Terence Reilly

Terence Reilly brought Crocs back from the dead, turned the Stanley Quencher into a phenomenon and is now President of HEYDUDE shoes. Learn how a modern magnate stays in touch with the culture and lifts brands into the stratosphere.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the bob lef Sets podcast.
My guest today is Terrence Riley, the marketer extraordinary, the
man behind the Stanley Quencher, the revival of Crocs and
now Hey Dude shoots.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Terrence, how do you reach the public today?

Speaker 3 (00:28):
I'll throw so many ways. The best way to reach
them is fast. That's really the trick. And through social media,
the opportunities to reach people fast are so incredible and extraordinary,
so social and fast. That's been some of the unlocks
in the last ten years for certainly my career.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
You say fast, what do you mean there?

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Fast today tomorrow? You know, the attention span of most
folks is now, and so to get folks attention, you
got to react quickly to what's happening on trends. A
lot of the things that you write about, it's on TikTok,
it's on social media, and brands in particular can see that.
And the quicker you respond, react or create something, the

(01:16):
better off your connection to that consumer or culture is
what a gift it is too.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Okay, let's go with your present gig. Hey dude, you know,
Hey Dude's numbers were great. Crocs purchased it recently, they
haven't been that good. You're obviously given the job to
bring it back. How are you going to do that?

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, so, hey dude, boy, we're a eight hundred plus
million dollar footwear brand. You know, we're a top ten
global footwear brand. So it's an amazing success story. But
you're right, there's been a bit of a lull, which
is one of the reasons why I accepted the offer
to come as the Hay Dude president. And let's connect
with consumers, customers and culture and so a couple things

(02:00):
that I laid out really on my first day. You know,
you join the team and you listen to some of
the things that are working or isn't, and then you
lay out a vision for the brand, and it's to
really build the core and add more is where it starts.
Like we had the Wendy and the Wally, these two
famous silhouettes, which most people know is hey dude. So

(02:22):
we've got to strengthen those things and you know forever,
you know, since the Beatles at least are Elvis. You know,
youth culture drives culture, but more than ever, youth female
culture drives culture. And so to ignite a young female
consumer is really an important aspect of what we're up

(02:43):
to here at Hey dude in the nine months since
I've been president, and do it through a few lenses,
you know, where people are wearing shoes, travel and music
and pre and post sport, especially young women who are
wearing footwear in that kind of environment, to do all
those things to ignore this brand, and we're already up
to it. And it's been an incredible nine months for

(03:04):
me in the way we're already connecting. So it's been
a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Okay, prior to getting an email from you, I didn't
know what hay Dude was. I didn't know they were shoes.
Am I an anomaly? Is there an issue of knowledge?
Or is there an issue of I'm not the target
audience and therefore that's not where you're focusing.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yes, I think it's a little bit of all of that.
I think we're a relatively new brand and so that's
part of it. But you know, eight hundred plus million
dollar mystery is a pretty exciting opportunity for somebody like
myself to you know, get the keys thrown at me
to drive this car. So it's a pretty extraordinary thing,
you know, but we're a footwear brand for all ages.

(03:49):
There's you know, dad's in Iowa that love us, and
young women in Miami who love us, and everywhere in between.
And so the more we can get younger and more female,
as I said earlier, the more well known Hey Dude
will be. But you know, we're in some of America's
premier retailers and we are a real success story that
hit a bump in the road and now we're driving

(04:12):
it like we stole it bub.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Okay, not everybody is familiar with Hey Dude. Can you
tell us what the Hay Dude shoe is?

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yeah? So it's a really comfortable, casual shoe. It's like
six ounces. It's the lightest thing. When you put your
feet in, then you're like, oh dude, Like these are
the lightest, most comfortable shoes out there, and they're meant
for anything. Really, they're not performance shoes, of course, they're
really casual and they're led by the Wendy and Wally

(04:41):
silhouette that is really our icon. But Hey Dude is
it's unlike anything, Bob. It's a real success story that
I said is a huge top ten footwear brand that
still is a bit of an unknown and that's an
incredible thing.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Okay, let's start really at the basics. Sure, what is
the dude shoe made on?

Speaker 3 (05:02):
I was made out of different things? Certainly canvas is
the thing that makes us famous, and it was so
light and is a credible thing to pack in a suitcase,
to add that extra pair in your bag so you
don't hit the dreaded you know, weight limit in your
your travel bag. So stylish, comfortable, and a variety of
things that we make different styles, And there's boots, there's

(05:25):
our classic Wendy's in our wallis, there's slippers that are
made out of fuzz and all those good things. So
a variety of different styles to suit alls of different needs.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Okay, So the quantity of product. In the late nineties,
when Steve Jobs came back to Apple, he quite famously
streamlined the product line to make it more comprehensible. How
many different off rings does hey dudes have? And how
do you decide whether to add something not add something?

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yeah, great question. I think, as I mentioned earlier, it's
to build the core and add more. And so the
core is the Wendy and the Wally, the classic silhouette
that people who do know, Hey dude, know it for
and so we need to strengthen that icon, but build
around it things like the slipper that I mentioned. A

(06:16):
success that is beginning to percolate for us is an
Austin Lift, which is a women's style that's a slip
in elevated platform shoot different than the Wendy in the Wallly.
So you want to strengthen the core, which is hey dude,
but you want to add the more and connect with
different consumers. So a similar strategy and underperforming skews we

(06:38):
stop making.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
Okay distribution, people think content is king. If you can't
buy it, it doesn't matter what it is. So you know,
Nike famously pulled back and their sales went down. They
wanted to go to a more direct sales model in
this particular case, how many retailers can Hey dude, and

(07:02):
do you want more? Do you want less? What is
your relationship with the retail cham great question.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah, we're in some of America's and the world's leading
footwear destinations, you know, Dick's Sporting Goods here in the States,
or famous Footwear Academy, and so we want to be
on shelf. You know, footwear is often a TecTile thing.
You want to pick it up and you want to
try it on. But also, heydo dot Com, Amazon, or

(07:29):
places where folks are shopping, And we were the number
three TikTok shop brand in December of twenty twenty four,
and so we want to be where the consumer is shopping,
and that's what we're up to. So we're one of
the top five footwear brands and so many of the
key footwear destinations in the US and get an after it.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Okay, let's drill down on some of the things you
said physical retail. Yeah, how hard is it to get
in a store? How many models will they take? How
do you make sure that they're promoting your shoe appropriately?

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah, Well, you're only as good as what the consumer
is reacting to, right, So the partners at any footwear
destination or any retailer are reacting to what their consumers
are after. So certainly, as I mentioned earlier that Wendy
and the Wally silhouette is eighty percent of Hey Dude,
So introducing new styles and new colors, materials and finish

(08:29):
for those to have somebody buy that extra pair or
the one or two that they buy every season is
part of the dance that you do with retailers, and
so they tell you what's working and they buy or
don't buy, depending on the success or the EBB and
flow of what you're doing is the brand to market
those different styles and so a variety of products in

(08:53):
a variety of different settings around the world.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
And how do you determine pricing?

Speaker 3 (08:59):
Well, certainly the consumer helps us do that, but we're
really an affordable you know, under seventy five dollars, largely
a pair of comfortable shoes that you know, just last
you for a long time and serve a variety of
needs in so many different places. As I mentioned earlier,
travel or pre and post sport, after the beach or
at the barbecue. We're just walking around. I mean, hey,

(09:21):
dudes are so popular as I mentioned earlier, by our
success and now we're just hooking the brand up to
the rejuvenation machine.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Okay, what percentage of sales or physical retail as opposed
to online.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah, that's something we keep to ourselves, Bob, It's something
that we don't typically share those kinds of things. But
our online business is growing, as I mentioned earlier, TikTok
shop and other things are new ways that we are
showcasing hey Dude to consumers.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Okay, so let's just assume I wanted to buy online. Yeah,
I can buy direct from heydude dot com or something
I can buy TikTok, I can buy Amazon. Can I
buy the issues?

Speaker 3 (10:01):
All the above? You can all the above haydud dot com,
TikTok shop, or Amazon, or you walk into some of
your favorite retailers wherever you are and they'll likely have
Heydude depending on where you are and what store you
walk into.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Okay, what is the deal? Tell us more about the
TikTok shop and how that works. Yeah, so lots of
different content creators are talking about your brand on TikTok
shop and they get a certain percentage of the business.
It comes and goes depending on the content creator and
the size of their audience. And it's a way to

(10:37):
get your brand, your footwear right in front of folks
on their for you page or wherever they're scrolling. And
it's been a remarkable success for the brand.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
I joined as the Haydude president in May, and I've
seen my success in other places on TikTok and social media,
and that's one of the things I suggested to the
team strongly that we really get active on TikTok and
in TikTok shop, and we got after it thanks to
a great team, and we've seen really strong success.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Okay, let's say I'm a user. Yeah, theoretically, can I
say I'm going to peruse the TikTok shop or pretty
much am I buying because I see the video of it?

Speaker 3 (11:23):
Influencer both you can go to the TikTok shop or
it will come through your algorithm as the algorithm works,
and so you'll be interrupted by TikTok shop for whatever
brand in our case, hey dude, or you can go
to the hey Dude TikTok shop as you are on TikTok.
And if you're not on TikTok, you go to other

(11:44):
places to discover hey dude, whether we're on Instagram or
other places like Facebook or just generally searching through Amazon,
Google or hated.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Okay, so let's start with TikTok to reach the customer.
How do you do that? Is it mostly about deals
with influencers, Is it about posting your own content? Is
it about buying ads? How do you do it? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (12:09):
All the above all the above, we have our own
Hey Dude created content by our wonderful social media team.
We work with content creators to create content. We work
with celebrities or artists to create content, and of course
TikTok shop content creators as well. So it is a

(12:32):
real multi pronged delivery system just through TikTok alone that
you want to keep fresh and get multiple messages out
to the consumer. The messages that you want the consumer
to know are important to Heydo, therefore they should know it. Okay,
leaving celebrities aside, what works? I mean there are different theories.

(12:52):
Let's talk print, which is dying. Some people say if
you give a lot of information, the active buyer will
actually be interested in that revent. Other people want less
content or is it more about flashy video what sparks
people on TikTok to be activated to purchase or check
out Hey Do. I think humor can work oftentimes, but

(13:15):
I think it's genuine content. Like genuine genuineness is what
people are after and what connects the most. And as
I said earlier, doing something and reacting to something fast
can be that. And then of course, when brands participate
in trends, you know, as you know, there's a different

(13:35):
TikTok trend every week or so, and when the brand
participates in it and does it well. Not all brands
do it all the time, well including hey dude, but
when you do it gets engagement gets shared, and that's
part of the trick as well. So it's really an
asset allocation of different things, not just on TikTok, but generally.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Can you give me some specific example where there's a
trend on TikTok and hey dude, leverage that.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah, just uh, last week we did something that had
four million views, which you know evades me of why,
but it was two of our young social media associates
just have their finger on that pulse and they engaged
in it and away we went with, you know, four
million views of something like that. That would seem innocuous

(14:26):
and it's not something that you can script or would
put in your marketing calendar, but it is something that
is in real time and it was done well, and
the consumer and the TikTok viewer if you will, or
user reacted to it. You know, brands are doing that
right now, including hey, do the you know the du
lingo logo that their sunsetting. You know, brands are participating

(14:49):
in that, including hey do just today. So there's different
ways that you can engage.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
Well, way be very specific how you were participating in that.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
We just uh we posted about the the quote unquote
death of the Duolingo logo, and so lots of brands
are doing it and we've got nice little traction on
it and different ways. Just to be part of the
conversation is you know, I think others have said it's
the marketplace, it's the town square. And so when you
engage and you do it well, and not all brands

(15:18):
get it right every time, but when you do do
it well, it connects. And the more you're throwing different
lines into the water to appeal to different audiences and
put your brand out there as a current, fast moving
finger on the pulse of culture brand, the more you
connect and the more people say, I might give those
shoes a try.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Okay, when it comes to influencers, how many influencers might
you have relationships within pay at a time?

Speaker 3 (15:55):
Dozens and dozens, and they ebb and flow depending on
the season, depending on the shoe, depending on the message
that we want to tell. So there are dozens and
dozens of them, and some are with us throughout seasons.
But it's a very cyclical of the moment type of
environment where brands like us are fast moving and folks

(16:19):
come and go. They're always in our stable, so to speak.
But it depends on the message, time of year, gender perhaps,
or the story that we're looking to tell. But we
continue to want to build relationships with more influencers so
that they're all part of a larger Hay Dude community.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
And how do you establish that relationship through an intermediary?
How do you find these influencers.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
All the above, intermediaries, agencies, personal connections, prior experience, genuine
fans of the brand, which is again back to authenticity.
There's a lot of Hay Dude fans out there. There's
a lot of fans who want to work with Haydude
and get paid to share their love for Hey Dude.
And so that's part of it for any brand. So

(17:03):
it's a real mosaic of different content creators or influencers.
Some work better than others, and some are of the
moment and some are more evergreen.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
Okay, so let's assume you have this relationship, you're going
to pay the influencer. How much direction? How much in
terms of requirements does hey dude have?

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, it varies. Also, there's a brief, and you know,
we want to give content creators the latitude to create.
Otherwise it's just dictation and that shows. So the content
creator doesn't want to be dictated to. But there'll be
brand standards of course, and things that we would not
want people to say. But we review it and if
there's something that was just off the mark, we'll ask,

(17:46):
you know, the content creator to redo it. And that
happens occasionally, but not too often because the briefs are
usually tight and we have relationships with people that we
trust and have vetted and have followers in various numbers,
some huge uge and some micro and you know we
ebb and flow with that as well.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Okay, you talked about humor. What might a brief be?
Give me an example of a brief in something somebody
actually created.

Speaker 3 (18:13):
Oh yeah, there's so many things that are just different.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
You know.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
Humor is you know, a different taste for everybody, So
not every what you think is funny, I don't think
is funny, and vice versa. So none, no humorous bits
come to mind directly, but it's all with a you know,
we're not too serious as a brand. So the things
that we're doing, like we were just at the waste
management open in Phoenix this weekend, and lots of content

(18:41):
that we created on that funny, silly, unexpected content that
was just unlike anything that maybe is humorous or maybe
it's just different, but got lots of attention online, including
articles written about like what was haydu doing at the
waste management open this weekend? So there's different ways to
connect with all these guys wearing women wearing green suits,

(19:06):
body suits that started making what is all that? And
people commenting like what is all that noise in the
back of the waste management open with haydude? Or what
is that even? And so we got a chance to
inject ourselves somewhere to introduce a upcoming golf Hey dude,
shoe so with pins and aces, so cool stuff unexpected

(19:30):
as a way to cut through and introduce a new style.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Okay, all these golfers have endorsement deals. If you look
at Beats first, it was let's just get the headphones
on people's heads. Do you go to the PJA golfers
to just give peers to everybody, or do you make
deals with specific people? What's the approach?

Speaker 3 (19:48):
Yeah, well, just we did something that's unlike anything. We
did not work with golfers specifically and getting shoes on
multiple professionals. We were really for the fans and getting
fans at the Waste Management open to experience, Hey dude,
with an interactive exhibit and doing things that just got attention.

(20:10):
And everybody's got a camera, bob, so everybody's posting on
their own socials to evangelize the brand and the way
that we activated at the Waste Management, but specifically to
introduce a new pair of golf shoes that are coming
out later this month.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Okay, golf shoes, you know, are traditionally firm, so hey dude,
is making a golf shoe. You're talking about how soft
they are. They absolutely are soft.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
So one of the ways that you can really maybe
you know, cut into a couple of strokes off your
game is being comfortable and lighter. So they certainly grip,
of course, which is an important part of golf. But
I don't think we're advocating that we're for the professional
golfer to win the Masters. We're for that weekend golfer
who's out with his or her buddies and friends doing

(21:00):
a couple of birdie juice before or after a birdie,
and certainly on the nineteenth hole. We're really more a
fun spirit than a high performance golf shoe. But it's
something you can wear and probably get a couple of
more bogies than birdies.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
Okay, what was the projected retail price?

Speaker 3 (21:23):
I can't remember the price of those, but they'll be
in the similar vein of what hey dudes are, you know,
in the seventy dollars range and with pins and aces
as a great partner. So just a fun way to
further explore the brand.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
Okay, is that something you started or was that started
before you came to this brand.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, it's all part of a more edited assortment of
who we want to work with and how we come
to life with different partners, whether they're celebrities or whether
they're brands or licenses, from SpongeBob SquarePants to Hot Wheels
to Beetlejuice and on and on and on. Fun ways

(22:05):
to connect fans of those properties to Hay Dude. And
so that's something that we've been doing, you know, since
I was at Crocs the first time around, we were
doing that and now we want to bring some of
that to Hey Dude. And the Pins and Asis partners
have just been great.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Okay, you come back to Hey Dude. I mean you
had the Kentucky Fried Chicken, Croc, you had all that
other stuff. Since you came back to Kroc, what initiatives
have you started?

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah, so I joined in May May first, and you know,
you lay out the strategy that I suggested earlier. And
so one of the first things we did is, you know,
one of the things I like to do is think
opposites and a brand named Hey Dude, who is looking
to appeal to a younger female audience while still you know, energizing.

(22:55):
Our core is to bring Sidney Sweeney on board is
our brand and beast hugely popular, is loved by lots
of people as an international, internationally known young woman, and
it's just cool. She's smart, talented, but also just cool.
And so that was one of the first moves that

(23:16):
we made since I returned.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Let's stop with Sydney Sweeney. You're sitting in the office,
you're brainstorming, and you say, Sydney Sweeney will be a
good idea, you go through the channels, you know, what
kind of reaction do you get? You know, the odds
of her actually wearing Hay Dudes are not high. What's
the incentive for her? There's always a monetary incentive. How
do you convince her this is good for her? Well?

Speaker 3 (23:41):
I think she recognized certainly where Sydney is from. I
think herself and lots of her friends and family are
Hey Dude fans. She's from up a certain neck of
the woods, Idaho, Washington that way, where Hey Dudes are
enormously popular. So she had an affinity for our brand.
And because we're unlike anything, she could showcase a different

(24:04):
side of herself, which really appealed to us as a brand.
It doesn't take herself too seriously. You know, she's known
for being an elegant, beautiful woman and you know, oscar
parties and all that kind of Hollywood showbiz. But she
has a different side of her and this allowed her
to showcase that in a really casual way. And I
think that's what attracted her to Hey Dude, and.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
Certainly what attracted Hey Dude to us to her. Okay,
so she's in what did you do with her? Oh?

Speaker 3 (24:34):
So she's in. So we started by just an introductory
video of this is Sidney Sweeney on a rope swing
jumping into a lake. You know, just talk about how
casual and unaffected she was by this, and then we
put her in a new style, a fuzz lined slipper
from Hey Dude Gone, couldn't keep him in stock And

(24:55):
in just a couple of weeks, she's a huge part
of our Spring twenty twenty five work that will be
unveiling shortly and has a you know, helped craft it
and it was a hugely important but involved partner to
create what we're going to unveil in just a few
short weeks to again make people think differently about Hey

(25:17):
Dude as a shoe that's not just for him, but
is for her and is for multiple wearing occasions. And
Sidney just does it in a really cool and Sidney
like way that she has this magical ability to pull
off this elegance that she has, but also this just
girl next door kind of give somebody the business kind

(25:39):
of way.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
And so how many videos do you make with Sydney? Yeah,
you know, a lot.

Speaker 3 (25:46):
We do a lot of things to cut through not
just a sense of humor and unlike anything, but also
our own sense of fashion and style for the brand
that you know, she's wearing it in that way as well.
So lots of different things, because as I said earlier,
the attention span of people is so short. We only
need a few seconds of video of Sydney and lots

(26:10):
of different few seconds of Sydney to have people see it.
And people are moving. You know that your thumb is
always moving on your screen, scrolling up, left, right, wherever,
and so once you see it, you stop and you
got the message and you keep scrolling. But we got you,
and Sydney makes you stop on your screen because of
who she is. So we're just thrilled by that and

(26:31):
we're excited to roll it out in just a couple
of short weeks.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Okay, so we're talking about social media platforms. You have
this deal with Sydney Sweeney. She's engaged. You do anything traditional,
whint TV, anything or those.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
Just off the table. Nothing is off the table. We're
not doing those with Sidney Sweeney. We have done Connected
TV with Hey Dude since I've been at Hey Dude,
which is really when you're you know, when you're logging
onto Amazon Prime there's a spot there, a hey dude
spot there, and so we've been doing those things. It's television,
but it's not television. Like perhaps we grew up knowing

(27:12):
we're not doing any print today. But we do have
conversations about a little bit more analog. That really came
up with the you know, the TikTok shutdown that was
rumored and happened for a hot second, and maybe the
move to analog is a you know, thinking opposites again, Bob, like,
is there some things that we should be doing to

(27:34):
connect with consumers who are not going to have this
major platform. So all things are on the table. Of course,
our website, SMS where we text message consumers about things
that they opt into. No radio, but the variety of
social media that we do, and then experiential you know,
part of this trick for any footwear companies to get

(27:54):
shoes on feet. So whether it's the Houston Rodeo coming
up in a couple of weeks or Stagecoach where we'll be,
or the waste management open places like that, we have
huge activations to get our fans who always come by
I love Hey dude, I've got five pairs or new
folks to the party and say I've heard about it

(28:17):
or I've never tried them on, and then we watched
their face when they try them on, and away we go.
I did a little event in Marshfield, Massachusetts. Hey Dude
is based outside of Boston, and there's this cool little
event called Flannel Jam every fall. It's at the Marshfield Fairgrounds,
And so I went on a Saturday with the team,

(28:38):
and you know, we sold like five thousand dollars worth
of hay Dudes in just a couple of hours out
of a makeshift van, and you know, spending that Saturday
listen to all these jam bands doing some great stuff.
The amount of people that were coming up to me
that I love hay Dude, and the amount of people
I saw wearing hay Dude that walked into the fairgrounds

(29:00):
with them. So it's just a real exciting experience for
me and showed the connection that we've got the folks
that we've just got to continue to build this Hey
Dude community and that's what we're after.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
So when it comes to online, there's TikTok, there's x
slash Twitter, there's Instagram reels, there's regular Instagram with photos
there's Facebook, what works and where are you?

Speaker 3 (29:25):
They all can work. TikTok is certainly our leader in
the clubhouse because it's the fastest and it allows us
to reach the most people. Our fan base has tripled
since I've been at the brand on TikTok. But of
course Facebook and Instagram and Instagram reels are a huge
part of what we're up to. Twitter, where we have

(29:46):
an account or x, we are not active on it.
We just don't find that to be a productive use
of our time. It's a different platform for a brand
like ours. Others do it well, but we're just not
unlocking that. We want people to explore us through those sites.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Okay, how let me put your marketing hat on. We're
in a political era where the Democrats are beaten to
the ground. The Republicans are dominating both in social discourse
and power. One of the things about the last election was, oh,
the Republicans were on podcasts, they were here that in

(30:32):
terms of it's mostly baby boomer some gen xers. What
do they not know and should know about how you
reach customers today? Because we speak about the Democratic Party,
they didn't And you live in this territory twenty four
to seven. So if you were advising them, it doesn't
necessarily have to be the Democrats. How do you get
your message out?

Speaker 3 (30:53):
Yeah, I think seems like the Democrats have a more
popular message, but the way they say it or share
it just does not come across as authentic as the
guy that won. Say what you want about the President
of the United States, and certainly there's been plenty written
about him, but he just says seemingly what it's on
his mind, without a filter, and that seems to connect.

(31:16):
If you measure by the fact that he won the election,
that would say he connected. And I don't get the
sense that the left does that to the same degree.
It just feels more calculated, and Trump just comes across
as real, which is how we started this discussion. Brands
or politicians or anyone who just comes across as real,

(31:39):
I think just has a better shot at success.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Well that's half of it, and that's really important. But
in terms of you know, the ratings for cable television,
you know they don't have even a million people watching.
So has there been a complete shift of the customer
to social media too, alternative outlets? And many people don't

(32:04):
realize this. In the so called establishment or is it
more well, something works here and something works there.

Speaker 3 (32:11):
No, it's the it's the former. Like there, listen, I'm
a gen xer. I'm astounded by my own adoption of
social media. I'll give you an example. You know, I
travel a lot in my role, and you know, one
of the joys of travel in a weird way used
to be you throw it. You check into your hotel room,

(32:32):
you throw your bag on the ground right, and you
turn the television on. I can't remember the last time
I turned the television on in a hotel room. I
have an iPad and for the brief time I have
I sit in the chair in the corner of the
hotel room or on the bed, and I scroll social
media a variety of things. Twitter to get my news, TikTok,

(32:55):
to be informed or entertained, or to laugh, to get
dining tips in the city that I might be in.
This looks like a cool spot. I don't turn the
television on unless there's a sporting event, and even that
I can do on YouTube TV on my iPad. It's
not as big as screen. But so I'm astounded of
my own personal adoption as a gen xer. So you know,

(33:18):
my daughters are digitally native, so if that kind of
switch happens to me, I mean just folks and kids
that are born into this which is now a whole generation.
They don't consume anything the way we did, which is
why brands like Hey Dude and Stanley before that are
looking to connect where they are and that's where they are.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Okay, you're a gen x er when you were out socially,
when you're not working and you start talking about this,
do you find the other people of your generation or
the people that you interact with are saying, yeah, yeah,
I saw that too, Or are they saying, oh, that's crap,
I'm not Are you one an outlier or are you

(34:04):
finding that many people are doing what you're doing.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
I don't know that I'm an outlier, but I'm in
the minority for sure. For a gen xer, you know,
there's always the there's the misperception that TikTok is just
a bunch of young girls dancing, and I know those
folks come across my for you page every once in
a while, But I'm looking for like where's the best

(34:29):
pub in London? And there's lots of answers. I live
in Boston, and so somehow I'm my for you page,
the algorithm or my geography. Some guy in a blue
hat at Emmett's Pub in Boston never been there before.
It turns out it's around the corner, and this guy's
alleging it has the best poor of guinness in all
of Boston. If it wasn't for TikTok, I wouldn't have known.

(34:52):
It is a five minute walk from my apartment, and
that is I mean, that's elixir of life. To know
that there's people out there and these places exist. I
never would have seen that on television, And Wow, how
exciting is this? And so I think I'm the outlier

(35:12):
because people just think it's a waste of time. And
I know, as so do millions of people, that it's where.
It's the town square, and that's where you can learn
so many cool things, fun things, interesting things. It's just
an incredible thing. I've watched more videos about airplane turbulence
because I'm so scared of turbulence when I'm flying that
I feel better now because I hear all these pilots

(35:34):
telling me not to worry. And now I'm not going
to see that on CNN or MTV or ESPN or
just so man, it's so cool to be alive right now,
to have all this at your fingertips. Which is why
I don't turn a television on an hotel because I'm
not gonna feel better about turbulence.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Okay, did you say this is my job? I need
to know more about social media? This is a project?
Or how did you get started?

Speaker 3 (36:01):
Oh, I'm insatiably curious. Yeah, I want to know. I
want to know what's around the corner. Personally, professionally. That
is my life. I have an insatiable curiosity and an
unmistakable sense of what's possible personally, professionally. So listen to
when I was a kid, Bob. I'll never forget this.

(36:24):
This is a real analogue, and viewers of a certain
listeners of a certain age will get this. When I
was thirteen years old, I was fortunate enough my parents
took my brother and I to Bermuda, which you know Bermuda,
you know this is unheard of, and we stayed at
the Southampton Princess. I don't know if it's still there,

(36:45):
It doesn't matter. I was more interested in the Reuter's
ticker behind the front desk of the hotel than I
was about going to the pool. I couldn't believe something
like this existed, that I was getting all sorts of
information in real time. Yeah, I'll never forget it. I

(37:07):
can still see it through my mind's eye. I grew
up in northern New Jersey, so I used to fall
asleep to news radio eighty eight just also to get
you know, there's always sports on the eights. So before
the Internet, you couldn't get you know, it was Warner
Wolf CBS at six thirty, and that's how you got
your sports or you called sports phone, you know, get

(37:30):
all the sports news instantly, dial nine seven six one
three one three. So like, these things are just this
is just an extension of how I've been all of
my life, and the fact that this all exists astounds me.
So what is coming around the corner? AI? AI for

(37:52):
good and for bad?

Speaker 2 (37:54):
Yeah, it's okay, I'm interested in this. That's certainly the
popular topic. Tell me what's coming around the corner and
how it's going to affect both your business and the
average citizen.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
Yeah. Well, it's certainly going to allow us to tell
incredible messages to people fast and in ways that inspire
and interrupt. It's happening right now and it's still in
its infancy. The ways that we can communicate, the ways
we can interview and hire as an employer. It's all

(38:27):
just a few short years away from major shifts. But
from a marketing perspective and a brand building perspective, the
opportunity and the danger you have is quite a responsibility
to do it right. You know, I was an astounded,
you know last week that the Beatles want a Grammy
in twenty twenty five using AI and what does that mean?

(38:53):
You know, the Beatles is kind of a benchmark of
so many things for so many people. Well, did that
open the floodgates for it? Was almost a stamp of
approval or was it something different or more? Really perplexed
by that question and the outcome of that, but also
thrilling in a way that that kind of thing can occur.

(39:15):
So it's a really amazing thing that you know, we're
doing at hey dude, and doing it in small birds,
mostly on the creative side. But we're going to see
how that continues to evolve. But that's certainly a major
thing of what's next.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
So how are you using it on the creative side?

Speaker 3 (39:33):
Just to certainly fine tune photo shoots. And we recently
did a partnership, one of our collaborations with the brand Ferbie,
you know, those acute little characters a fuzz line Ferbie
shoe and our entire ad, if you call it ad,
the experience and the way we communicated that was all
through AI. And there's you know, pundits that we're calling

(39:56):
it the ad of the week just two or three
weeks ago because it breaks through and it's a really
interesting and how we did it was really innovative, and
it makes you stop your thumb scrolling, and that's part
of the game. And so there's other things dangerously going around,
just you know, when we're recording this of celebrities being
misinterpreted with AI about Kanye West, and I'm sure you've

(40:19):
seen today that's really really scary and terrible. And how
we put you know, guardrails around that I don't pretend
to know, but we're going to have to figure that out.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
Okay, anything else you could say that it's around the
corner besides AI.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
Yeah, it's the thing that comes to mind, you know,
most importantly, I think faster Ways to get you product
is also around the corner. Of course, you know Amazon,
you know you see these drone deliveries, which sounds you know,
out of science fiction, but that's you know, that's coming.
So it's just a matter of how interruptive it is

(40:56):
or how distracting or annoying it is, and a level
of that that society is going to accept. But that's
certainly people want things faster, they want it now, and
if a drone or something can fly it to you,
people are going to want that. And it's just a
matter of how is it that also relegated regulated, and

(41:18):
how's the experience not you know, an effrontery to people
who are not ordering things. That's the trick.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
Okay, you talked originally about fast and young females. Are
you saying you want to activate young females because you
have a fashion product or can you say across the
board they are the most active and reactive.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
Yeah, great, great point all the above. So, as I
think I said earlier, you know, youth culture drives culture, right,
but more than ever before, youth female culture drives culture.
Women more than ever before, you know, are traveling and
going out in packs. Women typically are bigger fans of

(42:04):
footwear than guys, they have a bigger community. In addition
to the type group that they have, they also have
larger communities and they like to share what they love
and that influences their friends or their peer groups, and
so all of those things lead us to that's where

(42:24):
culture is. And if more women can fall in love
with a funny little brand with a funny little name,
there's a there's a great opportunity there to reach more
people because, as I learned from you know, my last place,
people want what's cool, and they want what's cool in America.

(42:45):
Around the world, people want what's cool in America, and women,
young women are letting the world know what's cool in America.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Okay, Hey Dude has a male connotation. Is that a
point of friction or you think about changing the name
at some point?

Speaker 3 (43:04):
No, not at all. It's not a neither. That is
our name. It's a funny little name. But you know,
forty percent of our businesses female consumers already, so there's
no no worries there. We just need to showcase more
female focused styles, certainly showcase more ways to wear Hey

(43:28):
Dude for young women, and that's part of the what
we're up to as well. Part of the Sydney Sweeney
work and all those other things, but not not an
impediment at all. In fact, you know, women call each
other bro dude. You know one of the top two
three podcasts is Alex Cooper's Call Me Daddy. Right, So

(43:50):
there's a power and ownership of these kind of things
that women have taken. And as exciting time, let's assume
you will have a product that you want to sell
to males. Are you telling us that the best way
to reach males is to reach the women and then
they'll tell the males. That's certainly true. That is certainly true.

(44:15):
Certainly from a gift giving perspective. You know, a lot
of guys are just hey, throw another new size eleven
in the cart. You know, guys are like that, right,
But guys also want what's cool, they want what's comfortable.
Guys also want what's dependable, and so from a fashion standpoint,
most guys are fast fashion or they're just comfortable. And

(44:38):
we want to make sure the guys that love us,
and there's lots of them, stay in love with Hey, dude,
but we certainly want to bring a lot more people
into the tent.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
Okay, you have all this focus on women, yet the
conversation at large is the opposite. Why do people not
know this extreme power of women question?

Speaker 3 (45:01):
It's a great question. I don't know the answer to that.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
I do.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
So that's what I'm focused on with the Heydude team
is making sure that we're bringing more people into the
tent and recognizing the purchasing power, the cultural power, the
community power of women in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
Okay, you said you're from New Jersey. What did your
parents do for a living?

Speaker 3 (45:34):
My father was My parents grew up in the Bronx,
New York. I was born in New York City. My
father was in the United States Navy on the USS
Wasp post World War Two, and he left the Navy
and started fixing typewriters in New York City for IBM

(45:55):
in the suit in the uh you know, the shoes
carrying the case fix and typewriters, and he, like so
many folks of his generation, worked his way to become
an executive with IBM. We moved a lot as a
young guy. As a young kid, we moved a few

(46:15):
times before I was ten years old, and my dad
raised you know, me and my brother and did well
enough that my mom could raise us. You know, my
mom didn't work outside of the home, but she certainly
worked because she had myself and my brother. We made
her work hard. So we were fortunate to grow up
in northern New Jersey for you know, since I was

(46:36):
ten years old and my dad carved it out and is,
you know, an incredible guy. We're nothing alike, but he
is an incredible guy. Still with us. Both my parents are,
thank goodness, and that's what they did. They lived the
American dream.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
Okay that moving around as a young child, having to
fit in, did that effect your personality for sure?

Speaker 3 (47:02):
Yeah, it affects me to this day. So move to
U born in New York City, lived upstate New York
or Westchester, and then moved to Virginia and Illinois, all
before I was ten. And so the fear of walking
into a new cafeteria is still with me today. I

(47:27):
don't like walking into office cafeteria. I don't like looking
for somebody to sit with. That is was then and
it still carries with me all these years later. I'm
certainly more comfortable than I ever was, and I certainly
do that because that's part of the job when you're
leading a company, but it's certainly part of my psychology

(47:52):
and how I enter any room.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Okay, you have this anxiety, but concommonly, is there a
positive element of this?

Speaker 3 (48:05):
It's a good question. Probably not a positive quality to that.
That's a I mean a positive quality of moving around
having to interact with me. Oh sure, oh, I said,
of course, yeah, of course, yes. You know, I had
an appreciation for other things before I was ten years old.
You know, I knew you know, I knew where things were.

(48:26):
I knew what Chicago looked like. When I was nine,
you know, I knew what you know, the nation's capital
we lived in Northern Virginia looked like. I knew what
what I knew, the kids like the Bears. You know,
you don't know these things, especially in the seventies, or
you don't, but I did, And so it gave me
an appreciation for maybe that always what's around the corner

(48:46):
kind of a mentality that I had because I didn't
know if we were ever going to be staying wherever
we were because of my father's job, which was you know, thrilling, exciting,
but also daunting when you get that we're going to move.
So so yeah, of course, I think there's a lot
of good, but the anxiety of that cafeteria table, which
I took to my daughter's Unfortunately, you know, we moved

(49:07):
a few times, I sadly, you know, cursed my daughters
with the same thing my father cursed me, and I
put curse and quotes, of course, but one of my
first questions through my girls when we moved is you
know who did you eat lunch with? It wasn't what
did you learn, It wasn't how school, It was who
did you have lunch with? And I would ask that

(49:27):
question with my eyes kind of winced and my teeth gritted,
because I know what that's like. And so I was
transferring some of my whatever that is psychosis or anxiety
on them unfairly, But it meant something to me because
I know what it's like, and it hurt then, and
I didn't want my daughters to feel the same thing.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
So what's your personality? Are you more of a lone
or outsider? Are you the type of person who has
a million friends and is contacting people all day?

Speaker 3 (49:56):
I have the same friends since I moved to New
Jersey and fifth grade. We're all on a text thread
every day. So I've got a tight circle of friends
since I was eleven years old ten years old, which
is an amazing thing to say, in an amazing gift.

(50:18):
But then I make new friends along the way, and
the friends that I make I'm really really close with
and have influenced my life, you know, even my career.
Some of the most important people in my life are
people that influence my career who I've ended up being
the best of friends with. So it's tight. I'm not
the life of the party ever, but I'm comfortable being alone.

(50:42):
But the friends that I have are deep and meaningful
and long.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
So let's say I say, Hey, we're going to go
to a party. You don't know anybody, none of them
work in your business, so you're gonna say, hey, let's go.
You say, well, you're gonna see Well, you know, maybe
I'd rather stay home.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
I would prefer not to go, but when I go,
I'm you know, I'm an irishman, right, So I do
have that certain gift of gab when I choose to gab,
and I've got a lot of really cool stories to
tell and a really good life experience that people like

(51:19):
to hear. When I end up sharing some of it,
so I don't wear the lampshade, but I can get after.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
It, Okay, good student, bad student.

Speaker 3 (51:32):
I was average at everything, average at everything, good not
I don't know why, but average at everything, and you know,
medium part of my class, if you know what I mean.
But I was a late bloomer, you know. And I
also just because of that moving around, I think I

(51:53):
lacked a lot of confidence that I didn't know I
was actually good at quite a few things when I
was in middle school and high school. That it turns out,
you know, later in life, you start to realize, you
know what, maybe I was better if I had some confidence,
or had a different kind of coach or somebody, things
could have been different then. But I'm not hung up
on any of that. I just, you know, it was

(52:17):
a late bloomer. I remember you couldn't you back in
those days, and maybe they still do it. You had
to do like the eight mile run, you know, you
had to run for eight eight minute eight minute run
or something like that, whatever it was, eight minute mile,
there you go, man, and something you know in middle
school and I hated it, like I was out of breath,
like I couldn't do it, you know, it was kind
of a little chubby, little pudgy little guy. And my

(52:38):
favorite baseball player at that age was Carlton Fists because
his nickname was Pudge. You know, it was like looking
for connection and I couldn't do it like I just was.
But you know, years later, I've run three marathons in
under four hours. You know, So these things happen. Life
is long, and if you're going to be hung up
on who you were, well that's a waste of your life.
And so the the things that have happened in my

(53:01):
life and even just the last fifteen years have been
extraordinary career wise, personally, so many amazing things.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
So you graduate from high school, then what.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
I go to college in New Jersey. Well, actually I
started college at Northeastern up in Boston, and I hate
to say it, I think I chose Northeastern because I
was a giant and still I am a big fan of
the Red Sox, the Bruins, the Patriots, and the Celtics.
And a word to your listeners, that's not the reason
to choose a college or university. But I was a

(53:34):
huge fan of those teams and that's why I chose Northeastern.
But I was too immature to know what to do.
My high school and grammar school friends were no longer
with me, and I did not adapt well. And I
also just didn't like the city environment. I wasn't ready
for that then. So I transferred to a little known

(53:56):
Rider University in New Jersey, and you know, graduated, I
don't know two point eight, two point nine, you know,
something like that. It was an unremarkable scholastic career. But
I graduated, and I got a job right out of college.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
But just before this, when you're going to Rider, yeah,
are you living at home? Are you living in an apartment?

Speaker 3 (54:18):
I'm living in the dorm. I was a resident advisor
for two and a half years at Ryder, So you know,
you got your own room. There's a little bit of
evidence there right right right, And you got a phone,
which mattered then, and you didn't you didn't have to
pay for and I got a little bit of scratch,

(54:38):
so I had some spending money. And you know, an
unremarkable career at Ryder. That there's they wouldn't remember me,
and they shouldn't remember me.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
So you graduated, and you did what I graduated.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
And this is the day, Bob, where you know one
hundred envelopes, one hundred resumes, one hundred stamps, and you
send them out. I can't even imagine this was a thing,
just hoping it got there, hoping somebody opened it, hoping
somebody would call you back. What And I got a

(55:15):
call back? You know, my mom got a call back.
You know, this is the day. You know, I was
living at home and my mom would answer, Terrence, it's
for you, you know, and it's your possible future employer. The
thought of that is so staggering today. But I got
a job with the MWW Group, a PR agency in
northern New Jersey. At the time, I think I was
one of the first ten employees of the MWW Group.

(55:38):
And now if you drive by MetLife Stadium in New Jersey,
you'll see the W building on the other side of
MetLife Stadium. So Michael Kempner and the group that hired
me then still run it and grow it into a
huge agency. But this is really funny. So I get
this job, right, and I'm an account coordinator at twenty two,

(56:02):
twenty three years old, and you know, you're getting press
clippings and you have to clip them out for the
different clients of the agency from Burrell's or you know,
and you're cutting and pasting them and using you know,
glue tape to you know, this is what you did.
And I filled in for the receptionist when she went
to lunch, and I had to get the coffee supplies
every Monday morning for the office for the week. And
that's what you do when you're twenty two. And they

(56:24):
gave me a little account. This is a PR agency
and I'm an account coordinator, so cut your chops on this, Terrence.
And they gave me a little indoor amusement park in Paramus,
New Jersey called sports World. And at the time whatever
this is, nineteen ninety one, right around there, this indoor

(56:45):
amusement park was a pretty cool thing. It was a
giant box at inside where bumper cars and cafeteria with
you know, hot dogs and popcorn and rides and ball
pits and all sorts of stuff, and it was a
really popular place. What am I going to do with
this as a PR account coordinator? You know, press release
to say here, have your kid's birthday party here, or

(57:06):
they got a new ride whatever. Not exactly exciting stuff.
But one evening, just as I'm about to go home.
The desk phone, big giant desk phone rings and I
pick it up and it's the owner of Sports World.
It says, Terrence, get down here, Like, what's wrong? Because

(57:27):
Terrence get down here with somebody hurt? Is anything wrong?
He's like, no, Michael Jackson has rented the place for
the night. What so, Yeah, Michael Jackson is here and
he's rented the place for the night. We're closed, so
all right now, I gotta be honest with you, Bob.

(57:47):
If the iPhone existed, then I probably would have gone
down to Sports World to what to try and get
a selfie with Michael Jackson. But it didn't exist. So
instead of taking my iPhone, which didn't exist in nineteen
ninety one, I got on the phone and I called
every assignment desk that I had in my Bacon's Guide.

(58:13):
I know where Michael Jackson is tonight. Called me back,
I know where Michael Jackson is tonight. The phone rang
like it was you know, so everybody called me back
and lo and behold. The next day and the next week,
I had the biggest score in the history of the
Young MWW group and change my career there. I promoted

(58:38):
to an account executive and now I'm working with Continental Airlines,
you know. And that's what can happen in life if
you're ready for your audition. And so that was a
gift to me, and that changed my career at the
MWW group as a twenty three year old. Next thing
I know, I'm on the runway at Continental Airlines in Newark,
New Jersey with Lloyd Benson, you know. So it's amazing

(59:01):
what can happen in a young career if you're ready
for the moment.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
Okay, you go to Continental, play it out from there.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
So I just didn't know if I liked doing what
I was doing, and so I went to work for
a nonprofit in northern New Jersey, a long term care
facility and psychiatric hospital. Yeah, the real fun stuff, Bob, And.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Wait, wait just to stay there. Yeah, you're working with
an amusement park, you're working with Continental era Lines. What
is the motivation? I don't money? To get escape where
you were? Why'd you do it?

Speaker 3 (59:41):
I don't have an answer for that. Genius or stupidity
or somewhere in between, because it wasn't the money. It
was a nonprofit. But I just wanted to try something else.
And so I'm working for this medical center. It's a nonprofit,
as I mentioned, and so one of my responsibilities was

(01:00:03):
to put together an annual fundraising dinner, you know, the
rubber chicken round table, and a whole bunch of donors
and supporters arrive and I'm giving an appeal, you know,
from the dais the main stage there with the podium,
and I have a photo of this, which is a
surreptitious photo that I didn't know I even had or
somebody took it. But in the front row, in the

(01:00:24):
front table, with his back to me was a gentleman
who the next morning called me and I thought, oh wow,
I got one of these high rollers to write a
big check to the medical center. Look at me, I've
got a big score. And he says, let's go to
breakfast tomorrow. We go to breakfast that I'm ready for

(01:00:47):
him to write a big check, and he says, I
want you to be my marketing manager for Amror Prize.
I don't know this guy, never met him.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
In my life.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
And this was actually called American Express Financially Advisors at
the time part of American Express, and now it's Amerorprize,
which is one of the leading financial companies in the world,
and so I go get my series seven, series sixty three,
Series sixty five to sell a market financial products in
northern New Jersey. And what luck, you know. And you know,

(01:01:22):
I think he got my salary from like twenty six
thousand to fifty eight thousand, which was ridiculous, you know.
But I'm now in a new field, and I bounced
around the financial services for a while, and I passed
another audition as I had this really cool idea to
invite people to the movies to correct new customers. You know,

(01:01:45):
we were looking for mom and pop to come in
and talk about their financial goals and do a financial plan.
And so I invited them to the movies, your local cinema,
and before for the movie, I would do a ten
minute presentation on realizing life's streams through financial planning, and

(01:02:06):
I would film movie theaters because everybody loves the movies.
And out of that we would get a few appointments
and people would come in to meet with financial planners
and we did some good business that way. And one
night an executive from Prudential. Again I'm from New Jersey.
Prudential is one of the leading employers in New Jersey
and a powerhouse is in the audience, and she calls

(01:02:28):
me the next day says you should come work for
me in Newark, the headquarters. So I did, and Lisa
is still one of my best friends today. She was
just with my daughter in London a couple of weeks ago.
But Bob, I hated it. I hated financial services. It
was not for me. I really fell. I was a

(01:02:49):
young guy, still thirty and a daughter one on the way,
and I'm a vice.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
Oh well, wait, just to take a side route here.
Where do you meet your wife in when? Yeah, so
I meet her.

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
We both had a summer job in college, and we
knew each other from the hallways of our summer job.
And one Friday evening on Route seventeen in Paramus, New Jersey,
there was a Compact disc World And you and many
of your listeners recognize the power of compact discs and

(01:03:25):
CDs in the late eighties early nineties, and how Friday
was payday and you made a pilgrimager. I did CD
World on Fridays to just get what I needed to get.
And so as I'm browsing through the s's Springsteen Southside,
little Steven Sinatra I am from New Jersey. She walks

(01:03:48):
in and I recognize her from our summer job, and
we talked for a few minutes. And then the next
day we saw each other in the hall. What did
you buy? Then we started trading CDs and now your
two daughters later in all these years, so music again

(01:04:09):
shows up in my life in an unexpected and surreptitious way.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
Okay, since you met her and she's your age contemporary,
what was she doing career wise? And to what degree
was she advising you on your career?

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
So she spent thirty five years with a major accounting firm,
one of the big I don't remember. I think it
was Big eight when she started. He went to eight
to five, you know, I don't know. She was with
one of the last one standing just until recently. So

(01:04:56):
thirty five years, and the gift that she gave us
was stability. She was working from home before COVID, twenty
years before COVID, and knew how to balance all that,
do an incredible job and raise two remarkable young women,
two daughters that I mentioned earlier, And so that was

(01:05:17):
an incredible gift to us. And she was able through
you know, the firm's generosity because she did great for them.
They did great by her that we could move to
the various places that I moved. Is this career arc
that I'm walking you through or boring you with and
starts to unfold and so an incredible gift that you

(01:05:37):
know she received and that you know we were both
fortunate to have.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
So she's a CPA, she is not.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
She she did a lot of the training and the
things that CPAs and the firm needs to keep licensed
and keep you know, keep them honest.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
Okay, so you're in financial services, you hate it? Yeah,
so what's the next step. So I'm in the headquarters.
I'm a vice president of.

Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
Marketing for Prudential. This should be the dream of every
kid from New Jersey, right, you know the Devil's play
in the Prudential Center, And it was, you know, I
was bored of being bored because boredom is boredom. And
a friend of mine calls me and says, hey, there's
a company out of Dallas, Texas called foot Action that

(01:06:26):
is relocating to Mahwan, New Jersey, and nobody wants to go.
Nobody wants to relocate from Dallas to Mahwan, New Jersey.
So you should talk to this guy that I know great.
So I talked to this guy and it happens to
be Willie Smith. Will Smith, not the Fresh Prince, but

(01:06:49):
Will Smith, and he's the vice president of marketing for
foot Action in mahwan, New Jersey. And will takes a
chance on this financial services guy and I go backwards
in life from a VP at thirty two years old
to a director of marketing for foot Action. Foot Action

(01:07:10):
still exists, but at the time it was the leading footwear,
casual sneaker brand for young kids. And Bob within three months,
I'm going from selling mutual funds, annuities, and long term
care insurance to being on stage with Beyonce in Houston, Texas.

(01:07:32):
I have a photo to prove it. A couple of
weeks later, I'm on stage at the Apollo Theater because
we worked with Nike, because we sell a lot of
Jordan's and air Force ones, and we opened a new
store on one hundred and twenty fifth Street, and the
only way to get tickets to the Nike wake up
call at the Apollo is to buy a pair of
Nikes at our new foot Action store on one hundred

(01:07:52):
and twenty fifth Street. I am living the dream as
a music fan, as a footwear sneaker kid. You gotta
be kidding me, like this is the greatest thing ever.
And that didn't last too long because it was I
guess eighteen months. Two years later, there was a giant,
you know, town hall in the big Assembly area and

(01:08:15):
we were told something's up. And if we were your
brothers and sisters, we would tell you to get your
resume together. And so I got my resume together, and
so did Willie Smith. And Willie Smith ended up going
out to Saint Louis, Missouri. He was a Rochelle New Rochelle,

(01:08:39):
New Rock City kid and Long Island kid, and he
moved out to Saint Louis to become the VP of
Marketing for Famous Footwear, one of the leading family footwear
brands in the United States. And he calls me up.
It says, Ryles, you got to come out to Saint Louis.
I'm not moving to Saint Louis. I'm from New Jersey?
Are you kidding me? And let's put this. Willie is real,

(01:09:01):
real persuasive, and so moved to Saint Louis, Missouri, and
five years of incredible experience growth, learning a lot of
things at Famous Footwear in Saint Louis, seeing incredible leaders too,
like Diane Sullivan and others who are just showed me
how to do things that I didn't know that I

(01:09:22):
was going to have to do someday, because right now
I'm already in all my life, I've outkicked my coverage.
And now I'm in Saint Louis and incredible experience there,
incredible life moments there. And then I go pay a
visit to Crocs. Famous Footwear sells Crocs at the time,

(01:09:45):
still does, And I fly out to Colorado, where Crocs
is based just outside a boulder, and I go into
the Crocs boardroom to do my you know, spiel of
why you should be spending more money Famous Footwear to
sell more Crocs. And I do my thing in the boardroom, leave,

(01:10:06):
and two or three weeks later, I get a call
from somebody at Crocs. We'd like you to be the
guy that runs the America's marketing for Crocs, which you
moved to Colorado. I'm not from Saint Louis. Colorado seems
like a really cool place to live. My brother lives
out here, as do my parents. They moved from New

(01:10:26):
Jersey and the East Coast many years earlier, so let's
give it a whirl. And we moved to Colorado and
I'm the director of Marketing for Crocs and then the
CMO for Crocs, and thanks to an incredible team, we
turned that thing around.

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):
Okay, Ros had a real negative reputation. Okay, people were
making jokes about them, plastic shoes, etc. Ay, why did
you take the job? B was everybody on the same page.
Something's got to change in what we were steps.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):
Yeah, I took the job because it was a brand
and people hated it. That smells like money. To me, Well, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
People hated it. That smells like money. Explain that.

Speaker 3 (01:11:22):
Yeah, So when I was the CMO of Crocs. When
I started, there was a meme that had a photo
of pair of Crocs and it said those holes are
where your dignity leaks out.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
That's good.

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
That hung on my wall. I looked at it every
day as motivation. And again, nobody hated Crocs. It was
just a brand that was made fun of and there
was tension to that. And when there's that kind of tension,
you know, as Reggie Jackson said, back in the seventies,
they don't boo, nobody d and so aha, like there's

(01:12:04):
something here and we just need to make ourselves more relevant.
Crocs did not have an awareness problem. Everybody knew Crocs.
But if we can make it more relevant, that was
the opportunity. And thanks to my colleagues, we made it
more relevant and then some and helped turn Crocs into
this extraordinary story in footwear and in brands and in culture.

(01:12:30):
And again, how lucky am I? You know, it's almost
like Forrest Gump. I just bump into these things or
they find me and you change Crocs and change my
life in the biggest way.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
Okay, that's the general. Be more specific. Everyone knows Crocs.
There's a negative take. What were the first steps and
when did you realize you were onto something? And then
where'd you go from there? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
The first steps was actually to We brought Drew Barrymore
on board and it was the first opportunity we had
to work with celebrity.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Whose idea was that.

Speaker 3 (01:13:11):
It was a mutual decision. Certainly, the CEO of Crocs
and I spoke about one of the quickest ways to
cut through is celebrity partnerships. That's just the fact they
don't all work, but is the fastest way. And Drew Barrymore,
God love her brought us an instant credibility with people.

(01:13:33):
It just changed the perception of the brain. Oh that's
Drew Barrymore. Wait are crocs?

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
Wait?

Speaker 3 (01:13:37):
What's this CrOx? Maybe there's something that I've been missing.
And she's just an absolutely lovely soul. And she was
the first thing to help us put a flag in
the ground. Where the other thing that happens, Bob is
you know, the the Hollywood agencies, they smell blood in
the water. CROs has some money. I wonder who else

(01:14:01):
they'd consider hiring. And that she opened the doors for
other celebrities to begin working with crocs, to also widen
our aperture of who to work with to get a
more global presence. People like John Cena we could started
wearing crocs for us. Prianka Chopra also one of the
loveliest women I've ever met in my entire life and kindest.

(01:14:24):
She bought the whole crew when we wrapped, she bought
them all champagne and toasted the crew. I mean just
and so now people around the world are starting to see,
wait that weird American brand that shoot with the holes
in it. Drew Barrymore and John Cena and Priyanka Chopra
and then some Asian superstars in Korea and China. But
Drew Barrymore helped open that aperture and widen it where

(01:14:47):
now the brand was in a little different spot and
you could start to see those green shoots and then
really the.

Speaker 4 (01:14:55):
The the the turning point, like this is the moment
where the plot changes, you know, bang on the piano keys.

Speaker 3 (01:15:05):
Here a young woman named Toria Roth, twenty three years old.
She walks into my office on the CMO of Crocs.
She just finished her internship with us and we hired
her on full time. She walks in my office, sheepishly
knocks on my door, you know, the CMO's door, and says, hey,
t did you see this? And she shows me a

(01:15:27):
photo of post Malone wearing Crocs and I didn't see it.
She saw it, and it didn't take more than two
seconds to know what was up. And so Kerry Macker
from Universal Music Group that represented post Malone, she gets
in touch with us and we create the first celebrity

(01:15:52):
collaboration with Crocs, the post Malones and it crashed our website.
This is one of those moments, Bob, that I can
see unfold and slow emotion. It's a big deal to
the company. We've never done something like this before. We're
about to go live at nine am in Colorado or
ten am in Colorado. We get the entire company into
the giant cafeteria assembly area. We have the big screens

(01:16:13):
up with our data points to see this first sale,
and and we go live and the system crashes. There
were so many people. We were not prepared for it.
And I'm the guy like, I'm the ringleader, the pt
barnum of it all. And it was a mortifyingly excitingly

(01:16:34):
incredible experience. I knew we just crashed crocs dot com.
Everything changes from here on out, and it did.

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
Okay, Just to go back a step, celebrities are not cheap.
There are some companies with huge marketing budgets. Others don't
believe in it. You know, how do you decide what
percentage of you know, revenue to dedicate to these people
in terms of return? Is there some math involved? It
purely a hunch.

Speaker 3 (01:17:05):
For me, It's all the above. I do have an
eye and thanks to Toria Roth. She saw this, and
so post Malone at that moment was on the come up.
So there were ways to afford Post Malone then. And
the next up was Luke Combs. He hadn't hit yet,

(01:17:28):
but I saw this guy through social media and just
you know, just constant reading and you know that curiosity,
and he started to appear in different places that I'm
looking for new music, like okay, who's this Luke Combs guy?
And then you see a photo of him, like this
is a Crocs guy. So he was on the come
up also, and so but then you do some math.

(01:17:50):
You do how many Instagram followers they have, and if
ten percent of those, you know, go to our website
and five percent convert, what kind of dollars and cents
could there be here? You do those kind of rough calculations,
but it's also hunch. It's also kind of who their
audience is and their trajectory. And that's happened a lot

(01:18:10):
in my life of betting on folks and also being
a leader who listens to you know, Torrio who's twenty three,
or Pejor Rodriguez who came into my office. He grew
up in Puerto Rico and he said, at do you
know who bad Bunny is? And I didn't, but he did,
and he knew the impact that bad Bunny would have
for Crocs and he was right. And so to be

(01:18:34):
a listener and a leader who's open to good ideas
can come from anywhere has transformed brands. And if you're
just close minded, and if you think you have all
the answers, then you're probably not going to win. But
you do have to have some of the answers.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
Okay, But there was the traditional Croc shoe back not
long after the Croc started, they started to put fur
on them and stuff like that. Forget that. You now
have all the celebrities involved, you start changing the product.
Show me about that.

Speaker 3 (01:19:05):
Sure, well, with a great product team, you know. So
I was the CMO, not the chief product officer. But
now it's a similar strategy. You build the core. And
we returned under my marketing leadership, we returned to the
classic Croc. Kroc was doing lots of different stuff when
I got the gig, and we just brought it back
to basics. And there you build the core and then

(01:19:27):
you add more. And the fantastic product team started to, Yeah,
put fuzz in crocs, which is a huge seller to
this day. Add height do partnerships with Christopher Kaine or
Balenciaga to get just that different kind of style. And
then gibbets, those little things that you put in the holes,

(01:19:48):
have been an incredible success story because it allows people
to personalize their crocs, which is, you know, such a
vital part of contemporary society. And so so the combination
of new product introductions and celebrity partnerships and then it
became like the Got Milk Mustache bob where everybody wanted
to wear the milk mustache and almost any celebrity or

(01:20:13):
brand that we called who wanted to create their own crocs.
And that's something that is still an active success story today.

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
Ye know, from my perspective, the gibbets started with the
public and then you got involved. Is that an accurate description.

Speaker 3 (01:20:31):
No, We started to we were photographing our shoes naked,
which makes no sense. We were selling gibbets, but we
were not photographing them and not encouraging people to do that.
So we got behind it and then our fans started
to take over, and that's when you know a hit.
You know, our fans started to label Crocs fully loaded,

(01:20:51):
you know, when you fill all twenty six holes with gibbets,
and it allows people to express themselves. And that's another
key component of Crocs's success is the ability to just
personalize something you wear and extend your own personality, whatever
that may be to the brand. And our product team
just continued to innovate and still does at Crocs. And

(01:21:12):
it changed my life where people started writing articles about me,
which again, how did this happen to this guy from
New Jersey? But it did. And then I got a
call about his bottle company called Stanley that nobody had
heard of, including myself. But you know, it's not every

(01:21:36):
day that they're calling a CMO for a president's job.
And I should go for it. I should try and
grab this breast ring this guy from you know, but
for the grace of God. You know, my father was
a typewriter repair man into an executive. But for the
grace of God, I'd be walking a beat somewhere. You know,

(01:21:59):
President me, Let's give it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:02):
A whirl a little bit slower. You get an email
or the phone ring as they say, what and how
do you ultimately decide to take the job.

Speaker 3 (01:22:12):
Well, it was a similar experience to CROCS. So now
I knew when I joined CROCS it did not have
an awareness problem, had a relevance opportunity. Stanley had an
awareness opportunity. It's a you know, one hundred year old brand,
just known for quality, known for this green bottle that
people love. It's been in you know, it's probably somewhere

(01:22:36):
in you know, Connecticut or you know where you grew
up in somebody's attic, somebody's garage, and most people didn't
even know it. It was like, oh, yeah, that that''s
that green bottle that my dad used to have. Well,
my mom she took it to school every day where
her soup. She was a teacher back in the sixties
or so. All right, wait a minute, this is a
there's a heritage here. How cool is that to get

(01:22:58):
the keys to that kind of thing. So if we
can make it relevant and increase the awareness, we might
be able to do something. And this might be a
really interesting president's job, which I shouldn't have no business having.

Speaker 2 (01:23:13):
How did they find you?

Speaker 3 (01:23:16):
I think as yeah, it was a search firm, you know,
because I started to get a little attention for the
Crux success. You know, undeserved attention. But you know, it's
like a quarterback. You get the attention, you get the blame.
And so people started to see what was happening at CROCS,
and my name was, you know, somewhat attached to it.
And so I was getting lots of calls for other
CMO jobs and all things like that, President mat you know,

(01:23:41):
so I thought I was going to be Governor Corleone,
President Corloni. Yeah, so let's go for it, and that
it turned out. I decided to do it in February
of twenty twenty.

Speaker 5 (01:23:54):
Uh oh, okay, just to stay on this, ay, where
is Stanley located?

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
B how much revenue in a year?

Speaker 3 (01:24:13):
So Stanley's based in Seattle, Washington. And when I joined,
Stanley was a seventy million dollar brand known for the
Hammertone Green bottle. That's an American classic. You know, if
you watch the Festivut episode of Seinfeld, Kramer's got it
in his pocket. If you've watched Off the Space when

(01:24:33):
they keep moving Milton and his Stapler, he's got his Stanley.
The Hammertone Green is bedrock and helped build America.

Speaker 2 (01:24:42):
Okay, a couple other questions, FIRA, way, what other products
does Stanley have.

Speaker 3 (01:24:47):
Yeah, lunchboxes, different drinkwear, specializing in drinkwear and lunchboxes, and
then outdoor camping gear. You know how many you know,
meals were made around the fire in the outdoor with
Stanley over the last you know, seventy five hundred years.
Is part again of American heritage and tradition. So so

(01:25:08):
I know that that exists and quality. It's known for
just quality and a real rabid core fan base is
almost the wrong word, you know, just and advocates and
just lovers of the brand. And it almost like a
family heirloom and an inheritance. My dad was a Stanley man,

(01:25:31):
my mom was a Stanley woman. That kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:25:34):
Okay, so you get the job. You're living in Colorado.
The companies in Seattle, it's February of twenty twenty. Yeah,
do they say you have to move? What happens on
that level? And obviously it's the beginning of COVID.

Speaker 3 (01:25:47):
Yeah, so was planning on moving to Seattle, had a
place downtown ready to roll. And then March or twenty
twenty hits and this is I accepted in right before
COVID and then COVID hits and I join first week
in April. And my first reaction is what did I

(01:26:09):
just do to my life? This high flying? I'm not
high flying at all, Bob, I'm a CMO that's had
some success at CROCS. What did I just do to
my life? There is no office to go to, Seattle
is closed. You got to remember, like in twenty twenty,
none of us were on teams or we're just zoom

(01:26:31):
like it was occasionally, And so what did I just
do to my career? To my life? But you know,
I made a decision. We're in it and back to listening.
So one of the things that you do when you're
a new leader I hope people do, is you listen
to your team what should we stop? Start and continue?

(01:26:55):
And on a Friday afternoon, I check in with Lauren Solomon,
who is one of Stanley's brilliant saleswomen, and I asked
that question, wh should we stop, start and continue? And
I've listened to lots of people, and Lauren says, there
are these three women in Utah that she has become

(01:27:17):
aware of that have been actually buying this forty ounce
adventure tumbler of ours and selling it on their own
and they're seeing some success. So my CROCS instincts immediately crackle. Okay,
wait what is this? Who are these? And she tells

(01:27:38):
me about these three women who call themselves the buy
Guide out in Utah and that they had taken a
liking to this quencher, and so the team immediately starts to.

Speaker 2 (01:27:50):
Do it, just because we're going back there, firewing. How
many were they buy.

Speaker 3 (01:27:54):
Hundreds on their own dime and they were taking the risk,
and so they were seeing success. And so they had
their own following of a few, you know, million or
so followers on the by Guide, and we're telling their
followers how much they loved this product. And so, again
back to what I had just done at CROCS, I

(01:28:14):
recognize this pattern thanks to Lauren pointing it out and
the risks that the buy Guide were taking on their
own before I showed up. But this is this is
gold dust to me. And so we make an arrangement
with the buy Guide to have them further evangelize this product,
and then with them we started to create new colors.

Speaker 2 (01:28:37):
What does that look like? Further evangelize the product?

Speaker 3 (01:28:40):
Oh, to get really behind and get paid for it
instead of taking the risk getting compensated for the bet
that they had already made on this little product on
their own and help us start something. And that's how
it works. That's social media in a nutshell. And so
we started to sell a few thousand and then lots

(01:29:04):
of thousands, all on Stanley nineteen thirteen dot com. And
so certainly the margins are great. They're getting they're getting
a taste, as we would say back in New Jersey,
and we got ourselves a little hit. And then we
started to introduce a new another new color or two.

(01:29:26):
And then with this, armed with this data, we could
go to some of our key accounts that were just
carrying the traditional Stanley's. So we're seeing this unlocked with
young women. You should give us two feet of shelf space,
and they did, and that two feet became six feet,
became eight feet, which became an entire corner of Dick

(01:29:49):
sporting goods and the cultural phenomenon that became the Stanley Quencher.
I was born exactly like I described it, more or less,
and new colors, new surprises, new collaborations, and what the
crux experience that I had. I know how to do
some of this stuff. I know how this should work.

(01:30:09):
And we got after collaborations that also changed the entire
you know, complexion of the brand.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
Okay, a little bit more granular. You're having this reaction
from the Women in Utah. You're selling on the website.
You go to Dick's give us a chance than.

Speaker 3 (01:30:29):
What we gave, point to lots of places to say,
give us a bigger chance. But we had the math,
you know, thanks to our team, thanks to Matt and
Helen and others. They were carefully managing these relationships to
start to grow it out. But we had the data
and so that was another part of the magic. It

(01:30:51):
was all happening on heydude dot com and now we
can share it. So it was a safer bet for
these big retailers to start to take a chance on us,
and for some of these brands, and for Stanley, for everybody.
It's been one of the biggest success stories of this century.

Speaker 2 (01:31:08):
Uh oh, okay, you got the Women in Utah. Now
you're selling on the website. You have these accounts Dix
and other plane what is driving adoption? What is driving sales?

Speaker 3 (01:31:22):
Well, shelf space for one, and then the use of
social media. The buy Guide in particular, starts to get
us started in the influencer and affiliate game where we
could work with other beyond the buy Guide, affiliates and
influencers to start to evangelize this product. And it also
starts the fact that it's an incredible product. I mean

(01:31:44):
it starts there. It serves so many purposes, but then
it just becomes a cultural phenomenon through our use of
social media to evangelize it. There was no TV, there
was no radio, There was hardly any traditional marketing behind
the Stanley product. It was all through influencers and affiliates

(01:32:07):
and women. And like I said earlier, women create community.
They decide what is cool, and they chose authentically the
Stanley Quencher, and off it went. And then we would
certainly fan the flames with new colors, new accessories, new partnerships.

(01:32:32):
I was on TikTok back to not turning the television
on anymore. I was scrolling through TikTok one afternoon and
video crossed my for you page of a young artist
singing to a pretty sizable audience, and the video was
taken from behind her, behind the stage. And let's just

(01:32:54):
say the video made its rounds because of this artist's
rather ample backside, And so I then saw a video
of this artist commenting on that video and she referred
to her backside as her dump truck. I was like,
who is this woman? Like, she's so first of all,

(01:33:16):
she's beautiful, second of all, she's just cool and is
own this and take ownership of this kind of misogynistic
leering video that was on TikTok And wow, who is
this woman? So I saw her name and my next
move is I go to Spotify and I find her.

(01:33:37):
On Spotify, I find her latest release. I go down
the track listing and I see one of the tracks
is called Watermelon Moonshine. And with my eyeball, bob, Watermelon
Moonshine is a Stanley Quencher color. So I write Ellen

(01:34:01):
on our team, on our product team, I said, hey,
can you please create a watermelon moonshine color Quencher. You
can't be wrong, And within two days she fires me
back a cad of a watermelon Moonshine Quencher. And I
reach out to this artist's label on LinkedIn. I connect
with Donna McQueen and I said, hey, would you be

(01:34:25):
interested in a Stanley Laney Wilson collaboration because what do
you have in mind, and I said, how about watermelon moonshine,
and off we went, sold out twice in less than
two minutes, and the unboxing videos of Laney Wilson watermelon

(01:34:45):
Moonshine quenchers were everywhere in twenty twenty two. So it's
these kind of things that just continued to ignite it.
And then lots of other artists and brand collaborations from
love Shack Fancy to Wicked, to Olivia Rodrigo to too
many to count, all similar to Crocs wanted their own

(01:35:06):
Stanley quencher. And then we were parodied on Saturday Night Live,
and then there are riots and target over the latest release,
and then it's all over the world. And then of
course there's the fire response video that I made that

(01:35:28):
people write about still every single day, which was back
to TikTok, my adoption of TikTok personally and moving fast.

Speaker 2 (01:35:39):
Tell that story because not everybody's familiar with it.

Speaker 3 (01:35:43):
So one Wednesday afternoon, I forwarded by somebody on our
team a TikTok video of a woman who's car caught
on fire, and she shows the camera her car's caught
on fire, and in the couple is her Stanley and
she pulls it out of the cup holder and shakes

(01:36:04):
it and it still has ice in it after a
car fire. So somebody sent that video to me on
a Wednesday, and Wednesday night I wrote the team and
said I'm going to buy her a car. I we
and the next morning, Thursday morning, I roll into the

(01:36:24):
office in Seattle, and I asked Chloe, one of our
young marketing associates, to get the phone that has our
TikTok account on it. You know, we have a Stanley
phone at the time. It's not my phone. Said bring
it into the boardroom with me and merchandise some products
behind me. And I said, hold the phone up like
it's a selfie. And I said what I said live,

(01:36:48):
no scripts, no briefings, no nonsense. It was just what
I think anybody would have done if they happened to
be the president of the brand. That this woman has
featured our product in the most heroic way a car
fire and there's still ice in the Stanley. And I respond,
I don't remember exactly what I said anymore, but Danielle,

(01:37:10):
I hope you're safe. Thanks for showing the product in
such a wonderful manner. People keep writing that we should
buy you some new Stanley's. Well, we're certainly going to
buy you some new Stanleys, but we also want to
replace your vehicle. And I had to Chloe press send.

(01:37:31):
She said, are you sure? Said yes, and she pressed send,
and then it was like a movie. I went back
around my day. But then people started texting me Tea,
you know, you're blowing up on TikTok. No, my daughter, Dad,
you know, like you're blowing up on TikTok and Bob.
One hundred million views later, people know that video. They've

(01:37:51):
seen it too many times to count in too many languages,
languages I don't even recognize. Well stopped in airports from people,
and it solidified the quality of the product. That's what
it was about, and taking care of a consumer who
we care about. And she was a fan of ours,
and I like to think anybody would have done that.

(01:38:13):
I just did it the next day, and I just
did it. I didn't script it. I just said it.
And maybe that's why I connected, which is what I
said earlier. It's authentic, genuine and fast and off it went,
and it helped change the complexion of a brand that
was already winning.

Speaker 2 (01:38:29):
Okay, how did you get her the money, how did
she buy the car and what car did she get?

Speaker 3 (01:38:36):
So we got in touch with her obviously through TikTok,
because she'd seen the response, of course and was blown
away by the response. And we just got in touch
with her and we asked her what car she wanted
and she told us, I can't remember what. We got
her a Mazda, a Mazda something, and we contacted the
local dealer where she lived in the Washington, d C.

(01:39:00):
Maryland area, and we told the dealership we want to
buy it. Let's take care of it all and put
the big red ribbon on it and bring it to her.
And we did that within four to six weeks of
that first video and delivered on our promise, my promise,
and really, you know, solidify the quality of the brand

(01:39:22):
where that video is still shown every single day. I
had a funny story. One of my best friend Sons
is a sophomore at Elon in North Carolina, and he
texted me a photo of me on his classroom screen
that were talking about marketing, you know moments, and like,
you know, Terrence, they're talking about you in my class

(01:39:44):
So that's cool. So it's just it's continually talked about
is like a smart marketing move, and it was just
a real thing. It wasn't of course, it was marketing.
I'm not stupid. People aren't stupid. But it was just
a real reaction to something. And you see opportunity for
your brand when it's reinforcing your quality and taking care

(01:40:04):
of a customer.

Speaker 2 (01:40:06):
Okay, so the change in sales dollar wise for the
Stanley Cup.

Speaker 3 (01:40:14):
Yeah, So, as I said earlier, when I joined in
twenty twenty, Stanley was a seventy million dollar business and
as you know, we reported at the end of twenty
twenty four we were seven hundred and fifty million, so
you know, ten x in four years, and I'm sure
those numbers continued in twenty twenty five, so seventy to

(01:40:36):
seven hundred and fifty million in four years. But beyond
the dollars, it's the you know what, people don't even
know how many times throughout my tenure there and even
to this day, people just refer to it as a Stanley,
like do you know, like the how amazing that is
that people refer to it as like Q tip or

(01:40:58):
Kleenex or z it's the Stanley Like that is the
that's the case study and all the things that we
did as a team to do that. Why know me,
It wasn't me, It was all of us at Stanley.
I made some big decisions, hired some great people that
ran with things and made it better. But the fact

(01:41:19):
that it's just known around the world and it's known
in silhouette as a Stanley that is an incredible thing
to have been a part of. And what I shake
my head in disbelief no matter where I go, Bob.
Like I was at a college campus giving a little
presentation a couple of months ago, and walking around the

(01:41:41):
campus before my presentation, I saw nine Stanley's, six pair
of crocs and four hey dudes, And I started my
presentation saying, what's nine plus six plus four? And all
these eager college students raised their hand to yell out
nineteen like really really, like now that's my career history

(01:42:05):
on your campus right this morning I saw nine Crocs,
six stand or whatever, and and do you want to
know how it happened? And that kind of story.

Speaker 2 (01:42:14):
So, so how about the other Stanley products?

Speaker 3 (01:42:18):
Yeah, well, the rising tide lifts all boats, right, so
you know, Stanley became some of the fun stuff was
seeing dads who have their green Stanley convincing their daughters
on TikTok that these daughters like, Dad, I need to Stanley.
This is new, this new company is new, and it's like, sweetie,
like I've had this Stanley for forty years, or this

(01:42:40):
was your grandfather's Wait no it wasn't, dad like those
kind of fun things to enhance the brand, and then
new product introductions back to build the core and add more.
In this case, we did it a little bit differently.
We started from the outer and worked in to increase
all the different categories that Stanley had and it's incredible

(01:43:00):
success story beyond just the Quencher, but the Quencher is
a global phenomenon that is a real incredible thing that
the team did.

Speaker 2 (01:43:10):
Okay, you're no longer there, although you're there for a while.
How do you prevent it from being a fad?

Speaker 3 (01:43:19):
By introducing newness, by continuing to surprise and delight with
new collaborations with new colors, materials, finishes, accessories, all of
those ways, and then great merchandising too, you know, and
with you know, great partners who are giving you shelf space.

(01:43:40):
For two to really give authenticity and you know, so
many brands, so many consumers look for their retailers to
give them the to be the editor right of this
is what's cool, this is what they should have. And
when you've got that incredible shelf space, you want to

(01:44:01):
continue to innovate around it and build scarcity. That was
the other thing that we did really really well at
Stanley and Crocs. What I learned at Crocs. You know,
the reason why the post malone sold out in a
second is because there weren't a lot of them. And
people want what they cannot have. And so the more

(01:44:21):
you do that, you don't want to frustrate that could
happen to but you want to people want what they
cannot have, and so when you balance that really well,
it extends things. But also it has to be a
great product. Crocs are a great product. Stanley is a
great product. Hey dude, it's a great product. So fads

(01:44:45):
come and go. Great products stand the test of time.

Speaker 2 (01:44:56):
Okay, So you have this great success with a quench
and you are aware of scarcity works for you, how
do you decide how many to make and where to
put them?

Speaker 3 (01:45:10):
A little bit of feel, a little bit of Instagram followers,
a little bit of sign ups for to be notified
of the next launch of things. So all of that
goes into the calculus of how many you want to create.
And again, if we're working with artists, we do a
little bit of Instagram follower math, but we we want

(01:45:34):
to typically you know, sell out, you know, that's what
keeps the fire going. We want to put a cap
on it, and we always did, certainly while I was there.

Speaker 2 (01:45:46):
What's the best way to introduce splash make people aware
that there's one of these new limited products social media.

Speaker 3 (01:45:55):
Certainly, if it's an artist, they're going to tell their fans,
you know, Landy Wilson, Hey, y'all, well, my new watermelon
moonshine is dropping and her fans devour that, as do
the artists and brand choices that the brands choose to
work with. So it's certainly social Obviously, email notification and

(01:46:17):
you know, sending an announcement or an invitation to our
guest lists of who is following the brand. And then
obviously in store, some of our target launches caused complete
and total chaos and target stores where certainly towards the
end of my tenure, maybe still today, I don't know,

(01:46:39):
you know, there was a two limit, you know, two
quencher limit that you could purchase, so that caused an
additional frenzy and in some cases some really terrible behavior
from customers. And with the iPhone, you know, those things
get on video and those are all over the news,
and that doesn't really hurt a brand. It shows the frenzy,

(01:47:01):
but it's not something that you're after. You don't want
anybody get hurt and you're not looking for that. It's
just the Sometimes it brings out the worst in people.

Speaker 2 (01:47:08):
So you have all the success at Crocs in Stanley,
to what degree did these companies do corporate publicity?

Speaker 3 (01:47:18):
Very little, very little? You know, Crocs then and now
is a very humble brand, despite an incredible track record
from you know, decades long track record of success and
global success. Hey dude, we I'm sorry Stanley.

Speaker 2 (01:47:35):
We did one.

Speaker 3 (01:47:38):
CNBC piece where they came out to interview me and
some colleagues in Seattle, and but not too much you
know press, you know, a couple of articles from the
President to talk about the brand, but it was by
and large consumer consumer press, entertainment press, culture press that

(01:47:59):
helped continue to fan the flames.

Speaker 2 (01:48:00):
Okay, did you have a PR person or was it
all organic?

Speaker 3 (01:48:03):
All the above, all the above, terrific PR person who
managed those things, and then some of the PR was
just organic, you know. And the car fire spawned lots
of articles, and the frenzy caused lots of articles, and
not all of them were good. There was one article
I remember reading that, you know, some of the frenzy

(01:48:26):
that was occurring was you know, it's not the best
of human behavior, and people were blaming me for it
by name like, well, you're all fast something like I'm
paraphrasing it. But while we're all quick to blame all
the women who are beating each other up and pulling
hair at Target, shouldn't we really be blaming Terrence Riley?

(01:48:48):
Like you know, these kind of things start to, you know,
creep into your life.

Speaker 2 (01:48:54):
Okay, just to stay there. Yeah, did you respond?

Speaker 3 (01:48:57):
Never? No? No, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:49:00):
I mean I know that from my own life. You
never respond. That's their goal. But did you know that
because your knowledge of social media that you don't respond.

Speaker 3 (01:49:09):
No, just instinct or you know, you know, what's have
you ever seen a movie Chef with Jon Favreau and uh,
what's his name? The reporter at theater goes, I buy
ink by the barrel, buddy, Like, you're not gonna you know,
you're not gonna win that. In fact, the car fire video,

(01:49:31):
you know that the PR folks and the PR agencies
and all the PR pundits were saying, like, you got
to make a big deal out of giving her the car.
And you know, we were invited on the Today Show
or Good Morning America one of those things, and listen like,
I'm of the same ego as any of us, Like, hey,

(01:49:51):
to go on the Today Show as a marketer or
Good Morning or whatever. It was, yeah, like that's of course,
that's it's not that you're suppose to do that, but it
kind of would have ruined it. Like my response was
just real, it was just me. I happened to be
the president. But it wasn't some focus group, let's talk

(01:50:12):
to a bunch of people and get a lot of
points of view. It was just me. The next morning,
most people didn't even know I did it. And so
then hey, let's give her the car on the Today
Show and do that whole thing. And I wanted to,
but it was my mother. I told her, I said, hey,
we're going on Today Show and my mom said, don't
do that. I said, why your son? You know, I

(01:50:35):
want to make you proud. Mom, your son's on the
Today Show. She goes, don't do it, and she was right.

Speaker 2 (01:50:42):
Well, she said don't do it. Why did she say
not to do it?

Speaker 3 (01:50:45):
Because she knew it would it would ruin it because
it was real and it was real, and so if
we started to put a shine on it and started
to catch our own bouquets, it just wouldn't It wouldn't
have been right, you know. And so she grew up
in the Bronx. She's as real as it gets. She
was right. So always listen to your mother.

Speaker 2 (01:51:07):
Okay, you had this incredible success. Were you compensated accordingly? Sure?

Speaker 5 (01:51:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:51:16):
Yeah? Did all right? Okay, so then maybe you say,
instead of getting a new job, I'm not gonna work again.

Speaker 3 (01:51:27):
My parents are from the Bronx. My father fixed typewriters
in a suit in the sixties seventies. That's not what
you do. So it's not about the money. I made
more money than I'd ever thought i'd make in my life.
Like I did, I did well, you know, I think

(01:51:48):
my guidance counselor in high school told my parents I'd
been underachiever. It's not about that. It's never been about that.
I can't believe I'm in the spot, Bob. I can't
believe I'm talking to you. I'm actually wondering what the
hell makes me interesting that you'd have me on your
podcast when I see your guest list. But I've somehow,
with your great teams, connected with culture more than once.

(01:52:11):
You know, you walk down the street, you're going to
see people wearing crocs, carrying Stanley's and wearing hay Dudes.
And I had a little something to do with all
of that, and so that's a pretty cool thing. So now, hey, dude,
is this eight hundred million dollar company that most people
don't know about, Like, we could make hay Do the

(01:52:33):
leading casual footwear brand in the world. Why not us?
That's worth a shot, and I'm taking it. And I
could have stayed selling a lot of Quenchers. Okay, you
just expressed a level of confidence in yourself, and you
talked about not having confidence in the high school. What
triggered the confidence? No, I don't think I have any confidence.

(01:52:56):
I'm just confident that with a great team we could
turn hate dude into one of the leading casual footwear
brands in the world because it's open space. Who is
the leading casual footwear brand in the world. If I
ask ten people, I get ten different answers, all great companies,
and so why not, hay dude, because we're a great
little product. And so that's the thrill of it. It's

(01:53:19):
back to what's around the corner, that insatiable curiosity and
the unmistakable sense of what's possible. This might be possible,
and so I should try it.

Speaker 2 (01:53:31):
Okay, but let's let's go back. How did you decide
to leave Stanley in addition not having the president's titlely
your new role?

Speaker 3 (01:53:43):
Well, I am the president of Hey dude, Oh you are?
I am? Yes, so ali of miss No, that's okay.
So CROCS has a brilliant CEO for many many years.
He was the one that gave me the CMO job
at CrOx and he's still there. Anderye is an absolute
brilliant man, highest of integrity. And Crocs. The president of

(01:54:06):
CrOx is Ann Melman, who's equally talented. She used to
be the CFO of CrOx and now hey dude, I'm
the new president of Hey dude. So two presidents of
two brands reporting into the CEO of Crocs, and it
was just an exciting opportunity to again get the keys
to an eight hundred plus million dollar footwear brand. Who
gets that in life it shouldn't be me in my head,

(01:54:28):
but somebody believes in me and is believed in me before.
So driver like you Stole It, Bob. One of my
favorite movies of the recent era is sing Street and
driver It like You Stole It is one of the
songs in singh Street. So somebody threw me the keys
like they have before, and I'm going to drive it
like I stole it and encourage our teams to do

(01:54:48):
the same thing because it's possible. And I've just happened
to be to live that more than once.

Speaker 2 (01:54:56):
Okay, you're at Stanley, you're having this great success. How
does this opportunity come on your radar? And how hard
of his decision is it to leave?

Speaker 3 (01:55:08):
Well, the CEO of Crocs were hired me once before
as the CMO. So I got a call say, hey,
would you be interested in coming back? And I was
you know you're a skier, right Bob?

Speaker 2 (01:55:22):
And oh yeah, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:55:24):
What happens when you get to the top of the mountain.
He turned back down and I got to the top
of the mountain at Stanley, my mountain at least, and
I believe there's certainly maybe a couple of a couple
more feet first Stanley to climb, but then more at
Stanley than anybody dreamed possible, certainly more than I dream possible,

(01:55:45):
although I dream big. This is a whole other level
of So give the keys to Matt Navarro, the guy
who I had the good fortune to hire, helped me
build Stanley, and now he's the new president of Stanley.
It doesn't get better than that. When I was a
CMO of CROCS, I hired Heidi Cooley, and when I

(01:56:09):
left CROCS, she took over a CMO and what she's
done with Crocs's more than I ever did with Crocs.
So like this, these are gifts that I've been given,
and I think I've passed it on a little bit.
And both of these brands will flourish thanks to other
great leaders that I happen to bring on board. And boy,
that's a pretty cool little coaching tree to borrow football parlance.

Speaker 2 (01:56:32):
Okay, so you have this great success and it's a
public success. Did other offers come down the pike?

Speaker 3 (01:56:40):
Yes, yeah, okay, Yeah, a lot of people called, but
it just wasn't right. There's it wasn't right. You know.
I think what you want to bring, like you want
to win the Super Bowl with the Browns, you know,
you want to win the Super Bowl with the Lions

(01:57:01):
or the Bills or the Vikings. Right. A lot of
the brands that were calling just they were already successful.
They were already They didn't need that, and I wouldn't
get no satisfaction out of that. Hey, dude's also really successful,
but there's more to go get and there's a lot
of people that don't know about it. And now that's
my job with a great team to fix it. That's stuff.

(01:57:24):
And if we can do that and we already are,
that's like bringing the Browns or the Lions or you know,
to the super Bowl, and that's what you want, right, Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:57:35):
When Jeffrey Katzenberg was number two at Disney, the expression was,
if you don't come in on Saturday, don't even think
about coming in on Sunday. So are you the type
of person who's essentially working around the clock, And is
that what it's required.

Speaker 3 (01:57:53):
I don't have an off button, but I do not
expect that from anyone. I rarely emails on the weekends. Rarely,
I mean once every two or three months, that kind
of rare. I'm always on and I'm always looking for
the connections that can ignite a brand. And see Landy Wilson,

(01:58:16):
see Luke Combe, see all of the car fires, see
all that. So my antenna is always up. But that's
just a personal wiring. I'm highly competitive. I want to
win at part cheesy if that still exists, and I
also want to win on the peloton. I want to win.
So I don't know where that competitive fire started to happen.

(01:58:40):
And I'm not always going to win. And I don't
win everything, not even close, you know. But I try
and be the best that I can be as often
as possible, and it's somehow kind of worked.

Speaker 2 (01:58:56):
Okay, so what is your favorite Springsteen album?

Speaker 3 (01:59:00):
Oh? You went albums? Uh favorite Springsteen album is The River?

Speaker 2 (01:59:06):
Okay, Well you said albums, so then you were well
you thought I was gonna ask tracks.

Speaker 3 (01:59:10):
Oh I didn't know what you're gonna ask me. I
just wanted to. I'm from New Jersey, so it's the law.
So my favorite Bruce song would have to be Frankie,
but nobody knows that one. And so the one I
listened to the most to get fired up is Growing
Up Live off of seventy five eighty five, the live version,

(01:59:31):
because it's.

Speaker 2 (01:59:32):
Yeah, yeah, I know, certainly know the song. My favorite,
my what I used to get fired up was Candy's
Room of course off Darkness. So did you see the
River tour a few years ago when he redid it?

Speaker 3 (01:59:43):
I did? I did. I've seen him on every tour since.
Born in the USA. That's when you know again, as
an eighteen year old in New Jersey in nineteen eighty
four eighty five, you know, you talk about a local hero.
And I've been chasing that ever since. I've seen Bruce
more than seven times and five different countries, and I'm
one of those guys.

Speaker 2 (02:00:05):
But it's.

Speaker 3 (02:00:07):
It's chasing something that hit me. It got into my veins.
August nineteenth, nineteen eighty five, was the first concert I
ever went to of anybody, and it was Bruce at
Giant Stadium. And what I've been chasing Bob is, they say,
certainly the music and his performance and the band in
the street band, But the moment when the house lights

(02:00:30):
go down is my favorite moment in life. And time
stands still for those twenty thirty seconds when the lights
go You've been waiting for it, right and the lights
go down, and there's the roar of the crowd, and
then the band comes out one by one and it's happening,

(02:00:54):
but it hasn't happened yet, and time stands still in
this space. And then he comes out out last, and
he comes to the mic and he counts off, and
the minute he starts counting off, it's over because it
it's now, it's it's ending, it's and that time stands

(02:01:16):
still in those precious twenty to thirty seconds whatever it
is between the house lights and him coming up to
the mic and usually counting off as we know he does.
And that is why I've seen him seventy five times.
Time stands still. And if you can make time stand still,
that's a pretty cool magic act.

Speaker 2 (02:01:36):
So have you sent Bruce A Stanley the Dudes or pro?

Speaker 3 (02:01:42):
I have not. I have not. I came close once
to sending little Stephen a Purple Stanley because he just
has that, you know, aesthetic in his personal life but
I just know.

Speaker 2 (02:01:55):
Well, I mean, it's one thing to send it and
literally not ask for anything.

Speaker 3 (02:02:01):
Yeah, I just I don't know, I have not I've
thought about it more than once. But it's uh, you know,
sometimes you just want to keep your heroes and all
that at Bay. It's kind of still Listen. I'm fifty
eight years old. I first saw Bruce and you know
when I was eighteen, I kind of want to keep
all that at Bay because it's still that fantasy world

(02:02:25):
and it uh yeah, it's so it's chasing and it
never would have happened.

Speaker 2 (02:02:30):
Well, generally speaking, you don't want to meet your heroes. Yeah,
very few, very few of them. Some of them do
live up to the rep but the something that you
believe in most absolutely do not, and it's really disillusion
can't listen to their music for a while. In any event, Terrence,
I want to thank you so much for telling us
your story telling and informing my audience and what's going

(02:02:53):
on in career wise with these products. Thanks again, Thank
you Tears. Next step this is Bob Left stock

Speaker 3 (02:03:24):
Sh