D2C Newsletter
Fashion Kilas
How Merch Went From Concerts to Vogue
Roni Schlanger
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What Are The Key Take Aways?
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Bravo Bravado Bravado is killing it for creative products and marketing - they’re focussing a lot more on hard sales and activations |
Other retailers that sell/have sold Justin Bieber merch: Ardene, ASOS, H&M, Urban Outfitters, Simons, JB’s Direct Site |
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Designers and Musicians Team Up Although artists have been the faces of brands for years, they are now turning the tables and hiring popular designers to design for them. Ex: |
Extending the Creative Vision Merch is growing and artists are getting more involved since they don’t have as much creative ways to express themselves through CD packaging, they want they’re merch to stand out. |
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D2C should be working closely with Events to coordinate retargeting campaigns post tours. |
To celebrate Migos’ headlining performance at Wireless Festival, Bravado joined forces with the UK’s Selfridges to offer a special Culture II capsule, featuring exclusive designs for Selfridges as well as custom vintage pieces from the Migos by Saint Luis collection. Migos’ takeover of a section in one of the world’s most prestigious luxury department stores further underscores the group’s influence on the global cultural landscape. Migos also made a surprise store appearance much to the delight of the group’s adoring fans. The line is available exclusively at Selfridges flagship London location and select pieces from the collection can be found on the Selfridges’ website.
Five hours before its opening, Justin Bieber fans had already begun forming a line that wrapped around the block to get into the artist’s VFiles pop-up shop in New York. Inside the Soho store, the otherwise sparse space was stocked with merchandise promoting Bieber’s Purpose tour in the form of T-shirts, sweatpants and hoodies that borrow from the sartorial world of French fashion brand Vetements and riff on the graphics of heavy-metal band Pentagram.
Bravado oversees merchandise of all stripes for its artists, from tea towels to keychains. Vlasic notes that getting physical objects of any kind into the hands of fans is an increasingly important part of marketing in an age where music is almost all digital. Still, he acknowledges that clothing continues to exert a particular pull on fans.
In staging this pop-up, Bieber joins the ranks of Drake, whose pop-up gave out free T-shirts in promotion of his album Views last month, and Kanye West, whose pop-up for The Life of Pablo allegedly brought in $1 million in sales. Bieber’s iteration features 14 different styles of clothing ranging from $30-$360 in price, with select styles -- including a quickly sold-out T-shirt emblazoned with “Brooklyn” to commemorate the shows Bieber is playing this week at Barclays Center -- being exclusively debuted at VFiles and not available online.
This weekend, Ben’s Famous Pizza in SoHo gets transformed into Yachty’s Pizzeria. A special pop-up brought to you by Atlanta-born rapper Lil Yachty—who admits he has eaten pizza every day since the second grade–and the music merch masterminds at Bravado, enjoy Ben’s famous Sicilian-style pizza while shopping for limited-edition merchandise from a slice joint-inspired menu.
Coinciding with the Grammy Awards returning to New York on Jan. 28, Bloomingdale’s is partnering with Universal Music Group and Bravado, its global merchandise and brand management company, to present Music is Universal, a tour-inspired retail experience.
Music Is Universal will feature exclusive women’s, men’s and children’s merchandise and artist collections, limited-edition product and in-store activations.
“More than ever, an artist has to focus 100% on every single aspect of their business,” says Vlasic. “10 or 15 years ago, you could focus on the music. If you didn’t want to think about how your brand was portrayed in apparel, or other consumer products, you didn’t have to.”
He points out that in the past, artists could express themselves in other ways, like CD packaging, but as the industry has evolved, so have their creative responsibilities.
“You got 70,000 people in a stadium that are super excited coming into the show, and even more excited coming out of the show, and you’re exiting through the gift shop,” explains Vlasic.
“I like to look at it as more of a collaborative partnership than a license,” says Vlasic [CEO at Bravado]. “To me a license is just kind of like: give me a check, you can take this, go slap it on whatever you can find, and send me a royalty statement. Whereas in the partnerships, we’ve gone in representing the artist’s brand, sat down and figured out how we’d work together. What makes sense? Where are the creative synergies? How do we talk to your fan base? How do you talk to our fan base?”
“Why can’t we do more things in food and beverage? Why can’t we do more things in travel and leisure?,” he asks. “That’s a definite focus for us right now because it’s a lifestyle at the end of the day. The Rolling Stones is a lifestyle. The Beatles is a lifestyle. The Doors are a lifestyle. Travis Scott is a lifestyle. There are lifestyles in all of those things, and we want to be able to have an infrastructure that can help build those.”
“These guys are experts at creating hype,” he says. “It’s a little bit more of a frenzy, and so I don’t know what it will be in 20 years if you look back.”
“What it comes down to is if you’re a fan and you love the music, you should go out and buy a shirt and rep it,” says Ross One. “Because there’s a good likelihood it will mean something to you down the road.”
That’s where Bravado comes in. Founded in 1997 by Keith and Barry Drinkwater, the music merchandise company was acquired by Universal Music Group in 2007. Their artist roster includes classic bands like The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, and modern heavyweights like Travis Scott, Justin Bieber, The Weeknd, and Kanye West. Mat Vlasic, who has served as the CEO since March 2016, understands the importance of leveraging an artist’s platform as an omni-channel brand.
For Bravado, business is booming—to the tune of reported revenues of 313 million euros in 2016, up 13.4% from the previous year. Events and concerts are currently where Bravado converts the most sales by person.
“The origin point is always the artist,” asserts Mangan [a Senior Product Manager at Bravado]. “There’s no merch business if you don’t have the music to lead it, but the artist is driving the creative more and more.”
Vlasic sees this space as a place where Bravado can really grow. It’s where they’re able to leverage the brand an artist has, and explore how they can expand it from a retail standpoint. Mangan says they already tier the product to different retailers, which is why you can find Bravado artist merch everywhere from Forever 21 to Urban Outfitters, but the high-end collaborations speak to an entirely different, more discerning audience. It’s their version of a prestigious Nike collab that boosts awareness and demand for the general release model. And while Bravado’s current partnerships have been focused on apparel, Vlasic sees a future where artists’ brands extend beyond what fans put on their body, but also in their body.
While Justin Bieber or Travis Scott restaurants may be in the pipeline, Vlasic doesn’t see the merch wave cresting anytime soon. He points out how much more dedicated fans have become—not just in music, but other entertainment properties like Star Wars, Marvel, and Disney (all of which happen to be owned by the same company). We live in a saturated paradigm where fans of a brand are just waiting for the next thing to consume, whether it’s a film, television series, or album. Hype has evolved beyond apparel and into pretty much anything people are passionate about.