Archives for February 2021

February
10, 2021

8 min read

Netflix costume drama Bridgerton smashed viewing records and projections when it debuted in December, quickly becoming the streaming service’s most popular original series ever. The first Shonda Rhimes project to come out of her $100 million deal with Netflix, Bridgerton explores the dynamics of courting and marriage in 19th-century England.

Bridgerton’s Christmas Day release was timed perfectly for Netflix viewers who needed an escape — and perhaps something to occupy their time as they spent the holidays alone, or with a smaller group than usual. And what an escape it is: A light, frothy retreat from the real world into a place where an unwed couple walking alone in a garden is enough to set tongues wagging and lead to social downfall. The escapism wouldn’t be complete without Bridgerton’s opulent set designs and costumes: Designer Ellen Mirojnick and her team of 200 were tasked with creating more than 7,500 costumes in five months for the series’ eight episodes.

Netflix could have predicted that Bridgerton would be a hit, but few anticipated it would become a full-blown cultural phenomenon, capable of providing a much-needed boost to the fashion industry. Fashion and retail have been among the industries hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic — after all, why get dressed up with nowhere to go?

But months of sitting at home have started to take their toll, and consumers are looking to spice up their sweatpants and slippers uniforms. So where are they looking for inspiration? To the shows that have captured their imaginations for the past 11 months, of course. 

Shopping app LTK compiles images from thousands of influencers’ Instagram feeds, serving as both a way for users to find inspiration and a way for influencers to make a commission when followers buy something they post about. Since Bridgerton’s debut in December, LTK has seen a 1,900% week-over-week increase in people searching for “Bridgerton” fashion, a 25,000% increase in people searching for “nap dresses,” a 3,900% increase in searches for silk dresses, a 1,000% increase in searches for embroidery and a 1,000% increase in searches for corsets. (The show might seem stodgy, but it’s anything but. It is based on a series of bestselling romance novels after all). 

“[This year] saw an unimaginable increase in consumers spending more time indoors than ever before, and they consumed content at record-breaking rates as a result,” says Dave Murray, European managing directory of LTK and its parent company RewardStyle. “With physical retail spaces, pubs, restaurants, and the arts closed, event gatherings canceled, and office attendance minimized, consumers turned to online and streaming content as a primary source of inspiration. In the LTK shopping app, we have seen this mirrored in a dramatic increase in searches for topical trends including interiors and fashion, as well as search terms from TV shows such as Emily in Paris, Sex and the City and Bridgerton.”

The data LTK compiled shows certain search terms spike when a new show is trending. When Emily in Paris debuted in October, searches for houndstooth jackets, the main character’s signature look, increased by 2,900%. When The Queen’s Gambit was all anyone could talk about, searches for 60s style spiked. And when HBO Max announced a Sex and the City reboot was coming, searches for Carrie Bradshaw’s beloved Manolo Blahniks surged by 1,000%.

All this browsing isn’t just for fun, either. According to Google, when searches for Bridgerton were spiking in early January, they were happening in the Google Shopping tab — not the main Google Search tab. That indicates consumers were searching with the intent to actually buy, and both anecdotal and quantitative data from fashion brands supports that.

Take luxury lingerie brand Fleur du Mal for example: In one of its first scenes, Bridgerton features a character being laced into a corset. Starting in December when the show launched, Fleur du Mal saw a 102% increase in people viewing corsets and bra tops on its site, and those searches led to a 30% increase in corset sales starting in December, with multiple items selling out. 

“While many brands saw an uptick in casual styles this year, we were excited to see increased interest in our sexier offerings even before the show was released,” says Fleur du Mal founder and CEO Jennifer Zuccarini. “The success of Bridgerton definitely added momentum, and I think had people fantasizing, in more ways than one, about dressing up and undressing. Our whole team was watching the show, and we often discussed it in our morning marketing calls, so we were following it pretty closely.”

For Afshan Abbas, founder of Seattle-based Fuchsia Shoes, a surprising post-holiday spike in traffic to the site caused her to dig deeper into how people were finding her company’s hand-embroidered flats. “While most of our organic traffic comes from search terms around ethical, sustainable, made-to-order, juttis, or artisan-made shoes, Google Analytics revealed many of our new searches were coming from search terms around embroidered shoes,” she says. “I’d already heard of the show, but I didn’t put two and two together until I noticed a thread about Bridgerton and embroidery in our private Facebook group of core Fuchsia fans.”

Image Credit: Fuchsia Shoes

Fuchsia’s shoes do bear a striking resemblance to the embroidered and beaded clothing Bridgerton heroine Daphne Bridgerton wears throughout the first season, so much so that Abbas decided to produce a limited-edition Bridgerton-inspired pair to build on the momentum. 

“We partner with incredibly talented artisans in Pakistan who use centuries-old techniques to hand-embroider every Fuchsia shoe,” she says. “Every pair of our shoes is made-to-order, so this gives us the flexibility to produce limited quantity batches of shoes and test new designs, textiles and patterns. After studying Bridgerton‘s incredible outfits, we decided to release a shoe inspired by some of Daphne Bridgerton’s dresses. We’re working with our designers to nail down the exact pattern, textiles and colors, but right now we’re looking at a shoe that will have elements of our Crown and Mohagny. It will be ornate, light blue and embellished with pearls and metallic beads. We’ll be releasing this new shoe in about three weeks.”

For other brands, the Bridgerton craze and accompanying surge in sales was simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Hill House Home, a direct-to-consumer home and fashion brand, debuted its line of “nap dresses” in 2019, and they were already wildly popular pre-pandemic. But in an era of Zoom meetings, the polished-yet-comfortable design became the unofficial WFH uniform for a certain group of mostly millennial women. “It’s a dress that you feel really presentable in, and that you can tackle anything in, but that’s still comfortable,” says Hill House Home founder and CEO Nell Diamond. “The nap dress name is a bit of a misnomer. Nobody’s napping — certainly not our customers. I have not had time to nap in years. It’s the idea that the comfort that’s inherent to the nap dress makes it possible for you to theoretically take a nap anytime.”

The Caroline Nap Dress. Image Credit: Emma Craft

An October Wall Street Journal article compared the dresses to the costumes from the 1996 film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma. That comparison was remarkably prescient: Bridgerton is set in the same era, and searches for nap dress style inspiration on the LTK app in January jumped a whopping 25,000%. 

“Where I really saw the Bridgerton effect was on social media,” Diamond says. “I saw people at home fully doing a dress-up with our product, and that made me so happy. We have this one dress called the Caroline, and it has a high neck and is very Bridgerton. We saw people wearing a headband and the Caroline with a cup of tea in front of their TV just having a night. And I’m like ‘Yes, you deserve it. What a year. Do that.’”

In a stroke of fate, Hill House’s new line of nap dresses, dubbed the English Garden Collection, debuts today. “We definitely love a good floral and proper Regency vibe, but it’s a happy accident,” Diamond says. “I’m not in with Netflix — would love to be, that’d be great.”

February
3, 2021

8 min read

When Medium Rare co-founders and partners Joe Silberzweig and Adam Richman connected with me via Zoom earlier this week, all I could focus on were the palm trees outside the window of their production office in Tampa, Florida. Here in New York, it was snowing several inches per hour and pretty miserable, so my envy was palpable. Still, I wouldn’t have switched places with the duo, who were six days away from the launch of their latest high-stakes, elaborate, live-streaming production, The Shaq Bowl, which is being simulcast over Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Twitch and LiveXLive (among numerous other platforms) from 3-6 p.m. ET this Super Bowl Sunday. 

The event — a successor to last summer’s Shaquille O’Neal and Rob Gronkowski-starring Shaq v. Gronk — boasts multiple major sponsors (Pepsi, Papa John’s, Bacardi, Mercari, etc.) and will feature celebs ranging from Diplo and Tim Tebow to Offset and WWE Champion Drew McIntyre performing and/or competing in intramurals like dogdeball and tug-of-war. Producers Silberzweig and Richman pulled all the threads together and will be watching with fingers crossed that the logistics go off without a hitch.

So it seemed like a good time to catch up with the pair about staging yet another huge spectacle amid the limitations of an ongoing pandemic, as well as the process of courting sponsors otherwise reluctant to make big ad buys this year and hedging their bets that folks want an alternative to what Silberzweig describes as the typical pre-game purgatory of “watching the CBS countdown show with guys in suits, talking football.”

Related: Want Millions of Views for Your Virtual Event? Just Add Shaq and Gronk.

What was it like figuring out how to one-up Shaq vs. Gronk while still being mindful of Covid protocols?

Richman: Yeah, it’s funny you say that, Kenny. Right after Shaq vs. Gronk, which was filmed in Orlando, we went straight to Tampa to come look at venues [for a Super Bowl event] and met with the city and the mayor, thinking we were doing an in-person event. Obviously that wasn’t in the cards. What we’ve realized since Shaq vs. Gronk is how great these live streaming and virtual events can be. Since then we did Black Entrepreneurs Day and the Sports Illustrated Awards. And now with this one we’re like, we never want to do a live event again. I say that half jokingly, but we love the space and the power of it.

Silberzweig: In early December, that’s when we really started sitting down with Shaquille and said, “Listen, We’re not going to be able to do this live and in person. How do we keep the brand alive? It took some time, but we all landed on this realization that there is a true need and actual market opportunity to create a fun Super Bowl countdown show right before kickoff, especially this year when everybody’s at home with no Super Bowl parties and all of that.

What makes a virtual event more operationally manageable?

Richman: With the [in-person] event, there’s so many of these crazy variables: dealing with the permitting process, which is never fun; the weather is not in your control; dealing with the Fire Marshall last year at Shaq’s Fun House. All those curveballs are thrown out the window. Concert promotions have always been one of the riskiest businesses. You book all the talent, you pay for the venue and marketing, and you’re like, “I hope we sell enough tickets and sponsors.” When it comes to broadcasting, we don’t need to start actually laying out costs until we know there’s proof of concept, meaning there’s brands that want to participate. If no sponsors want to come on board for the Shaq Bowl, then we know we’re not going to spend a few million dollars to produce it. If we know that Mercari is interested in presenting and Pepsi wants to do the halftime show, now there’s a certain level of investment and it sort of removes that guessing game and the financial risk.

Image Credit: Medium Rare

Speaking of sponsors, Pepsi was among many big companies that opted out of an in-game ad this year. So did they come to you saying, “Hey, we need to allocate marketing spend differently, and maybe Shaq Bowl is it?”

Silberzweig: You know, I think with Shaq Bowl specifically, we provide a really interesting alternative to the traditional Super Bowl ad, which is priced at $5 million-plus for 30 seconds. What we’re building with Shaq and Gronk is the opportunity for [brands] to activate in a big and experiential and meaningful way with that social component. And obviously our partnership pricing starts well below $5 million. 

Richman: These are the contacts and brands that we would deal with for a festival or live event, and now they’re adapting to come into the broadcast world with us, which is pretty incredible.

The question, then, is how you do all this brand integration while still allowing audiences to enjoy it without feeling barraged with ads and sponsorships?

Richman: Yeah, and look, that’s the balance. It’s really difficult, but obviously the brands want to achieve that, we want to achieve that and, more importantly, Shaq wants to achieve that. He doesn’t want to put something out there like a NASCAR car with sponsors all over it. That’s why we don’t sell commercials or salvage traditional advertising. It’s saying, “Hey, what would be fun?” With Jack Link’s, Joe and I brainstormed for a few days and we’re like, “Their character right now is Sasquatch. What if Sasquatch comes and arm wrestles Shaq? The viewers at home are going to love that. It’s hilarious, it’s fun, and it achieves something really cool and viral for the brand without feeling like you’re watching a commercial for 10 minutes. 

Silberzweig: And if it’s not something that Shaq is going to think is cool, or adds value to the show in mine and Adam’s eyes, we won’t do it.

You guys had backgrounds in promoting live events before launching Shaq vs. Gronk. But when did all these huge brands and celebrities see Medium Rare as a credible production outfit to partner with?

Richman: We’ve built out Medium Rare over the last few years with the live events, but it’s insane that we could pull off for major events for broadcast [since last June]. When we called partners for Shaq vs. Gronk, we convinced them, but it was difficult, and it was a sale, and it was trying to really get them to jump in the pool with us. And the fees have basically doubled from what they were back in June, because partners didn’t know what it was then. There were no metrics. Now we have all this data to point to from the three [previous] events. That made the fourth one an easier sell.

Silberzweig: Black Entrepreneurs Day and the level of press we got on that one was really the proof in the pudding that Medium Rare is a lot more than just a live-event company and is capable of all sorts of things at the moment and can really adjust to figure out how to reimagine these properties in today’s world.

Everyone from MTV to WWE to Animal Planet has plotted Super Bowl counterprogramming over the years. Why are you sure Shaq Bowl will stick? 

Richman: I wouldn’t say we’re looking at it as counter-programming, because we’re really owning that space up until the game. We know at 6:30, you’re not competing with the Super Bowl. It doesn’t matter what you have. It’s actually pretty notorious that three to six [on Super Bowl Sunday] is the worst television programming of the year. We’re not saying the Puppy Bowl’s not steep competition, but you know, with all the celebrity talent and Shaq and the great marketing and press, all of that combined is a recipe to get people’s attention.

Should live-event promoters and venue owners be worrying about their obsolescence? 

Richman: Joe and I were actually talking about this last night. The live-event industry is going to come roaring back. People cannot wait to get out of their house and be with people again. We imagine next year’s Shaq Bowl not only being an unbelievable broadcast, but having 10,000 people in the stands.

Silberzweig: We’re really bullish on the return of live [events]. I think people need that connection. When it’s back, they’ll be back stronger than ever, but for Adam and I, like you mentioned, this has been a blessing. We’ve been working hard and were forced to get creative, and we see broadcast as another vertical of the business, and it should stay that way for a long time.

February
5, 2021

4 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Although it is true that the pandemic has truncated opportunities for many, it must be recognized that it has also provided them to begin to do things differently, and learn to value strongly the most important asset that every company has: its employees.

We must never forget that a company is due to the effort, work and talent of those who make it possible for the different processes of the organization to be a reality.

Seeking the well-being of employees was an expectation for many, today companies are realizing that it is a “duty”, since generating structures that promote happiness and well-being in employees brings infinite benefits to any organization.

If a company maintains its strengths and never stops implementing good practices to achieve the happiness and well-being of its employees, it will generate trust, positive emotions and commitment in them. Let us remember the heliotropic effect of Kim Cameron, where he explains it clearly, by nature all living beings tend to go towards the light, towards a positive energy; and get away from the dark, negative energy.

What people need to flourish is precisely that light, that is the main ingredient that every organization requires for its successful growth, to preserve its garden of beautiful living flowers.

But it is not only that, the profiles of the employees also have interference to determine the environment or climate at work. We must pay maximum attention that they have well-established values such as empathy, compassion, honesty, tolerance, loyalty, among others. These soft skills are what will form an organization that alone, without planning, will help humanity.

In this life many times we have heard the phrase “You have to lead by example”, and it is true! If an organization has leaders who generate optimism, positive emotions, ideas to contribute, not to fulfill, in their work team, they will have greater success in their tasks or tasks.

Optimism has been shown to lead to higher learning and performance. The reason is, if you believe or think that you will do well, you will try harder.

^{Depositphotos.com}

At Duke University, a couple of economists proved that optimistic people work longer hours, are more persistent, and end up making more money.

It is necessary to be clear that it is the responsibility of all the leaders of the organizations to attend to the psychosocial component of the behavior of the people who make it up, since organizational well-being is directly related to economic results, conflict management, customer satisfaction, and the achievement of organizational efficiency.

Organizational wellness

A company that demonstrates organizational well-being has significant competitive advantages, for example:

+ 300% Innovation -44% Diseases

+ 44% Sales -51% Turnover

+ 31% Productivity -125% Burnout

+ 37% Retention

But not only that, having a healthy and harmonious work environment allows business processes to flow, goals to be achieved in the shortest time and in the best way, the reputation of the company is benefited, because when the employee feels cared for the same, he will spread the word with his relatives.

To achieve organizational success, it is necessary to implement an organizational wellness and happiness strategy that contributes to aligning the business with strategic objectives and HR initiatives. Let us remember that well-being is a personal and collective responsibility for continuous improvement in organizations.

Boost the happiness of organizations

For more than five years LIVE 13.5 ° has offered consulting to various organizations under a complete and humane methodology. With it, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and financial balance is sought in people, which contributes to generating happy and productive organizations.

Large transnational companies such as Coca Cola Femsa, Natura, Danone, Starbucks, Nissan, Mitsubishi Motors, UPS, Cirsa, Santander, Chopo, Unicef, MetLife, Expansión, Kuehne + Nagel, among many more, have been participants in the experiences and certifications that offers LIVE 13.5 ° as consultancies in happiness and HR, training and integration events to form happier, productive, healthy and positive work teams.

It is time to listen and carefully observe the context that we are living, from all its angles, don’t you think that it is crying out for us to be better human beings and to do something for society itself?

It is necessary to start the year well, be more empathetic with what surrounds us, identify the observable behaviors that generate positive results and implement good practices.

Let’s find, work and promote that well-being of our second home, work.

February
5, 2021

5 min read

We changed, employers changed, and work itself changed. According to a survey by the human resources consultancy Mercer, 83% of employers in Latin America will continue to work remotely, once the pandemic is controlled. Additionally, for the National Association for Business Economics, in the United States, it is estimated that 80% of companies maintain their operations under the same conditions.

This implies that companies are assimilating the new labor paradigm and also opens up a great opportunity for all those who carry out activities virtually. Professionals dedicated to programming and software development have already seen a growth in demand thanks to the virtualization of the working day, so they can find offers around the world, with just a click. But how do you get these kinds of jobs?

The growth of remote job opportunities led experts in the field to develop tools that help people understand this new way of working. One of them is Alexander Torrenegra, investor, Colombian businessman and shark of Shark Tank, the reality show of the Sony channel. Torrenegra set out to facilitate the meeting between employers, especially from North America and Latin American talent. This is how Torre was born, a platform in which Latino talent can access job offers beyond its borders, facilitating entry in international currency and expanding the labor market.

With more than a million people registered in just over a year since its creation, Torre uses Artificial Intelligence to generate successful recruits and organize hundreds of data from the profiles of each professional.

“All you need to work anywhere is a good internet connection and a computer. In addition, with platforms like Torre, you can find opportunities according to the level of income, skills, and even the professional culture of each one. Along with this, users can decide whether they are looking for a freelance job, full time or an internship ”, highlights the Colombian businessman.

How does it work? At Torre, you just create a profile with information that nurtures the “professional genome” of each person. This is like the work DNA of each person, with hundreds of data that gather skills, strengths, weaknesses and experiences; a much more complete resume and in total control of the applicants. This will serve to make the perfect match between the talent and the needs of each company. In addition to the support and service of this platform, there are other elements to take into account to be successful working remotely.

Have structure and organization

Offering services in a company that is located in a different country may require more planning, as you may work different hours. From the start, acquiring responsibility from a distance demands a great sense of organization and responsibility to accomplish tasks. By having a structure and complying with the established times you can not only guarantee more success, but also help to find more and better opportunities in remote work management platforms.

^{Photo: Courtesy}

Master other languages

If the interest is in working for companies in the United States, it is necessary to have a good command of English. This will facilitate communication with employers and open the possibility of having better job offers. The constant practice and knowledge of other languages will be a vital aspect to obtain jobs in different countries.

Acquisition of new skills

“Remote workers are self-taught and curious. They are always looking for new knowledge to overcome day-to-day obstacles and nurture their curriculum, in order to become more attractive to different global companies seeking remote talent, ”adds Torrenegra. Currently, there are many online learning platforms that facilitate the acquisition of new tools that will serve to diversify the skills offered on search sites like Torre.

Use of technological tools

To organize time and tasks, as well as income received, different available digital platforms can be used to make remote work more efficient. A person who works online must take advantage of the entire range of tools that exists on the internet. This is a fundamental characteristic of remote workers: being friendly with technology, since many of the employers they can find will give access to workspaces such as Slack, Drive, Calendly, among others.

“The pandemic erased the borders when it comes to working, especially for those professions that concentrate all their activities on the use of the computer, such as programming and software development. For them, the world opened up, giving them the possibility of living in Latin America, but working, for example, with the United States with pay in dollars ”, Torrenegra concludes.