Made By Gather's formula for finding the best celebrity partner

0:04Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Modern Retail Podcast.

0:30With Drew Barrymore, there's also Bella. It also has Crux. I know that with Bella, there are some new updates and some new, I guess I'll say, brand affiliations, brand ambassadorships that are happening. I want to go into just learning the story I've made by Gather, but also it's a really fascinating model of having a bunch of brands underneath the umbrella, and it uses celebrity or well-known people and kind of culture to drive it forward. And I want to talk about how Shay has approached that over the years. But Shay, how are you doing? Thanks for joining. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Excited to be on.

1:02Absolutely. So first, let's start with you. Correct me if I'm wrong. Made by Gather launched in 2003. Is that right? Yeah, I started the company, founded it in 2003. So it's been about 22 years at it. Feels like a short period of time, but it's actually been 22 years. Yeah, the brand is entering its Gen Z era. Totally. So let's talk about what you were doing before and why you decided to launch it back then. Yeah, I decided to launch it back then really out of just my passion and love for design. I've just always been someone that has loved and appreciated design, whether it be in fashion, whether it be in sneakers, whether it be in cars, whether it be in furniture.

1:40And so at the time in 2003, you know, I was in my mid-20s. I was looking at the landscape of kitchenwares and it was just all really, and it still isn't much better, but it was all really kind of stale design, basic, you know, black and white appliances. Most of the products all looked very similar. And so I got into the business just with this idea that I could design things that people would love that had some thoughtful design in them and looked more attractive than the products that were on the market. it. And what was the first iteration of Made by Gather? Was it branded as Made by Gather?

2:16What products did you have? Because right now I feel like people associate you with these other brands. Yeah, yeah. So it started off, actually, the company, the original name was called Sensio, and it really started off creating items. So we were creating really cool designed items that were unique that got customers excited when they saw them in stores. In 2003, most of the business was brick and mortar. So, you know, for example, we did a really cute, whimsical quesadilla maker that had a little chili pepper handle on it that people loved. And we sold hundreds of thousands, I mean, probably millions at this point of that quesadilla maker.

2:54You know, we did other things like fun blenders, jumped into the space of making kind of really cool designed rotating waffle makers that people could use at home. So maybe they saw them when they went to hotels or restaurants, but we kind of brought that trend into the home with design. So the company started out making products, and it was really about items. It was really about creating great, fun items that people got excited about. And then as the company evolved and got bigger, we started to kind of think more about brand and emotional connection and experience with the consumer. Was there an aha moment for when you realized it needed to be about brand?

3:33And correct me if I'm wrong, but Bella, was it 2011 that it launched? Yes. Yeah. So there are probably two really big aha moments that have created pivots and transformations of the business. The first one came in 2010, where, you know, we had built actually a really big business. You know, we were doing a ton of business selling everybody Walmart, Target, the club channels, all the department stores and specialty stores. But again, it was a bunch of items. So it was kind of like we were creating items and we were selling them. And we got some really good advice that in order to really maximize the value of the business, you should think about launching your own brands and kind of control your own destiny.

4:18So we made a big pivot in 2011 and we launched Bella. That was our first brand that we had created from scratch. And it was at the time, it was just on the eve of social media becoming relevant. So Facebook had just launched and really become, you know, kind of something that was part of people's day-to-day lives. I mean, it was like a big deal to have a couple hundred thousand Facebook followers. And we were one of the first kitchen brands that were, that jumped into social media. This is like pre-Instagram. So we were using Vine video influencers. So Bella was really about tapping into this younger demo that was starting to really consume content and consume ideas and excitement around brands in social media.

5:00So that's where it started. So you knew in 2011, you were like, I think the social media thing is going to be big and we should have companies ahead of that. Because I feel like that was a pretty foreign thought back then. Yeah, you know, it was a strong instinct of mine and we were ahead of most companies. And it created a great runway for us because as we were going to our partners at the time, whether it be Macy's or Target or Walmart, and we were talking about influencers. And at the time, you know, this was all about the millennial consumer starting to, you know, be at that point in their life where they were buying kitchen products.

5:37It was really forward and disruptive, like nobody was doing it. And it got us placement into all of the partners I just named. And it was helpful in that front. But yeah, there wasn't many companies, specifically the big players in the space that we're even paying attention to it. I mean, how did that evolve over time? When you launched Bella with the idea that this is a brand, it's going to be focused on culture and social media. Was the idea that then you would launch more brands over time with other slants? Well, I think it started off as just Bella, like, let's make it as big as we can. And again, the core strategy was design.

6:14And at that time, color was a big part of it, like doing fun colors and unique materials combined with this social media marketing approach. And at that time, it was just that. And it was like, let's maximize this and let's build it. And, you know, it got very big. I mean, it was in 60 ,000 doors at one point in the kind of 2011 to 2018 time period. And then what we realized in that time early on is that it was we were early, like we were early for social media to be influencing purchase. And we were early in the millennial consumer actually prioritizing purchasing kitchen products. So it was a great learning experience for us.

6:56Luckily, I've always been a strong believer that design sells. So we sold a lot of product because baby boomers, Gen X, they love the design and that value proposition always connected with somebody. but it didn't necessarily go the way we expected with millennials in particular. When you say it didn't go the way you expected, was that it just was difficult to get them to buy or like what didn't hit your expectations? I think that we at the time, and it'll be interesting when we talk about Bella now and we're doing because it's a very different approach. But I think at the time, our instinct was that millennials who were graduating from college at the time, you know, kind of in that 22 to 26 range were starting to nest and buy things for their kitchen.

7:43And what we realized is that their priorities weren't there yet. They were into things like shoes and handbags and fast fashion and kitchen products were coming as hand-me-downs from their parents. Or it was like the most affordable option at Bed Bath & Beyond or Target. It wasn't about them choosing something because there was the desire to have that product. Does that make sense? That makes a lot of sense. And this is a question that I've had, which is that you were so early and I feel like there was a wave, not exactly like what Made by Gather makes, but I think of the other home good brands of 2017, like you saw pots and pans everywhere.

8:21and it became a big thing that these were Instagram brands. And do you think, I don't want to say they were riding your coattails, but it seems like maybe they were there at the right time. Maybe you were a little bit earlier and it was their popularity that led to more millennials feeling comfortable with millennially branded home good appliance brand. That was sort of what I was wondering. Did you notice that or when they launched? What are your thoughts? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think timing is everything. And, you know, timing can make or break a really great idea. We were lucky, again, that the product sold really well to whoever was shopping in the different partners we had, like Target, Walmart, Macy's, Kohl's.

8:59But yeah, I do think that the timing of some of the brands that launched purely in social and purely direct-to-consumer was better. Like millennials were getting into their 30s. Like they were, you know, they were starting to nest. They were starting to have children. Like it was like it was a different life stage for them. you know, then obviously COVID put a hyper focus on their time in the kitchen. So definitely their timing was better on that front with that consumer. So you mentioned the newest sort of iteration or, you know, relaunch of Bella. We'll probably back up and talk about Beautiful because I think that that's an important sort of forethought.

9:37But what's happening with Bella right now? Because correct me if I'm wrong, you have Demi Lovato as a brand ambassador. What is the overall thesis and program now? Yeah. So what we've done with Bella and what we're bringing to the consumer and launching in the next week or so is really a combination of really leaning into data insights around what the consumer is looking for and what they want in the kitchen. So we've built an insights team now, which again, in 2011, we did a lot of things on Instinct. Now we do a lot of things based on data and insights. So the first part is really talking to the customer.

10:15And talking to them, not just through kind of questionnaires and surveys, but like actually getting into their kitchens and hearing what some of the pain points are around things they would like to change. And, you know, what we found is, is that through the last, you know, five years, specifically COVID, I think there was an acquisition of a lot of stuff, right? Like people bought a lot of kitchen stuff. They used it a lot. And it's created clutter and it's taken up space. And so what we learned from our insights that we really leaned into was this idea that consumers are really hungry for decluttering their life, for saving space, for more compact products.

10:55And then at the core of everything we do is always design. So we now, and we can circle back to this with beautiful, but we've now really seen the power of design. Like whether a consumer knows it and like talks about it, like everybody responds to design. Like they respond to things that are beautiful, that are designed well, that have a unique look in comparison to kind of the basic products in a category. So we've taken the insights around what the consumer wants, combined it with innovation that we created to save space, and then leaned into design, which is a big learning we've had from Beautiful.

11:31Like people go crazy over Beautiful and it's really about the unique product design. And then layered on this partnership with Demi Lovato, which we're really excited about, which is just to amplify the message around what we're doing and amplify the brand in a way that is very authentic to where she's at in her life and what's interesting to her. Like how have the Bella products that are now focused on design and I guess necessity, how are they different than what they were before? So everything out of the core collection that we're launching, there is a space saving technology in all of them.

12:08So for example, and we'll send you this so you can see it visually, but there is a griddle that folds up that can like fit like a book on a shelf. There's a waffle that folds up to store. There's a blender that nests inside of itself. There is a toaster that's extra super slim that can fit on a countertop and not take up a bunch of space. There's a cookware set that everything nests into one so that instead of having to put a bunch of pots and pans in your drawers, you can just put the stack in there. And what we did is we designed like an entire suite of products to fit in one standard American cabinet.

12:45So like you could literally open your cabinet and you'd have like every appliance that you need in the cabinet and it all fit and it's super clean. It's just it's beautiful. It's very chic. So it sounds like, you know, just me thinking I live in New York. This seems like it's the type of product that's meant for if I lived in a studio or a normal New York apartment that has like one very small kitchen. Do you have a target millennial person in mind for who this is for? Or is it just the idea that anyone who has a kitchen will be interested in this? You know, I think that there is some movement towards smaller space living that this really connects with.

13:24But I mean, I got to be honest, we've now gotten so much feedback from the market and from people, whether it's industry, whether it's merchants that buy the product. Like, I think it's going to really appeal to a wide audience because no matter if you have a gigantic kitchen or you have a small kitchen, you just don't want clutter. You know, there's and that's, you know, there's a whole movement around that. If you think about, you know, Marie Kondo or the home edit and like this idea of just creating clean living spaces. So, yes, does it connect more in urban living where you're in smaller sized kitchens and living spaces like apartments and condos for sure?

14:02but I think it's going to really appeal to a much wider audience just because of that trend. Let's back up because I think it's important, especially when we go into the things that are about how you're working with Demi Lovato on this, to give some backstory about Beautiful, because Beautiful is, I imagine most people know it. It's the brand associated with Drew Barrymore. It's been a huge hit. I've seen it on TV. I've seen it on stores. So how did that all come to be? And how important was it when you launched this other brand that it have a known personality tie in? Was that core to what you wanted with Beautiful?

14:40Yeah. So I mentioned earlier, there have been like two transformational pivot points in Made by Gather's history. The first one was the launch of Bell in 2011. The second one was really the strategy to create what we call a human at the helm brand that would connect emotionally with consumers. And that was really what was most important about building beautiful. And at the time we came up with a strategy as a team. We didn't know that it was going to be drew. We knew that it was going to be somebody and we were out looking for the right partner. And the strategy behind that was really about a platform, like to be able to give voice to a brand and to product, to be able to give it a personality.

15:20That's why we love kind of the word human at the helm. If there's a human at the helm, the human is not the brand, but they are behind it. You know, they're behind why it exists. They're able to talk about how it connects to them authentically and why they created it. So that was a real transformation for Made by Gather. And it started a transformation for us of how we looked about our future and our brands like Bella and anything that we were going to build going forward, because we just learned so much from that experience and the amazing success we've had. I mean, it's like, it's a rocket ship and And people are obsessed with it.

15:56And there's a ton of data that we've been able to pull from that in learnings that have helped us kind of decide how we're going to continue to create for the consumer. What is some of that data? Is that just about people saying, because it has Drew saying, this is such a great product, I'm bought in and I love all these products? Well, I think there's a few different layers of learnings. One of the big ones is design. Like people really responded to a completely fresh take on a product category that has generally looked the same for 10 or 15 years and still looks the same. Like if you walk through a Target or a Walmart, most of the stuff you're going to see is black and stainless.

16:37You know, it kind of has the same shapes, the same look and feel. So to create product that was number one, our number one color by a long shot is white. The shapes are very soft and rounded and curved and have a bit more of a feminine design feel to them. It like woke up the consumer like we like you can't even imagine. And then that was, you know, early on. I don't think that people necessarily connected it with Drew yet, but they really responded to the design like immediately. So I think that was a big learning was that design is a meaningful call to action for customers to buy something. And then the second part around Drew is really just making sure that everything is authentic.

17:22And so that word gets used a lot. And so I want to give an example of what authentic to us means, like authentic to us means that we have to take risk on doing things that Drew really believes in that maybe may be against the norm of what we've seen in the past. So I'll give you an example. When we launched, she wanted to launch with Sage Green. That's the color she wanted to lead with. And everybody was very, very worried. Like, you know, there's a couple members on our team, on our leadership team, who spent 20 plus years as merchants at home at places like Macy's and Bed Bath & Beyond. And if you would have asked any of them, has Sage ever been a big hit in Kitchen?

18:06They would have all said no. Like, there's no chance. It's going to be a disaster. But Drew felt really strongly about it. Like, she had this instinct. And so we did it. We led with her instinct. And we trusted her, you know, her point of view. And it was unbelievable. Like, we sold out of everything in 72 hours. and what we learned there is that we took a little bit of risk on something that she really believed in. Her really believing in it came through in everything she did, like, because she did, like, she had to convince us to launch with Sage. So when she talked about it to consumers, like, they got it.

18:43Like, this is what Drew loves. This is what she believes in. And she's making that. So we have just like built momentum off of that with her, where we do so many things that are, that break the norm of what happens in our industry or even now other categories like furniture, you know, like bedding, like bath. Like we were just, we're just constantly leaning into her instincts and it continues to create a really authentic engagement with consumers and people that love her because they know that Drew, like Drew's not launching anything that Drew doesn't love. Like literally, like if she doesn't like it, we're not launching it.

19:20Like that's not, that's not going to be authentic. So it took this relationship building between Drew and I and Drew and the team to get to a place where we all felt comfortable. But it started with us taking a little bit of risk and then realizing that that's what was going to make us special was leaning into that risk. Yeah, I wanted to get more into that. And that's a really interesting story. I was listening to some interviews with you before where you talked about how involved Drew was at the beginning of Beautiful and how she was really at the ground floor. And correct me if I'm wrong, right?

19:54Yeah. Well, she was involved in that. She created everything from scratch together. She and I did it together in a room for multiple sessions of six hours at a time where we were brainstorming and had creative agency with us, had product designers. So she really created it from scratch together in partnership with us. And then she's still really involved. I mean, like I said, she picks everything. She has cleared her bandwidth to be able to be available and she loves it. And I think she's such an experienced seasoned business person. I don't know how many people know that. Like she started a lot of companies before.

20:33She's been in partnership with a lot of companies. I think that for her to get the support and partnership that Made by Gather brings to her has made it really fun for her to lean in. And I think it just has made it exciting for her and always a priority to give it the time that it needs because she's still very, very involved. And so how much of that, because she has all these unique attributes, she's a seasoned entrepreneur, as you said. She seems like someone who is very dedicated. She has a really specific, interesting, built-in audience. How much of that is replicable in terms of, you said you wanted this to be personality driven for these other brands and to have someone at the forefront.

21:14It seems like there are a bunch of unique things with Drew. Do you have a rubric in terms of what works and why specifically you want Demi Lovato with Bella, et cetera? Yeah. I mean, it's a little bit of our secret sauce. And part of it has to do with me getting to know who we're going to work with. And really, you know, it's trying to read whether somebody is genuinely interested in the category. And we've had experiences work both ways in the past where we did partnerships where we thought there was genuine interest. And then you get down the road and it's like, you know, it's like it's kind of an afterthought.

21:51And so what I really try to lean into and our team to look for in a partner is somebody whose engagement level is like more than expected. Right. And it's not that they only show up when they show up for a meeting. It's all that in-between time where you're getting feedback, you're getting comments, you're getting like ideas or you have a meeting and you realize since the last time you met, like she's made a ton of notes of new things she wanted to go over like that. It's that it's really that engagement and that passion that I think is is part of what what makes it work. And so that's what we looked for in a partner with Bella.

22:30And it took us some time. But Demi really showed up in an incredible way. She has a similar passion like Drew in her own way. Very different than Drew just because of where she's at in her life. But she has a very similar passion for the category that Drew does that we connected with. And we're like, this could be magic again. And how did you ultimately find Demi Lovato? Was it that you were looking for the right person? You knew her people, she knew your people, and you had a meeting and sparks flew. How did that come about? We knew that we wanted to be really selective with our next partner.

23:07So it was a very, very small list of people that we had interest in. And then you find out who's interested and engaged, right? When you reach out and say, we want to meet, we want to potentially partner, they see what we've done with Drew. I mean, it really helps to have the kind of success, runaway success that we've had with drew because the entire industry knows about it now and is watching. So now differently than in 2019, when I met drew, when we reach out, you know, we get responses normally because people are like, Oh, we want to partner with a company that created beautiful, but no, it was, it was, it was a small list.

23:44She was at the top of the small list. And, you know, we got together in person a few times and then we started to kind of brainstorm and she came into our office and met with our team. And again, that's where you just kind of found the magic that was going to create something special. I wanted to zoom out just because you definitely are the expert in the space and you've had such success with Beautiful. But I feel like we're in a very interesting point right now in terms of brand launches and brand maturations as it relates to celebrity and personalities, where I feel like we're seeing a lot more of them than we did years ago, which isn't to say there have always been celebrities have had times with brands since I can remember, but I feel like there's a more entrepreneurial element of it now you hear from these celebrities.

24:28And so why do you think that is? Do you think that it's a sort of bubble of like celebrities trying to try their hands at other things? What works? What doesn't? Like, what is your thoughts on the overall landscape right now, given that you're so enmeshed in it? Yeah, it's a good question. I think with the change of the algorithm on social, on Facebook, it's made kind of customer acquisition very difficult for brands that are using kind of pay to play to grow. And they are looking at celebrities with followings that have high levels of engagement, and they're seeing a path to get in front of customers without having to spend and try to be in fear of that algorithm changing again.

25:10So I think that's driving part of it. It's tough because it's not going to always go well because it's you got to find the right mix of people to make it happen. It's got you have the right partner on one side who understands how to scale, how to listen, how to be a good partner, how to be supportive, how to take risk. On the other side, you need to find a partner who's truly an entrepreneur that truly wants to get their hands dirty and like sleeves rolled up. And the reality is, is that's like not 90 percent of, you know, influencers and celebrities that are doing this. Like, because in fairness to them, they get paid a lot of money just to post, right?