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- [00:00]
A
Today's episode is focused entirely on how to use marketing to charge absurd amounts for your product or series. And we're going to be focusing on a case study from a red hot brand called Jacques Marie March. Let's dive in. What's the most expensive thing you bought recently?
- [00:14]
B
It's tough. I been good. I have been shopping as pledge but I bought. Yeah, that's. I bought turf for the office which is two grand. The biggest splurge I would say I've done this year was Paris. Well, we were all in Europe for, for my wedding, whatnot. I went to Paris season I. It's like 10, 15K. Daddy.
- [00:34]
A
Do you ever think about like why, like what motivated you to do that? You know, I'll tell you what motivated me.
- [00:39]
B
In Paris where you don't walk around, you walk around in Paris with what you packed in with suitcase and you feel like I have to change my entire motion. The next like hour you're walking like you don't see anybody in athleisure. You don't see anybody in anything casual like always.
- [00:54]
A
Real estate 100%. So the reason I ask is because there's this new brand jocks Marie Moshe. They're actually not new, but they're starting to really pop up. And I think the fundamental principles that they use in their marketing and their positioning are a great lesson for people who want to charge more for their box. So these shades I'm rocking right now, he's were 1400, which is by far the most ridiculous or the luster shades. It's. It's ridiculous bits of stuff they don't even record. I don't even know. They definitely don't record. These things are all manual, but you could have these in 1910. Right. And so you know what's insane is how they are able to justify it. And there's several different principles about luxury that are present throughout their market. The first thing that they do that is really, really excellent is story time. No surprise to people that can tell better stories are going to be able to charge more for their products. And the way that they tell their stories to every single piece is inherently inspired by something. And I had a, I had a buddy, he runs a brand called College of Co and he actually came to me recently and was like yo, like what kind of content should I be making with all that stuff? Because I'm making all this viral kind of like super top of funnel content. It's like top five Clark Avenue cars. Yeah, right. That billionaires drive. Really interesting. Not really tied to his products, but in his broader category of luxury. And what Jacques Marie Maje does such an excellent job with their marketing is all of the products of Sorrelmatic. So these are inspired by this guy Senna, who was an F1 driver, lighted up for, you know, 1990s, right? And they've got this aviator sort of silhouette. There's a lot of different, like, stuff with the materials that they mentioned. Like, all the design principles have an underlying storytelling. And when you use storytelling in that way, all of a sudden you're building a relationship with somebody in that pot. Like, if you just came up to me and said, hey, like, these are expensive shades, I wouldn't really think about it. But I kind of want to, you know, embody the same principles of this inspiration that they have. This. This Senate guy, right? He was really cool. Like, he had a lot of tenacity to him. Like, he always had swag, like, a lot. It's kind of like a mama mentality, if you will. But like in the 90s for F1 driver. And what you also are getting from storytelling is buy in and. And that's really the opportunity to tell people more things, right? So once you get that buy in the storytelling, now you can talk about the materials. Well, these are on the main. From the finest materials. Why would I care? Because I want them to last forever, right? Like, I want this to be something that is not cheap. And so by telling me the story of the underlying inspiration, I'm like, oh, tell me more. Now they're saying, oh, these are made in Japan. You know, they're not made in a sweatshop. They're. This is a real career for people who are making these with their hands. Materialistic of quality, you know, embase, durability, et cetera. So that's kind of the storytelling piece. And when you introduce that story, there's gotta be other fine psychology principles to tie with it. And so these are scarcity. So what's really unique and kind of viral about this brand is that every single silhouette that they make only has a set amount. So this is one of 500. And so I have a serial number which is number 75. And they actually, like, inscripted it on the underlying lens. And as dumb as that may sound, you know, different. Well, when you're. When you're in the luxury market, you want stuff that other people don't have that is always going to be something that, you know, ties into the exclusivity. I mean, a lot of influencers call these, like the Birkin of sunglasses, which was, you know, kind of funny. But the scarcity aspect is really, really interesting because when you have 500 or something, you can also only make like 25 some, right? You can make a very, very limited run of something to actually make it more of a collector's item rather than, you know, just something on sticks at the same time. Again, you know, the experience when you go into the galleries. So the store, the sales guy is always going to walk you through all these. Did you buy easel in store? Yeah, they just opened up a new boutique in Florida. Really, really, really slang. Feels good. They, you know, pour you some whiskey if you want. Like, they kind of recreated that, you know, jeweler experience, but just for shades. The leather goods. Interesting.
- [05:22]
B
I. I see here Lord river in la.
- [05:24]
A
I didn't know they were. Yeah, spot here. Yeah. So they're in la. And, you know, through that scarcity, right? So number one, we had storytelling. Number two, we have scarcity. That scarcity creates urgency. So when I went into the booty, they said that in this whole episode is just going to be like, how to get finesse.
- [05:42]
B
Yeah.
- [05:44]
A
Everyone in the comments gonna be like, yo, this dude's an idiot. But I promise you, this shit's working. And so, you know, through the scarcity, it creates urgency, right? Because if there is only like 25, like, they had this Austin Edition, you know, calf skin, whatever, great silhouette, and they had this Austin edition pair of shades. They're like, yeah, there's only 25 of these. Right. All of a sudden you kind of start thinking and again, just getting finesse. I'm finessing myself at this point. It's like, I almost wanted to, but you're like, damn, okay, is this going to be like me and like Gwen Powell, right? Like, is it. Are those the only guys in Austin are going to have these shades? You could kind of like, you know, there's a. There's a lot of, like, it's the trickiest out with that one. And, you know, it just creates the demand though, right? It's artificial demand. Like, because there's only so few of these things. Like, they kind of say, yo, look, I mean, yeah, you know, you can. You can not buy it, but just don't come back next week expecting it to be here. And so, you know, you want storytelling, scarcity, urgency, the storytelling. You want to talk about the underlying process, the materials that's going to get you to buy into, then say, well, guess what, we only made a few of these and it's probably going to be gone. By next week, we just had, you know, Steve Sarkeesian in here. He. You love the shades. That type shit, right? Where they're like, oh, Sarkeesia might just.
- [07:03]
B
Did they actually tell you some of the other people that have bought theirs?
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A
Yeah, I mean, they did, yeah.
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B
Who?
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A
It's like. I mean. I mean, they. They. Of course, they flashed the McConaughey thing, and, you know, Wakanda has.
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B
Has those.
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A
Or he doesn't have these, but he has one of the.
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B
One of 25?
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A
Yeah. He didn't have the sword. I mean, so I. How much were the. One of.
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B
One of 25?
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A
Yeah. Like, how myself. No, I mean, 1700.
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B
So did you buy?
- [07:29]
A
Yeah, hi. I did. I did. Hey. I've gotten four compliments, though, so I'm 3200 on shades. I got roughly 325 per compliment right now. So I gotta get my price for compliment pounds. It's substantially megaworth. Elaborate. Yeah. Thanks, man. Anyway, so another cool thing that I think they do really well is they blend identities. So when you're talking about storytelling, you're creating a new idea. So how do you create a new idea for your brand? It's. You want to take things from different cultures or different, you know, backgrounds. Like, what they do is they use the crossover of the American West. So, you know, they say that we're inspired by the frontiersmanship that defined our early history and created an association with their products as a pioneering identity. Right. You're aligned with, like, the cowboys and invention and all that different stuff. But they also tie it back to their French origins. So the ambition of Napoleon's empire. Right, is another place where they say, like, we took a lot of inspiration for them, like the opulence of the French Empire back in the day before the French Revolution, embodied by the phrase impossible is not a word in French. Pretty sick. Then, you know, they kind of tie it back to Japanese precision and attention to detail. So it's a very precise, very, you know, focused process to actually get the titanium and the acetate that, you know, comprise the products. And this gives you the reassurance that nothing is getting overlooked in the process. So. So, again, storytelling right there. The salesperson is giving you that experience in store. They all have a very rehearsed, et cetera. But you can also dive deeper onto their website, and they have all sorts of cool materials there. So, you know, that's sort of the playbook that these guys have used. Right? Like, they really lean into the storytelling behind the principles, behind the silhouette, behind the actual design. And they make it interesting by using very specific things, like being very, very clear about like, where that all came from. Tying back to the clothing example earlier, he has a line of blazers and a line of, you know, collar shirts, right? And he'll call something, you know, the Bellagio Marino. L pull up and it's like, where did you get the name Balagic from? You know, like, talk about why this was inspired from that region of Italy, you know, in 1942. The tape this Taylor invented, you know, the no button sweater follow because he was, you know, annoyed without an abutton. Mussolini told him, you know, you gotta look fresh. Who knows? It doesn't matter. The point is you want to attach a story to these designs, to these clear product choices, these decisions you're making in manufacturing your stuff, because it's going to get more buy in for people and allow you to ultimately charge more.
- [10:22]
B
A good product doesn't fix a bad story by any means. I think I'd mentioned this on the POD before, but there was a study that went on where it was like, if I went to a garage sale and I bought, you know, this dresser from somebody and then they give me the entire story, the back history of that dresser, I'm going to cherish that dresser to a different degree because I'm like, oh, I understand that it came from like her great grandpa has been passed down into her family. Right now she just needs to.
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A
Which can also backfire in the garage story example because you're like, what's happened on that bed? Yeah. What does this say? What does that say?
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B
Yeah, but it's like you now feel some kind of emotion and attachment to that to the degree that you're going to take care of it and value it more than if I went to IKEA, if I went to. What's another good furniture store, IKEA's name.
- [11:13]
A
Nice one. Yeah.
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B
Like Restoration West Elm or something.
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A
Yeah.
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B
If I went to one of those places and I bought something beautiful, even though if it cost more the value that I associate with it, there's no story attached to it other than I want it.
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A
Absolutely.
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B
It's like the same shit with, you know, the reason somebody would like a classic car and like they feel so attached to a classic car is because of the story that was attached to the classic car of that time versus I buy a car now that's a newer car within six months, I'm like, you know what I mean? It's like you don't feel the same way.
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A
Yeah.
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B
If I had a 911 like an 888911 or something like that. Like, or 79. 9 11.
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A
All right.
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B
I would feel so differently about it because it's like there's also a story about like the type of like the Buck Mason guy who's. Who drives the 9 11. Yeah, right. Like, those stories are attached to it.
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A
Yeah, yeah. And people need to really be conscious of, like, how do you create those associations? Yeah, it's like that, that is such a powerful thing because if, I mean, Porsche is an extreme example, but, like, you want to be a guy who, like, court Porsche gives that sort of, you know, James Bond feel. Right. Like you're kind of the man. Whatever. I think it's, you know, more for divorced dad, so I hope you don't get one.
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B
But even the 911s, the old ones.
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A
Now, the old ones, as long as you restroad that thing, it's. It's fire.
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B
I was looking at it today.
- [12:32]
A
Yeah, yeah. But no, I mean, it. It is a thing. And I think what, what this also is, is a playbook for how to disrupt. Right. Because what you just described, I think is, you know, an opportunity. Like you mentioned, what's a firm or what's a furniture store that does this? You know, Restoration Hardware is obviously, you know, kind of the preeminent luxury furniture brand. And they, they create really good experiences and do really excellent world building with their kind of like, RH restaurant stuff. I don't know if you've been to some of those, but they have one in Paris, they have one in New York in the industry. It's like a luxury restaurant inside of there. Know, massive store. Said pretty cool. And what they don't do, though, I don't think they do an excellent job with content. Right. Like, I don't really know the story behind, like, my best friend. Right. Like, I think they kind of have good copy on the website, but they don't emphasize it through short form. They don't have any sort of content cycle or flywheel to do this for their new drops. You know, as they kind of like emphasize seasonality with their catalog, it's like, why, you know, why should I care? Be cool if they leaned into that, but dude is Josh Mary Mirage. It. Dude is actually kind of startling how bad their content is. They don't do anything.
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B
The funny thing is, as you brought them up, I thought you were going to talk about how amazing their content was. And so I'm sitting here in my head, like, trying to almost, like, convince myself of reasons to, like, back you and say how good their onset was.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You know what I'm saying? Like, I thought that's the angle you were going to take.
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A
No, no. Versus, like, it is not that. They told me it's a massive, massively underwhelming. It's social strategy. And there's no YouTube. There's no nothing.
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B
The only thing I was like, oh, they do well. Is like, the contrast, Right?
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A
Yeah.
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B
And I do think, like, the sequence in which they sometimes do their carousels, where it's like they show the product and then they're like, this was named after X, Y, Z thing.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Like, I think that's smart, but I don't think they're doing it in the way that they need to do it on social.
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A
No, definitely not. I mean, they're using no video.
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B
Yeah.
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A
If you scroll over to the reels tab, there's like, virtually no no IG reels. It's like, I. It's. Which is crazy because, I mean, I think if they turn any of those carousels into a reel, it's like, probably, you know, could fly. Right. With the right post at the right table set.
- [14:48]
B
I just look at Huckberry, right. And I'm like, Huckberry's dirt series that they do, they've done 16, 17 episodes by now. If they did had something similar to that about these individuals and, like, or the stories attached to any of these pieces, I think it would fly well.
- [15:03]
A
You have, like, a really inherently viral opportunity with, you know, this. We're not a sweatshop thing. Yeah. In my opinion, they really emphasize that, you know, this is a career for their artisans, that maybe actually their products not necessarily just an assembly line of slot. And to me, that's an excellent storytelling opportunity. I mean, you gotta go film in Japan, obviously, like, you know, translate that stuff, but I mean. But as you should. Yeah. Right. Like, it would be really powerful and enhance more discovery of the brand. Now, maybe they don't want to be loud. I think they like the word of mouth, you know, kind of connotation, like if, you know, you know, type thing. They emphasize that at the store. They're like, you know, people recognize. Like, our customers recognize these things. It's one of those kind of silent symbols again. They got my ass. Yeah, bro.
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B
They're just fooling you.
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A
I'm selling the Kool Aid. This is like a cult thing. This is like. Yeah.
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B
This is what Kirstle typically say. Boy, stop with that. Boo Boo Cornelius. That's what he would say right now.
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A
Boogoo Cornelius.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I don't know why I'm gonna let it slide. Because I've been wilding on this episode. Yeah.
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B
No, it's just like it. I can. But. But unless it's just not an ambitious.
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A
Valid or like, think about the people that they're selling to. Right. These are a lot of people with the buying psychology that I'm talking about. I'm not here nearly in that economic category, but I'm talking about people who. But it makes you feel like you are. Yeah, a little bit. But.
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B
And.
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A
Or maybe that's more aspirational as well. Right. Is like you want to have something to talk about. Like, I like when I have something to talk about.
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B
Half the people at ALD don't buy a damn thing ald. It's about going into ALD career and.
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A
Or post it on your IG story.
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B
Exactly.
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A
Like, you got to post a wall.
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B
Yeah. He has a. Post a basketball wall. It's supposed to Porsche. Yeah. And then you go and buy the cat like a coffee and then you.
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A
Check out for 799 for Lots Head. Is that. You know. But there's the association.
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B
All of a sudden the like, I'm in. So I'm in New York. I'm shopping at Ale.
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A
Right.
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B
Right. And like, there's that layer of association. I'm sure there's people that go to this store and do that similar thing.
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A
I pulled up in a golf polo. I thought they were going to kick me out straight up. I came straight from the course and I could tell they didn't take me seriously. They're like, no, this boy, he's not buying a car. They're about to decline.
- [17:15]
B
You about to take a picture walk?
- [17:16]
A
Yeah. Uh, shot in 92, by the way. So I think this is a playbook that pretty much any brand can, you know, replicate here. Like if. As long as you follow these underlying things. But the biggest piece is viewing your products as interesting. You know, like what. People are curious to hear more from you very often about your product. Like, and this has been so effective in the supplement scale. And it's founder storytelling in cpg. Right. Like song. This kid Dirty Gut. Dan, you seen Dirty Gut? No. So he's from doing like a new probiotic chocolate, I guess. And he is doing founder Life Hub. Was it Dirty Gut Gant? Careful. If you misspell one word in that, you're going to end up playing on an adult website. But no, I mean, he's like, you know, talking about the chocolate industry and he uses a lot of like the Hershey's the slate labor. Right. Like kind of similar midday square stuff but you know, any marketing, et cetera. And he's kind of an example of storytelling allowing him to get his word out there.
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B
But like, I mean he's popping though off of nine piece. Nine pieces of content. 38,000 followers.
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A
I know that's great.
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B
That's impressive.
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A
There's really good all conversion rate. Yeah. But you know, there's storytelling right there. So I think like this is kind of where we're going with things too. I'm really, really bearish on middle class products. Like no shades of like middle class individuals. I'm only talking about positioning of your brand where you know at this point like you think about $120 hoodie, like that's not. Where is the place for that arculate now when comfort, you know, shout out to Hudson like legend crushing it this year. Like he's selling his hoodies for like 45 bucks and then just as nice as your $140. But I guess my take is not necessarily like what's working right now, but I'm talking about how you position yourself for 26, 27, 28, where things are going to rapidly continue to a halt. Like there's not really a bullish case for people to have like bigger wallets, you know, like not to get grim. But like it does seem like wages are pretty stagnant. It does seem like people are spending a lot of money on crypto gambling, et cetera. And so that's why the rise of cheap Amazon products and you know, Chinese goods has flooded the market is that stuff is just as good as Everybody just doesn't have l with the brand on it. And Instead of being $120, I can always try and sell that for $280 and trying to go more high status because they're going to make up to this new price. But because they sorry color out that product, it's going to have a lot more upside of market.
- [20:05]
B
I couldn't agree more because there's, I hope they don't listen. There's brands like Elwood to me that I find knowing I'm going to work out of them. So like I bought let's say, you know, $50 shirt and it's a good material but I'm like, oh, this is the perfect shirt to. To lift it. Yeah, you know I'm missing hood or shirt. I thought this is the perfect hoodie for me to lift in. Like, yeah, I'll wear it like today on the pod because it's the first time I'm wearing it. So I'm like, okay, it's pop right now. I wear ALD or I buy L D. I buy Juke and Dexter. I buy whoever like these more luxury brands that have positioned themselves through their storing as much more luxury. And I will not. I will not do those. I will not really eat those scents.
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A
Simple clothing met Mustache. You take it to the dry cleaner, you throw it in the washing machine. You know, that's. That's how you know if something is. That's her prioritize it is electric or not. That's fair.
- [20:56]
B
I. My next episode of the thing I'm gonna hit is like taking what you said basically and going deep on, off. I pause action. I'm gonna. Yeah, but going very deep on how to do it. And then examples of brains doing it at very high levels, but budget friendly levels as well.
- [21:20]
A
Yeah.
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B
We also get a lot of heat sometimes for all talking about luxury brands and then not saying, okay, luxury brand A is doing this. How is grade that wants to be luxury but has a finite budget do what grade A's do?
- [21:32]
A
Yeah. If you're a listener right now, I'd also just ask yourself, like, which one you want to be? Because you have to sell such an insane amount of volume at the lower price points. And a lot of people are really scared to charge a ton of money. That's the other thing I get that feedback a lot is like, don't even want to understand, like, where you don't want to buy at that price because it does take some upfront work. I'm sure you're going to kind of walk through that. But you want to be one of the two. I really think, like, you know, selling at the $90 code these days, except where you go to die, was this just going to be like, well, what's your medicap? Right. Like, I guess. Yeah. Can you. Can you go acquire that Elsinore for $35? Buying on? I don't think so. So, you know, and so otherwise you have to get people to put the eyeballs on hair to get their attention.
- [22:24]
B
Do more.
- [22:25]
A
All right, so the recap. We're going to focus on storytelling, particularly storytelling behind the materials and the design of your product. So this is, you know, not necessarily applicable to just clothing or accessories. Like, the design of your products can be the formulation. You have a chocolate product, like, why did you choose a specific probiotic that you included in that to make a probiotic chocolate? You know, this applies to electrolytes whatever it may be. So step one, introduce storytelling in all of the marketing. Make sure that that is followed and accompanied with storytelling on social short form, video parasols, HAN form, etc. Get the background behind the products. Tell people where the idea came from, what was the inspiration for it. Talk about the, you know, quality assurance, right? Like what are the materials coming from, where are they made, why are they made this way? How is that different from previous failed solutions? So oftentimes like there is acetate is an ingredient in this product is shades but asset state has varying levels of quality. If you're going to talk about the actual process to get good assets a it's going to build more authority behind that material windy choice form for it. Next you're going to introduce scarcity. So scarcity is going to be a finite amount of things, right? You can only get certain things with a limited time. That's going to introduce urgency thereafter because people will want to buy because I'm not sure of what they're looking to get will be there later. And last, meaning to the experience, make sure that these things are very clear across all of the different cost points. Should be clear on your socials, that should be clear on the website, clearing the in person stores, et cetera. And that's how you're going to evoke luxury and be able to charge in a certain amount for your product. If you got value from that episode, please like subscribe tell us some brands that we missed. You know, we're always trying to explore better examples for y' all and otherwise we'll see you next week. Peace.