Eleven recently stopped selling its proprietary T-shirts at Foam, the coffee shop below our office. I’d hoped the endeavor would have transpired a little differently (read: I wish more of them sold), but alas, retail T-shirt sales have been a lower priority than things like “make the magazine” and “don’t get screwed by the government for doing a bad job on your taxes.”

Foam has T-shirts too. I don’t know for certain, but I suspect that their tees haven’t been selling as well as they’d like, either. They too have got the ambitious (but attainable) goals of becoming a cultural hub on Cherokee during the night and during the day. I think that having T-shirts, or apparel, or some other badge of authenticity for fans would be a terrific opportunity to help develop such a culture. A few ideas have been rolling around in the back of my head for a while, and I thought I’d flesh it out some.

But first, let’s figure something out: What went wrong? Did Foam overprice the market? They currently sells their wares for $15 (formerly, for $18). We aren’t in the most affluent area of town, and a $15 new article of clothing might seem far less attractive than the $3 options at the Salvation Army down the street. Although……Cherokee has entire businesses that thrive on $20+ transactions. I’m thinking printmakers like Firecracker, or all of the artistic work done at Art Monster. People do come to Foam and spend $20 on a night’s worth of beer—heck, The Mud House fills up two nights a month selling luxurious $50 dinners. Is disposable income the problem? Doesn’t seem like it.

The bigger issue, I think, is the art. Foam’s T-shirts are iconic. Foam, however, is not. Eleven’s tees have this dichotomy, too. A place like the Hard Rock Café, or a band like The Who, can sell iconic T-shirts because the art is already built-in and can be related. The Who has a consistent message that can be conveyed and shared simply via their logo (doesn’t it make you feel like sex and rock & roll? Like smashing a guitar on something? Like screaming YYYYYEEAAAAAHHHH at the top of your lungs?) What’s Foam’s message? Do you think of beer, or of coffee, or of a live acoustic set? Are any feelings ingrained enough yet that you can relive them just by proxy of Foam’s logo? My guess is that Foam is still just an infant coffee shop, and their iconic tee doesn’t have much more significance than a billboard advertisement. The shirt needs more art, in order to help create and support the message. (For the record, by the way: I mean this objectively, not critically. I love Foam, and I hope they’ll be an icon soon enough. Plus I know the owner and half of the employees will invariably end up reading this and I needed to get a line of defense in.)

By comparison, The Mud House down the street has sold out of their stock on tees. The shirts say (in an artistically designed fashion) “Everybody Must Get Sconed” – a play, of course, on a Bob Dylan track, and on the owner’s propensity for making tasty scones. The shirts barely even say “Mud House” – it’s almost an afterthought. But the shirt, design, and message all help to convey the feel of the Mud House brand which (also arguably) might not be strong enough to stand on its own (not that I don’t love it, of course).

As another cautionary tale: High upfront costs with high profit potential is a very risky model for an upstart business with shaky cash flow. By the grace of God we managed to pay for everything, and through goading friends and family members into buying shirts we’ve managed to cover our costs (hey – where’s yours?). But there’s still shirts left over. Better, instead, may be the model of Pappy’s Smokehouse – which cooks just enough BBQ meat every day so that they slightly can’t serve the entire market. If you swing by near the end of the day, chances are they’ll be completely sold out of chicken, pork, or whatever your favorite is. Which, from a business perspective, either means less inventory (for a durable good like our tees), or less waste (for a non-durable good like chicken, which needs to be thrown out if it’s unsold). They could sell another few sandwiches each day, but because they don’t, folks are that much more inspired (and happy!) to show up bright & early or wait on obscenely long lines during lunch rush.

In conclusion: if Foam or Eleven had a big reset button, or if we ever decided to order more tees, we’ve got to go creative and add more value to the tee shirts in a way that is consistent with and enhances the brand behind the cloth. We’ll have plenty of time for iconic material once we’re big and famous, but for now, we need more art. And in addition, we can create value through scarcity.

But hell, while we’re here…

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Here’s some things that pique my interest as far as Eleven’s tee-shirt interests are concerned:

• Shirts individually numbered. I think people love that kind of thing (from my days of collecting hockey cards, I sure do!) – especially if it’s numbered out of a limited set. You can buy a shirt from Eleven, or you can buy shirt #7, or you can buy shirt #7 out of 25. Which seems most valuable? If we’re selling a quantity in the order of tens or dozens, how difficult could individual numbering be?
• Shirts that are event-based. Add value to the tee because it’s tied to fond memories of the event, and create scarcity because there’s only one chance to buy.
• Shirts produced to order. What if we only brought two shirts to the vendor stand or unveiled a design online that would go away in a week, and whoever wanted to buy one would write their size and address down and be mailed a shirt when the time’s up? This would completely eliminate the risk of overstock, however, it might also require an additional print run (printing the samples, and then printing all of the orders). Plus, now we have to ship everything for an extra buck or two.
• Shirts produced individually (?). Our aforementioned neighbors, Art Monster, do custom graphics. What if they designed each shirt individually, or even, designed your shirt in front of you at a party while you watched? Maybe that’s too far.

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More interesting than that, I think, is the potential for Foam’s tees. What I’d be interested to see is…well…culture based. As I mentioned, they’re looking to develop a culture around being on Cherokee Street, and in Foam, and spending time doing creative things with creative people (at least…that’d be my guess). I think having a membership or club of some sort would go lengths to advance that goal, and I think building that club around art (such as creative T-shirts) would be just the kind of off-beat, uniquely engaging program to attract serious attention and participation from the mass public.

Another factor: Unlike Eleven, Foam’s business is selling physical products. And there’s a huge opportunity there to add value (and art) to the tees. Say each t-shirt purchase comes with a free cup of coffee. Maybe it even comes in a special cup. Consider the psychological difference. Perhaps our customer was planning on buying a cup of coffee anyway (after all, I mean, she is in a coffee shop). Now, it’s as if that $18 t-shirt is only $15 (or so). All of a sudden, she’s thinking I’m saving money by buying a t-shirt. And that, in my mind, is an absolutely beautiful thing.

Here’s how we tie pieces together and make even more magic happen:

1. When you buy a Foam t-shirt, you get a free cup of coffee. Subsequently, every time you come into the store wearing your Foam tee, you get a dollar off any purchase. Foam is ahead of the game as long as you buy fewer than 15 cups of coffee in a given month, but even still, I’d wager that if you’re buying 16 cups of coffee a month, Foam’s still ahead of the game.
2. Seed the program very small. Start out by invite only, and pick out a handful of Foam’s regulars. Encourage anyone wearing a Foam t-shirt to sit down and chat with anyone else wearing one. In doing so, we build Foam’s creative culture, and we build buzz among people who aren’t in the loop yet (why do I always see cool groups of people in Foam tees? How do I get involved?).
3. Have shirts co-sponsored to help offset costs of printing. Wouldn’t APOP Records like to have a small logo on the club tee, especially if this month the design was more music-based? Perhaps Foam’s coffee or beer suppliers might be willing to chip in so that Foam’s regulars are more primed to choose their product.
4. Lastly, and most importantly, introduce a new shirt on a monthly basis (or bi-monthly, at first). Of course each shirt is artistically designed (haven’t we discussed this at a great enough length already?), but have somebody new design it each round. Your October T-shirt will still look awesome in November, but you won’t get price benefits unless you stay in the club. (Did you get the new shirt yet? Did you hear who’s designing the next one?) And of course, your December t-shirt is $5 off if you’re wearing November’s shirt, and it’s also $5 off for every additional shirt you buy for a friend.

Now we’ve got a loyalty club and a culture, and maybe even a new revenue stream if we’re really crafty. And we can keep building. Foam’s got an acoustic set next weekend, and there will be no cover if you wear your Foam Culture tee. Or, Foam’s having a free wine tasting event Wednesday night, with an open invite to anyone wearing their Foam tee. Set up an email list, and let people vote on the next t-shirt design. Hell, let them vote on the next beer they want Foam to bring on tap. Or vote on which beer this month is going to get a dollar discount to absolutely everyone who comes in, courtesy of Foam Culture. Can you imagine? For $15 a month, I get to help decide what of my favorite things are featured in one of my favorite places, I get to share my favorite things with other people, and on top of that, I’m even getting a price discount to do so. Wow. How powerful is that?