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Author: Team DIGO

Inspiring Action Brand Of The Week: Shinola

Shinola is our fifth Inspiring Action Brand of the Week. Past winners have been Bonobos, Everlane, Casper and ThePointsGuy.

Jeep. Budweiser. Levis. John Deere. Shinola.

Shinola?

Yes, Shinola. The next great American brand.

The Detroit-based luxury lifestyle brand, founded five years ago, has positioned itself as the general of an army of entrepreneurs and artists all trying to march the Motor City back to its former glory.

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Jobs.

Sure, Shinola handcrafts beautiful watches, bicycles, and leather bags, but its greatest creation is undoubtedly the jobs that come with them. The fact that it’s in Detroit, a city known just as much for its storied manufacturing past as the decades of decay that followed, really helps tie the bow on a beautifully packaged brand backstory. Not unbeknownst to founder Tom Kartsotis, the carefully selected location of their headquarters and factory have successfully added to the “Americana” lore that circulates the brand.

Shinola understands the importance of origin. Dissimilar to nearly all of its competitors, Shinola’s products are pre-dominantly manufactured in America (a small minority of the components are sourced overseas). The product of that decision has been hundreds of jobs, many of them to former auto workers who were previously unemployed.

In a recent New York Times article, Kartsotis was quoted saying “We’re not a watch company. This company really started as a job creation vehicle.” That mission has proven successful, and with big plans on the horizon for 2016, it seems as if that vehicle is only picking up speed.

Shinola knows what their devotees love about themselves, which is one of our Ten Signs of an Inspiring Action Company. Americans are patriotic. It’s in our wiring. Whether it’s watching July 4th fireworks, or suddenly becoming a huge soccer fan when the United States is in the World Cup, we love to root for the home team. Shinola represents that team, and they aren’t shy about it, either. Their tagline proudly states “Where American Is Made.”

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Massive in size, Shinola’s first factory is a far cry from the decrepit factories of yesteryear. Nestled inside the renowned Argonaut building, the factory boasts 30,000 renovated square feet of clean, state-of-the-art equipment. The building is a former laboratory for General Motors.

It’s not just the work space that gives the factory its world-class reputation. Shinola brought in the best Swiss watch builders in the world to train their people, and absorbed the cost. Additionally, Shinola pays hourly workers at least $3 more than the $8.50 minimum wage, a figure that is unrivaled by the majority of its competitors.

So go home and throw on whatever red, white and blue you have and head to your closest Shinola. Uncle Sam will be proud.

Feeling inspired? Want to learn more about Shinola? We’ve got you covered. Check out our full length case study here.

-James Nieman, Integrated Marketing Manager

 

Take the Word “Brief” Seriously

Let’s not ever make each other guess which part of a brief is the important part. Let’s just include the important pat. Let’s make sure our briefs are simple, compelling and crystal clear. Nothing in an agency is more sacred.

Make the creative teams and our clients partners in the brief. 

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At DiMassimo Goldstein, we put our values in a document we call “The DIGO Standard.” It doesn’t just hang on the walls and sit on our desks and desktops. We use it every day. People who visit often ask for a copy. Here’s yours, and you didn’t even have to ask.

 

That’s A Wrap: Recapping Season 1 of the Inspiring Action Podcast

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Last June we made the decision to jump head first into the world of podcasting. We asked you all to join us on this journey so we can inspire each other and learn what it takes to become an inspiring action leader. With little to no experience, we recorded our first interview with Public Relations legend and long time friend Eric Yaverbaum (which is a must listen for anyone who wants to be a world-class marketer).

8 months and 12 inspiring interviews later and we’re finally ready to wrap up the first season of the “Inspiring Action Podcast”. We want to thank all of our guests for being so generous and taking their time out to join the show. We’d also like to thank our inspiring action tribe of listeners for continuing to tune-in each episode. We have plenty of upgrades and even more incredible guests in store for Season 2, and we can’t wait to share them with you. If you happen to have missed any of the previous episodes, we’ve listed them all below:

Eric Yaverbaum – President, Ericho Communications

Anthony Butler – Founder & Creative Director, Can-Do Ideas

Ty Montague – Founder & CEO, Co:Collective

Ty Shay – CMO, LifeLock

Leslie Dukker Doty – CMO, President of Reader’s Digest Consumer Services, Inc.

Steve Harrison– World’s Most Cannes Lions Winning Creative and Author of a Book on Ad Legend Howard Gossage

Paul Butler – Senior Vice President of Global Programs, Rare

Mark Taylor – Master Chair & CEO Coach, Vistage NYC

Mark S. A. Smith– Marketing & Sales Guru

Sir John Hargrave – CEO, Media Shower

Ben Rothfeld – Founder, Plannerben Anecdata

Alec Brownstein – Creative Director, Dollar Shave Club

 

Happy Agencies Mean Happy Clients

It’s no secret that working in advertising can be hard. We want to bring our clients the absolute best work possible, and sometimes that can mean working late nights. It’s what we signed up for, and we love it. We love the smile on our clients’ faces when they see the finished product. We love to hear about the winning results. And we love to see that those extra hours really made a huge difference. In the end, it’s always worth it. It makes it so much easier when the work is fun. When the people you’re collaborating with are not just your team members, but your friends as well. We inspire each other everyday, and through that inspiration we are able to create inspiring work. It’s a cycle that never stops, and we’re really lucky to have it. We’re a happy agency, and because of that, our clients are happy.

Life at DiGo from Ericagrau on Vimeo.

 

We Exist To Inspire

Our clients, consumers, one another, the world around us. 

Clients need to feel our passion and enthusiasm for ideas that can build their business. We didn’t sign up for boring cubicles and never-ending meetings. Let’s make the time our clients spend with us meaningful, fun and inspiring.

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At DiMassimo Goldstein, we put our values in a document we call “The DIGO Standard.” It doesn’t just hang on the walls and sit on our desks and desktops. We use it every day. People who visit often ask for a copy. Here’s yours, and you didn’t even have to ask.

We’re Here To Make Things Grow

Movements. Ideas. Products. Brands. Companies. 

If we can’t get excited about growing them, we shouldn’t be working on them. The work we do has a purpose and fits into a larger whole. By maintaining that perspective, we make success more difficult. But in facing the extra difficulty, we earn our integrity, self-respect and market value.

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At DiMassimo Goldstein, we put our values in a document we call “The DIGO Standard.” It doesn’t just hang on the walls and sit on our desks and desktops. We use it every day. People who visit often ask for a copy. Here’s yours, and you didn’t even have to ask.

 

Inspiring Action Brand Of The Week: Everlane

Have you ever wondered where your clothes come from?

Sure you have.  Maybe you’ve noticed, even examined the tags. Possibly uttered a small sigh of relief when you saw that your shirt had been made in America; dismissed any gut-wrenching thoughts when you saw it had been manufactured overseas.

But what do you know about your clothes beyond that?

Know your factories. Know your costs. Always ask why.

This is the mantra of the newly established clothing manufacturer Everlane, whose mission is to sell high-quality clothing, honestly. They believe every product has a story, and they want to tell it in the most radically transparent way possible.

The idea of radical transparency is demonstrated in their “true cost” for each item – a sum of pricing for materials, hardware, labor, duties and transport. The cost is then doubled (versus marked up 8x, as in traditional retail) for the Everlane price.  Not to mention, they give you extra information on the fit, how the style originated and even facts about the factory it was created in. It won’t be the cheapest item you have ever bought, but not the most expensive either.

Now you might be thinking: wait a minute – what secrets are all the other retailers hiding?

Just by offering all of this information to their consumers, Everlane makes people realize what they don’t know about their clothing and its production process. The current world of retail is tainted with skepticism and distrust because of what is hidden. Exposing the truth in retail production has not only challenged the existing status quo, but it has upped the ante for every other retailer out there.

Before searching ravenously for the nearest location, you might be interested to know that no brick-and-mortar Everlane stores exist. They are online only, to reduce costs even more for their customers. Don’t worry, their website is better than a store – and if you live in New York or San Francisco, they will deliver your clothes to your location, free of cost.

Recently predicted to be “the next J-Crew,” Everlane will be even less of a secret in 2016.

And hey, next time you’re shopping for clothes, do yourself a favor: know your factories. Know your costs. Always ask why.

To see the full case on Everlane, click HERE.

-Ali Chastain, Junior Behavioral Strategist