- Challenge: Silvestri, a seasonal company was bought out of bankruptcy after being on of the premier seasonal trim importers. They lost their footing staying with mainly 1 artist and solely in the Philippines where prices were too high while other competitors had gone to China. Every distribution was selling Christmas. They needed lower prices, fresh collections, and Everyday Collections sales for year round sales to keep afloat.
- Goal: Find new artists, find voids in the market, and create new brands.
- Amazingly Fanciful Flights, licensed flying sculptures were the first multi-million dollar “everyday gift” license for Silvestri (now called DEMDACO). Each flight was hand-painted, decaled, and appropriately “charmed“ and sold in a Chinese takeout box with a related rhyme.
- Because Fanciful Flights by Karen Rossi were a more artful laser-cut metal collectible with broad appeal, by first 6 months, 12 skus brought in $1.5MM and over the course of the next three years, sales totaled $17.5 million. This collection put the company back on its feet as the product was priced right, had a displayer for retailers, and had broad appeal.
- A well known Canadian artist, April Cornell authors fabric, fashion, and soft home and has written dynamic decorating books. Her style is spontaneous, and unformulaic, a refreshing departure from others resonating with the DIY young home dwellers today.
- She is also a philanthropist, bird enthusiast, and factory owner in India.
- She entrusted us to envision and expand her brand to include home décor, paper party goods, hand-painted glassware and fashion bags. $5MM
- A monumental messaging program was developed that coincided with the horrific 9/11 twin towers demise in NYC. This was a time with people needed new ways to sensitively communicate with one another.
- After our first sentiment line it was time to collaborate with a known artist and poet Flavia Weedn Her prose was as warm and lyrical as was her imagery.
- The display unit helped display, store products, sort messages by theme and finally aided in using retail space profitably. Every painterly plaque carried her signature brush-stroked, canvas surface texture which made each item uniquely stand-out as an objet d’arts. $6 MM
Larkspur Lane
- We searched for unique artisans at local craft fairs and galleries to continually set our lines apart and fulfill our mission of becoming an artistical-driven company with clever merchandising stories and displays.
- Lib Cummings-Mead from South Carolina created a storybook land with collectible characters that repeated each year with different costumes. That strategy created a collectible following for us. Lib made the original samples so we could sensitively follow her hand-painted details and paper mâché textures. We created packaging, a display fixture and scripted each character with a storybook hangtag and packet of glitter we called magic. This merchandising called out the special nuances of this storybook brand.
- The public loved Lib’s sophisticated vintage look, and it drove multi-million dollar sales for 4 years. $7MM Sales
Personal Business Launch-FL4MATS
- Recognized opportunity in the decorative door mat category that is still surging ahead. Various types of decaled low end rubber, flocked rubber mats, poly woven cloth mats, and finally every price and quality of coir.
- Problem-Shedding, mildew, ripping, cracking, hard to clean, unfashionable, and lackluster designs.
- Our Solution-looped, digitally printed polypropylene fashion mats are a smart new mat type. Traps dirt, durable, fade resistant, soft for feet, traps dirt and sand, easy to close off and clean.
- We are a stand alone company with 63 styles. We put 1 year into testing all inks-not easy to copy.
- Great for the growing pet market. They love lying on them and are super trapping crumbs under bowl!