of why Brands Work. 

0:43:44 - Brian
Yeah, y'all, we are putting a lot of effort into these things. There is so much value in those resources. This is actually the second recording on Skims we did because we did the first one. We didn't like it, we didn't think it was good enough. So you know, we're really putting a ton of effort into this stuff. So any feedback you have, any comments, you know we'd love to know. Feel free to email us or dm us on, you know, linkedin or twitter or whatever. We'd love to hear what your thoughts are and we're really happy to be putting this stuff together for you. Um, and, like will said, there's a ton of resources in there, so go grab those. Let us know what more you want, um, and we're happy to do it. And also let us know what brands you want us to cover, because we're also happy to do that. So until next time. Thank you again. My name is brian and this is will from flow candy. We'll see on the next why brands work later. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page