Threads with Creds

Ross Zietz, Art Director for Threadless was in Sydney in conversation with David Marr. I must confess to not having bought a threadless t-shirt - so far - however I have admired many worn by a good Californian friend of mine: Darren.

http://www.threadless.com/

As you may know Threadless began in 2000 in Chicago with Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart creating a site that allowed designers and creative people all around the world to submit their artwork, interact, gain exposure and generate a potential income stream. Little did they know it would grow to receive up to 150 submissions a day, a kids range, offers from Target and Urban Outfitters to distribute their gear as well as a retail store in their home town.

Threadless encourages and thrives on audience participation - in fact it depends on it. So they have found ways to encourage activity. If your artwork receives enough votes to get printed then you get up to $2500 + $500 for reprints. One chap managed to make $40K+ a year from submitting his work to Threadless. But it's not all about the fiscals. How would you feel if your design was worn my men, women and children all round the world? Or what about winning the annual bestee award.

Business schools find it all very fascinating, just how have these Threadless people managed to truly blur the lines between producer and consumer? It's quite simple really: give your audience some power - let them vote and determine what happens next. Respect your contributors - let them keep the rights to their artwork. Keep the lines of communication open and direct: blogs posts, emails are read and responded to directly by the founders. Stay true to the original philosophy: broker new relationships carefully - when Target wouldn't allow the artists name to be on the label Threadless knew it was not a good move so opted out. Keep experimenting and moving forward: harness new media such as Twitter to extend the offer - twitter tees where tweets can be submitted for voting and printing.

Russ spoke of an interesting marketing tool they stumbled upon a few years back. When people submitted their artwork they were immediately emailed a 'marketing kit' which enabled them to send out emails to everyone in their inbox to vote for their design. A rather snazzy way to bring new people to the site via a personal invitation.

With such an active online community Threadless are kinda running one big online focus group 247 ...

Now to buy my first tee.