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Showing posts with label SHINOLA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SHINOLA. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Sunday, August 14, 2016
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Monday, April 04, 2016
Friday, April 01, 2016
Shinola plans eyewear factory for South Side of Chicago
Shinola plans eyewear factory for South Side of Chicago
Shinola, known for its built-in-Detroit watches and bicycles, is setting its sights on Chicago for a new factory.
The company intends to open a Shinola eyewear plant on the South Side of Chicago by 2017, a spokeswoman said Thursday. Further details were not yet available.
Shinola has other connections to Chicago, too.
The company opened a store in Bucktown in late 2014 and works with storied Chicago tannery Horween (which also makes straps for the Moto 360) for its watches, journals, pet and other leather goods.
Its branded shoe polish — a reference to the quip that inspired its name — is made by Chicago supplier C.A. Zoes Manufacturing, which began production in 1905.
Shinola continues to expand across the United States, according to President Jacques Panis. The company has 14 stores and expects to reach 23 by the end of the year, bringing with it a message of production that benefits local economies.
Shinola reached nearly $100 million in sales in 2015, up from about $60 million the year before.
Panis will be in Chicago on April 6 to appear at The Exchange, a Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce event featuring a panel about social impact companies, with Flowers for Dreams CEO and co-founder Steven Dyme and Blue Plate Catering CFO Calvin Gin. Blue Sky editor Andrea Hanis will moderate.
Panis explained how his company's local identity affects how it does business.
Q. How do Shinola's social-impact principles impact your workforce?
A. If we can provide people with great jobs, great working environment, 401k participation, healthcare benefit, we believe that that can shift the opportunity to the generation behind this workforce as well. People in our organization now have the opportunity, unfortunately, to move — I say unfortunately, because we want people to stay in Detroit. But people are now able to move their families outside of Detroit and put their kids into better school systems.
That implies generational change. These children are now given an opportunity for a great education at an early age.
Q. Shinola's messaging centers on being built in Detroit, but how does it fit into the Midwest?
A. Midwestern people appreciate quality. They appreciate craftsmanship. They want to know where their things come from. It started with the food movement and has now trickled into consumer goods. We're seeing consumers in the Midwest — and, quite frankly, on the coasts — really respond to the brand. We would not be where we are had we not been in the city of Detroit to start. Anchoring ourselves in the middle of this country has been vital to where we are today.
Q. What makes Shinola a Midwestern company?
A. Manufacturing. Look at Chicago. Chicago was an incredible manufacturing hub — and still is. We have worked with, for example, Horween in Chicago and they make incredible leathers right there in the city. We make our shoe polish in Chicago. The Midwest is, I would argue, the backbone of manufacturing for this country.
Q. Speaking of your providers from Chicago, how do you choose who to partner with?
A. We look for partners that are like-minded, that understand our mission and are on a similar mission. If they're making products in Chicago — or in the U.S., for that matter — it implies that they too are hiring people and creating jobs here.
Q. You've gotten flak for using parts made abroad. How do you reconcile that with this identity of being from Detroit and from the Midwest?
A. We've been completely transparent about where everything that we build comes from. It's front and center on our website. You can see where all the parts of our watches come from, where all the parts of leather goods come from.
We're not in the business of nitpicking and spending time focusing on where the parts come from. We're in the business of creating jobs here in the United States.
Q. Do you think Chicago could produce a company like Shinola?
A. We talk about manufacturing in the DNA of Detroit. Manufacturing's in the DNA of Chicago. There's no reason that things can't be made in Chicago, and I think Horween speaks to that.
There are some manufacturers in and around Chicago who are doing incredible things. There's a pretty rich and vibrant community of machine shops and guys who are making small parts, precision parts for the aeronautical industry, for the Department of Defense.
Q. What are your tips for manufacturing entrepreneurs?
A. A lot of times, people think they have the next greatest product that's going to be made. You need to get out there and talk, and you need to share your ideas, you need to brainstorm and collaborate with others.
Making things is not easy, making them in the United States is not easy. Finding that right partner is critical to having a company that can make things at scale here in America.
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Friday, May 08, 2015
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Sunday, April 12, 2015
Making Detroit grit chic
Making Detroit grit chic
Talk about good timing! From bikes to watches to much else besides, an up-and-coming company is making a go of it in what might seem an unlikely place. Our Dean Reynolds gives us an up-close look:
Steve Bock heads up a company called Shinola, but it's not the shoe-shine Shinola your grandfather remembers.
SHINOLA
Not running with the herd is one thing. But hanging your corporate hat in Detroit -- the largest American city to go bankrupt?
Why Detroit?
"Why not Detroit?" replied Bock. "Detroit has turned out to be a phenomenally successful decision. Clearly it's had tremendous issues and nobody should diminish all the challenges it has had. But it has turned out to be a fantastic operation."
That operation turns out high-end wristwatches, purses, wallets, and very nice bikes -- all of them emblazoned with the Shinola logo, and the word "Detroit" proudly displayed.
"What we are trying to do here is build a business that has legs, that will keep going for decades and decades and decades," Bock said. "Business has been really phenomenal. We've been very lucky. The product has resonated from day one."
The company has seven retail stores, including one in London, England, and many more are slated to open later this year. That's good news for the 300 people who work at the Shinola plant -- jobs that would not have existed without Shinola.
Nicole Comer is a hand setter. "It's a great job. I enjoy being here," she said. "I'm proud to be here. I'm proud to be a Detroiter. So working with a company that decided to put Detroit's name on their brand, obviously they're proud of Detroit, too."
Dean Reynolds asked Titus Hayes, a customer service repair technician, "This, I guess, was probably a really prized job?"
"Yes, yes," Hayes said. "People are fans of the company. And they're just proud. It's a lot of pride inside the company. Everyone loves the story."
Maybe not everyone.
Jon Moy lives here and writes the Four Pins lifestyle blog. "I think that their marketing materials and their press materials, I think, are heavily predicated upon sort of the stories and struggles of black Detroit. Using that, and those stories and their faces and their bodies in a way to sell unabashedly premium and luxury goods is, I think, at best problematic," he said.
Critics point out that the goods are only assembled here (the real craftsmanship is performed elsewhere), and that longtime residents of Detroit don't really need $600 watches or $2,000 bikes -- even if they could afford them.
Steve Bock says the company gets that.
"We have to be very careful with how Shinola is perceived in Detroit," he told Reynolds. "It's not what Shinola is doing for Detroit; it's what Detroit, frankly, is doing for Shinola."
He's hoping that, in the right hands, grit can be chic.
And speaking of grit, the new Shinola has resurrected that old brand of shoe shine.
And because of that, we should probably educate the younger set about the time when Shinola was compared to something else, as a way to spot an intellectually challenged individual.
How did it go again? "You don't know s--- from Shinola."
No wonder Shinola is only too happy now to be tied to something else.
Saturday, March 07, 2015
Shinola's Detroit story a successful sell
Shinola's Detroit story a successful sell
ALEXIA
ELEJALDE-RUIZ, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
12 HOURS AGO
Devin Kaltenbach hasn't worn a watch in 10 years.
But the 31-year-old Michigan native recently found
himself in Chicago's Shinola boutique, wearing a baseball cap that shouted
"Detroit" across the front, buying a timepiece designed to tell a
story as much as the time of day.
"Welcome to the family, man," a store associate
said as he tucked the $600 watch into a cedar box alongside a tub of balm for oiling
the leather strap.
The Shinola family has been growing swiftly since the
company's founding four years ago, propelled by the drumbeat of its Detroit
pride and made-in-America ethos, a striking example of the power of savvy
storytelling.
The details of its story have caused some backlash —
namely, that most of its products are not actually made in Detroit but
assembled there using parts mostly made in America and some from Asia. And that
the idea for the luxury brand, out of reach for many in the poverty-stricken
city, was the brainchild of a Texas entrepreneur who partnered with a Swiss
provider of watch parts for the quartz movements.
Despite the footnotes, the heart of the lush tale Shinola
has woven about the hardscrabble city rising from the ashes has gained a
devoted following.
"The underdog nature (of the story) makes people
pull for it," said Mick McCabe, chief strategy officer at ad agency Leo
Burnett.
Kaltenbach, whose cellphone long ago made watch-wearing
anything but a necessity, said Shinola's story was compelling enough to make an
investment he otherwise might have skipped.
"I like to support Detroit, especially because
everyone hates on it," said Kaltenbach, who grew up in Lansing, Mich., and
now lives in Chicago's Ukrainian Village neighborhood.
"You're buying into something as opposed to just
buying a tangible product," said Keith Black, store manager at Shinola's
Chicago shop, a den of leather and wood that opened in late November at 1619 N.
Damen Ave.
Storytelling has been an integral part of branding for
decades. What's notable about Detroit-based Shinola is that the story it is
telling — a "living" narrative about working people in a struggling
city rather than the mythology of luxury brands — has resonated so deeply, said
Ken Nisch, chairman of JGA, a retail design and branding firm headquartered in
Michigan.
Shinola belongs to what Nisch calls the "new
luxury" concept, alongside resurgent heritage brands such as Carhartt and
Allen Edmonds, which despite their premium price points, have an appealing
anti-status undercurrent.
"I think this (millennial) generation watched the
news of the factories closing and have sort of built a reaction against things
that they believe are inauthentic or that take away the dignity of the people
that make things," Nisch said. "Shinola fits very well into that
psychology."
The 4-year-old company's watches, bicycles, leather
goods, journals, pet accessories and a broadening array of other products
generated $80 million in revenue during its first 18 months after production
started in mid-2013.
Shinola has opened seven brand stores, including one in
London, and aims to open five to six more annually, marketing director Bridget
Russo said. It sold 170,000 watches last year, triple the number from the year
before. Its plant has the capacity to assemble 500,000 watches annually.
The wind at its back is its story of making Detroit, a
city some left for dead, as "the new watchmaking capital of America,"
reviving an industry that hasn't existed at scale in the U.S. for 40 years.
Shinola employs more than 350 people with nearly 300
based in Detroit. More than 150 of them work designing leather goods,
constructing leather watch straps, assembling watches or manufacturing watch
dials in a new factory inside the Detroit flagship store, so shoppers can see
how it's done.
The company grounds its brand in the faces and processes
that create its products, tapping into the same cultural zeitgeist that has
fueled the rise of craft beer and food trucks. Ads feature its Detroit workers
as models. Videos demonstrate the tanning of leather at Chicago's Horween
Leather Co. or stitching of watch straps at a Florida factory.
Its "craftspeople" aren't the only stars.
Shinola had famed photographer Bruce Weber shoot a series of portraits
capturing Detroit life. In a video to promote its $1,500 Black Blizzard
titanium wristwatch, which was "inspired by the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and
the homesteaders who weathered the storm," vintage footage and audio from
the era show farmers toiling in windy fields, a metaphor for overcoming
adversity.
That it can tell the story across digital platforms is
"so much more immersive and intimate and participatory, richer and more
textured and two-way in its emphasis," McCabe said.
"All of it is about differentiation," said Tim
Calkins, clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern University's Kellogg
School of Management. "Shinola isn't selling products that are
fundamentally different. The products are nice but not remarkable. The thing
that makes them remarkable is their story."
A well-crafted story, often with a social mission, is
behind the appeal of many brands targeting young consumers.
At Chicago-based BucketFeet, which recently scored $7.5
million in funding to help it expand, highlighting the background of the
artists behind each shoe's whimsical design is what makes it coveted by
shoppers who have many shoe-buying options.
"People sort of equate high-end things with value
because they're exclusive, only certain people can afford them," said CEO
Raaja Nemani. "I think we give people that same feeling of very
significant value in our products because there is that deeper story
there."
At Toms, which last fall opened its first Chicago store a
few doors down from Shinola, the shoe brand's one-for-one giving mission was
"the biggest focus of our training," said Erik Larkin, an event
planner and employee at the shop.
To be sure, "some people just need a wedge for
tonight," Larkin said, but Toms is selling an identity.
Inside Toms coffee shop, where customers can sip on
Toms-branded coffee — buy a bag and they give clean water for a week to someone
in need — a newsletter exhorts people to join the "global discoverist
movement," which Toms explains like this: "We're a varied bunch of
explorers,
adventurers, do-gooders, concerned citizens, wayward travelers,
curiosity seekers and philanthropists.
If you're reading this, you likely are
too."
Similarly, the brand masters at Shinola "understand
the power that brands say something about you," Calkins said. As the
poster child of Detroit's renaissance, "Shinola is a brand people are
happy to wear, to show off, to talk about."
And because not everyone who aspires to reflect its
values can afford its watches ($475 to $1,500) or its bikes ($1,950 to $2,950),
Shinola sells small tokens. A leather toothpick holder costs $6.
Shinola has gotten heat for so heavily marketing Detroit
when its leadership parachuted in from outside and most of its products are
made elsewhere before assembly.
The company that spawned it is Texas-based Bedrock
Manufacturing, a venture capital firm helmed by Tom Kartsotis, founder and
former CEO of the accessories brand Fossil.
Kartsotis was interested in reviving American-made
watches. Detroit was chosen as the home base because of its manufacturing
history and rich talent base, Russo said.
In a now-famous story, the company commissioned a focus
group and asked if people preferred a $5 pen from China, a $10 pen made in the
USA or a $15 pen made in Detroit and discovered people were willing to pay the
higher premium for one made in Detroit.
The name Shinola caught on during conference room banter,
inspired by the World War I-era colloquialism, "You don't know (blank)
from Shinola," which refers to an old shoe polish brand whose color bore a
certain resemblance. In a nod to the heritage, Shinola sells shoe polish, made
in Chicago by C.A. Zoes Manufacturing.
Bedrock also owns Filson, a strong heritage brand making
rugged luggage and apparel in Seattle for more than a century.
Shinola — which is headquartered on the fifth floor of
Detroit's College of Creative Studies, a building that used to be a General
Motors research lab — says it is transparent.
"We don't claim to be born and raised here (in
Detroit)," said Russo. "But we do genuinely want to be a part of its
future and success story and shine a light on the city."
The FAQ page on Shinola's website lists the provenance of
its wares — canvas from New Jersey, wheels from California, bike frames from
Wisconsin, shoe care tins from China.
Still, Shinola's story rings hollow to some.
Zak Pashak, president of Detroit Bikes, calls Shinola
"a really good marketing company" but is frustrated that its
"Built in Detroit" mantra can mislead people to believe it
manufactures bikes in the city.
"It's infuriating in some regards because I have put
the time and money into walking the walk," said Pashak, a Canadian
transplant who invested $2.5 million to build a 50,000-square-foot Detroit
factory where former car engineers manufacture steel bike frames.
Even so, he said, Shinola's popular brand story is good
for the city and his business.
"If its brand is that stuff from Detroit is
cool," Pashak said, "then that's great for everyone in Detroit."
Jim Devine, 43, a Michigan native who stopped into the
Chicago store recently to buy a watch as a gift for his best man at his
wedding, said the company's origin story drove his purchase.
"I'd probably look at that watch differently if it
wasn't made in Detroit," he said.
Brothers Alejandro and Daniel Ramirez were drawn into the
store by their efforts to buy more U.S.-made products.
"I think we're really aware of the fact that part of
it is marketing, but we'll take it," said Alejandro Ramirez, 32.
Nisch, from brand consulting firm JGA, said most
consumers "give Shinola credit for trying."
"I think authenticity isn't an exact science,"
Nisch said. "In this case it's more heart than brain. It's kind of made
up. But I don't think you have to cross all the T's."
Sent from my iPhone
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Saturday, February 07, 2015
1871 WELCOMES THE SHINOLA TEAM FOR A TOUR AND TALK WITH MEMBER COMPANIES
You Don’t Know Shinola
Tom Kartsotis and his brother Kosta built Fossil
(FOSL) from scratch starting in 1984 (when Tom dropped out of college and was
scalping football tickets in Texas) into a global lifestyle brand and a public
company with 14,000 employees which - 30 years later - sells $3.2 billion worth
of bags, watches and clothing a year and has a market cap of more than $5
billion.
Tom retired as Chairman of Fossil
in 2010 and these days Kosta runs the Fossil Group while Tom (through his
private equity firm – Bedrock Manufacturing) has turned his primary attention
to a new challenge – Shinola (www.shinola.com) - an analog watch manufacturing and
marketing start-up in a profoundly digital world. With 7 retail stores, close
to 400 employees making great wages, and an exploding online demand as well for
its products which now include multiple lines of watches, high-end bicycles and
other accessories, the company is well-positioned to help Detroit and to create the next big lifestyle brand. And, amazingly enough, it’s
really just getting started.
The Kartsotis
brothers are pretty private guys and rarely – if ever – talk to the press or
any other media. They understand the power and importance of getting their
brand and their “story” out there, but they prefer to do it guerilla-style and
face-to-face rather than through the traditional channels. So Tom and some other
key members of his team (including Shinola President Jacques Panis)
agreed recently to sit down with me and a couple of dozen of our 1871
entrepreneurs in our Chicago startup incubator to give us the inside scoop on Shinola.
Tom shared some of the lessons
they’ve already learned (as the company nears its third year of existence) in
building a “new” manufacturing business in an era of high-tech and digital
everything; he talked about the size of the opportunities they see ahead of
them and the openings and market gaps that they are targeting; and he answered
a bunch of questions from the founders of some of our own most exciting startups.
There were plenty of concrete take-aways that were relevant to every
entrepreneur in the room and I’ve summarized a few of the most important ones
below.
I Wish I Could Say That We Had A Plan.
Sometimes you just have to believe, get
the process started and have confidence that - with a lot of effort and
persistence - you will get there – even when you’re not exactly sure where
there is. It helps a lot to have a
vision and a dream and a compelling story. Shinola is about pride and craft,
making things that matter and last, and honoring our past as well as the
future. It’s a no-nonsense notion combined with a lot of nostalgia and it’s the
real deal. No one believed the Shinola team when they explained
what they intended to do (start a watch factory in a 100-year old office
building in Detroit) and Tom thinks that there are still some folks out there shaking
their heads, but now they’re wearing Shinola watches and riding their Runwell
bikes. He also noted that there will surely be bumps in the road and false
starts which you’ll simply have to manage through. He said that they’ve had
plenty of hiccups, but they just kept their heads down and plowed ahead. Nobody
ever said building a new business was easy. He pointed out that their idea for
a Tall Men’s store in Tokyo didn’t work out real well – but he was just
kidding.
If We Take Care Of Our People, They’ll Take
Care Of Our Customers And Our Business.
Shinola pays its people well; provides
amazing medical benefits; and even pays them above-market wages while training
them right in their own factory. Everyone spends time in the company’s retail
stores because listening to the customers is the best feedback you’ll ever get.
But – far more importantly – Shinola believes and shows everyone
that anyone can succeed if they’re willing to work hard and put in the time and
effort that is required. The company celebrates their successes and some of the
most important team members – who started with Shinola as guards,
janitors, delivery people, etc. – are now in charge of critical parts of the
operations and continuing to grow and learn more every day. Success breeds
success and believing that your people are your most important asset and that
they can always be better is the only way to keep raising the bar.
We Start With The
Best Product We Can Find (Or Imagine) And Then Make The Numbers Work.
If you aim
for the stars and being the best you can be, you very often get there. If you
ask people why not and why something can’t be done a new way; you’d be
surprised how often you get the answers and the results you looking for. The
Shinola team brought in the best Swiss watch builders in the world to train
their people. They built a first-class factory that’s as clean as a surgery
suite. And they guaranteed their products for life. These aren’t small hurdles
or tentative commitments – these guys are all-in, but they also understand that
they’ve got to make the numbers work for the long term so that the businesses
can scale. It’s reverse engineering on steroids and a fierce attention to every
production detail and source of materials and it’s opening up new opportunities
for the company and its many U.S.-based supply partners. Shinola believes that - penny
for penny and pound for pound, their people can learn to build better products
at competitive costs with far higher quality in Detroit than are now being
manufactured anywhere else in the world.
If Your High Prices
Are Propped Up By Huge Marketing Spends, You’re Ripe For Disruption.
The traditional high-end luxury watch
industry has benefitted from enormous mark-ups and margins which are largely
dependent on the manufacturers’ very substantial brand advertising and
marketing spends. Shinola saw an open space in the market and an opportunity to
offer a high quality product at price points which were still very profitable
and yet only a fraction of the pricing which the traditional brands were
maintaining through their massive ad campaigns. The Shinola team believed
that you can make a great product and a great living (and even give back to
your community) without being greedy and taking advantage of the consumer. These
days the Shinola watches are the entry point into the higher-end, luxury
watch sector of the business even while they are also seen by consumers as
solid, workman-like, precision products suitable for everyone.
It’s not easy to be all things to all people, but it appears
that everyone knows and loves Shinola.
PS: “You Get What You Work for, Not What You Wish for”
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