Brand Strategy // Brand ID // Brand Design // Experiential Platform // Website // Advertising

IN SEPTEMBER 2001 A BRAND THAT WAS A JOURNEYMAN became a superstar. In a year its earnings had increased 5X. It had redefined its category, and had led the way for a company’s evolution from an Internet retailer to a multi-channel business. This is the story of Eziba.

Eziba started as a dream to use the power of the Internet to market global craft around the world through just-in-time delivery. In retrospect the idea seems overly ambitious. But in 1998, when the power of the web was still considered to be infinite, big ideas quickly gathered big financing. Eziba co-founder Dick Sabot raised $70 million in two rounds of financing on the strength of his success with Tripod…and organized a team of software engineers. Eziba started as a dream. It also started as a technology company. And this is where its problems began.

Two years later, in 2000, Eziba had cumulative sales of $1 million. In May of 2000, Eziba hired the head of FAO Schwartz’ flagship NYC store…Bill Miller as CEO. His mandate was clear: transform Eziba into a retailer, otherwise it would die. But the problems continued. Eziba’s problems were internal and external. Internally, Eziba still considered itself to be a technology company. Externally, it considered its audience to be the world. The problem was the brand. It was not a leader. It didn’t have the capacity to inform the actions and thinking of the company’s employees. And it didn’t have a clear and meaningful relationship with a well-defined target audience. There was no there there.

“The problem with the Eziba brand was that the senior team didn’t understand two very important things,” says Benjamin Bailey, a brand architect and graphic designer, who was hired as creative director in September 2000 from McCann-Amster Yard, where he worked on building brands for Bacardi-Martini, Coca-Cola, Lugz, WUSA and Excite. “They didn’t understand the need to build a brand and they didn’t understand how to build a brand. Yet they aspired to be a premium brand, the most valuable and architecturally sophisticated brand of all.” The first consideration was talent and control—creating an in-house design and photography studio and organizing an experienced production and creative team of largely permalancers. The results: higher quality for much less money.

“Eziba had struck what one would euphemistically call “optimistic” contracts with its ad agency, photo studio, PR firm and printer in the dot.com daze,” adds Bailey. “We negotiated out of these agreements for a net savings of over a million dollars. In fiscal year 2000, for example, we were paying $50,000 in pre-press fees to produce one catalog. In fiscal year 2001 we were paying $115,000 in pre-press charges for ten catalogs. That was a forward step.” Another forward step was taken when marketing consultant Malinda Sanna joined the team. A veteran of Fallon New York, Sanna was charged with looking for an audience for the Eziba brand. No longer would Eziba try to be all things to all people. Instead it would be a belief brand for a dedicated set of people.

“You can say that I was cruising for an audience,” says Sanna. “Finding an audience for a brand is a matter of research; but it is also a matter of guts and experience.”

The dot.com debacle and naïve business decisions had left Eziba strapped for cash to pursue extensive market research. Combining experience with targeted strategies, Sanna recommended that Eziba take a closer look at the Cultural Creatives—because their values were in synch with the core values being discussed as the base ingredients of the new Eziba brand. They accept authenticity, engaged action, whole process learning, idealism, activism, globalism, ecology, the importance of women, altruism, self-actualization and spirituality. They reject owning more stuff, greed, me-first-ism, status display, glaring social inequalities of race and class, society’s failure to care adequately for elders, women and children, and, lastl, hedonism and cynicism that pass for realism in modern society.

With an experienced in-house team creating communications targeted toward this new-found audience, Eziba’s sales began to rise. By the end of the year, its sales had topped $3 million. Research showed that 90 percent of Eziba’s sales originated from urban centers, which led to a further refining of the audience model.

“A breakthrough lay ahead.”

In a series of meetings facilitated by Bailey and Sanna, the Eziba senior management team came to embrace the idea that they needed to build a brand. They also came to embrace the idea that building a brand was a process that began with encoding a brand with a set of values, a set of DNA that would inform all its actions. The Eziba brand values (below) were in balance. Three that yin-ned and three that yang-ed.

The senior team further refined the target audience to focus on the wealthiest of the Cultural Creatives, the Bourgeois Bohemians. Through Malinda’s research the senior team was able to identify the kind of brand that would appeal to this desirable target audience:

One that offers an authentic product/service One that is clear about what it stands for One that is distinct from all competitors One that has values that match its own One that is resonant

To fully resonate with the Bourgeois Bohemians, Eziba adopted a new brand strategy, a yin and yang of premium and quirky: a premium visuals tensioned with a quirky voice.

The new brand strategy led the way to a new integrated marketing strategy—retail, public relations, events and direct mail—which was field-tested in Washington, D.C. in May of 2001 with a series of high-profile events at venues such as The Smithsonian, The Hotel George, The Ritz-Carlton, The Arise Gallery, The Vietnamese Embassy and Teaism. The success of the events in the nation’s capital offered a glimpse into the future: Eziba would transform itself into a multi-channel business or risk its very survival. Washington was also the proving ground for the M’earth campaign, the first campaign created from Eziba’s new position.

“The brand needed a tangible personality to embody its values,” explains Colin Channer…a copywriter and brand architect and Bailey’s long-time collaborator…who joined Eziba as co-creative director that Spring. “M’earth is Mother Earth’s youngest daughter. She is all about the sensuality and spirituality of nature. She became the prophet of the belief brand not just for the Bourgeois Bohemians but also for the people inside the company. If the brand didn’t resonate with them it wouldn’t resonate with anyone else.” M’earth made the chairman of Eziba a believer. He agreed: Eziba was a retailer and not a technology company. The creative directors were given full support in their efforts to migrate the brand.

An important part of Eziba’s success was a series of small space ads in publications such as “The New Yorker,” “The New York Times Magazine” and “Out” magazine. Boldly irreverent, these one-off executions created from existing art reignited interest in the brand. Within Eziba, the ads inspired senior management to re-evaluate its marketing communications strategy. The company began to understand the economic value of brand advertising and buzz. These ads, which sparked the “More Fire” campaign, transformed Eziba. They convinced the company that products without a brand were simply “things.”

Perhaps the most tangible evidence of the chairman’s support was his agreement to change Eziba’s visual identity. Bailey and Channer crafted a new brand voice. And the new brand position led the transformation to a high-margin merchandise mix that would resonate with Bourgeois Bohemians: premium in style and quality and an emphasis on jewelry and home accents.

Premium Visual + Quirky Voice = Eziba Brand

As alluring and efficient as a scimitar, the new Eziba logotype cut through clutter with ease. Unlike its predecessor ( ) it was premium, worked well in one-color and legible at small sizes and in the low-resolution environment of the web.

Its lines bespoke the Persian origins of the company’s name. Classic in form, it updated the outdated prefix “e” that had become a warning light for investors and employees with talent.

The identity system was designed around efficiency and fun. An online graphic standards manual complete with downloadable logotypes made it easy for employees and branding partners to build the brand through consistent usage. Publicizing the new identity was cheap and easy with a system of charismatic stamps. With the stamps, customizing was a matter of will. For example, plain stationery could be branded as needed, saving the expense of printing and purchasing in large quantities.

The Eziba brand is a study in complementary tensions, of yins in balance with yangs…Premium + Quirky = Brand Drafted by Bailey and presented to the senior team for collaboration, the marketing communication strategy distilled the essential powers of the Eziba brand into a powerful but simple equation… Authentic + Resonant = MarkComm Strategy.

Director of Global Design, Joey Jagod became the ambassador of resonance. Co-founder Amber Chand became the ambassador of authenticity. With eyes on future media partnerships, Channer outfitted Chand and Jagod with portfolios of content.

A weekly web column and catalog monthly, Tea With Amber, positioned Chand as a spiritual conduit and a champion of the grace and beauty of global craft traditions. A web and catalog monthly, Jagod's World Style Report turned the heads of editors at shelter magazines; educated customers on how to integrate Eziba merchandise into their lives; and made Eziba a merchant of choice for the world's most fabulous hosts and hostesses. Tea With Amber and World Style Report did not stand alone. They were parts of a larger content mix. The rationale for all these efforts: profits. If Eziba didn't survive it couldn't help the world's most gifted artisans to trade their way toward prosperity.

The brand and marketing communications strategies directed the website redesign. On August 15, 2001, Eziba introduced its new online and catalog experience. Researched and redesigned by an in-house team in the summer of 2001, the new web site was chosen for inclusion in Rockport Press’s forthcoming book on the world’s best e-commerce designs. Using the metaphor of a storefront, Bailey designed four windows: shop, sharing, ideas and special. “Shop” is about retailing. “Sharing” is all about content. “Ideas” is service journalism—how to use Eziba items in your home and lifestyle. And “special” is promotion. Bailey’s design projects a certain zen-sibility. It reflects the beauty of clarity and balance. Most importantly it transformed the Eziba shopping experience. It made it easier to buy. It was intuitive, informative, stimulating and clear. The results: increased traffic and an online conversion rate that ratcheted up to three percent in the middle of a recession.

The new catalog was deliberately distinctive. It had to be. Investors had set the company a goal of profitability by the fourth quarter of 2002. With bold, editorial covers, the new catalog was stylish, spiritual, smart and charismatic.

The new catalog was also remarkably efficient. It was redesigned from the inside out and supported by new processes. A sample room was retrofitted as a digital photo studio. The results: more photos produced in less time. Photos for the website and the catalog were standardized to the same proportion. The results: leanness and flexibility.

The merchandiser’s order form was simplified and redrafted to help vendors — many of whom do not speak English — to better explain the selling points of their merchandise. The results: copy with a stronger selling proposition.

The brand strategy of “premium and quirky” and the marketing communication strategy of “authentic + resonant” were distilled into a formula for writing merchandise copy. The results: a consistently distinctive voice that reinforced the brand values with clarity and power.

Names of bourgeois bohemians and cultural creatives were obtained from list brokers. The results: better audience targeting.

Over 75 percent of Eziba’s marketing budget was dedicated to the catalog. And for financial year 2001 most of the merchandising budget was dedicated to catalog-only inventory.

In August 2001, Eziba made the full transition from an e-tailer to a multichannel business.

Eziba revisited its seven-figure online marketing deal with Yahoo. The relationship had not produced the kind of customer traffic or brand awareness that they had expected. An audit led to two conclusions: • The original Eziba brand and visual identity were too weak to compete with more established retailers such as Eddie Bauer and FAO Schwartz • Yahoo’s demographic of young men was not Eziba’s audience

The marketing solution was to change the merchandising mix and message to appeal to the Yahoo customer. Bolstered by a new brand and visual identity, Eziba re-emerged with a new meaning for the Yahoo customer: the destination of choice for men to buy charismatic gifts for a moderate price at the last minute. As part of the brand identity, the format of bi-monthly customer emails was simplified. Out went the lengthy text communications. In came the visual-heavy grid where the product starred.

The marketing solution was to change the merchandising mix and message to appeal to the Yahoo customer. Bolstered by a new brand and visual identity, Eziba re-emerged with a new meaning for the Yahoo customer: the destination of choice for men to buy charismatic gifts for a moderate price at the last minute. As part of the brand identity, the format of bi-monthly customer emails was simplified. Out went the lengthy text communications. In came the visual-heavy grid where the product starred.

Authentic and resonant, “More Fire” was distilled into a powerful elixir from the yin and yang of sensuality and revolution. “It’s a call to action,” says Bailey. “It’s a celebration of passion. The whole campaign was inspired by passion.”

Adds Channer: “Revolutions are about illumination and transformation. Eziba is a belief brand. And belief brands are passionate about their beliefs. They want to enlighten people about knew ways of thinking. They want to change the world.” And Eziba may be doing that. Artisans and craftspeople around the world benefitted greatly from Eziba’s 2001 holiday sales — some days 10X the 2000 sales.

As creative director // Eziba // NYC // 2000-2001