How Crowdsourcing Put a Mad Gringo Shirt on My Back – and for a Great Price.

What if you’re a tropical clothing etailer trying to sell stuff from your HQ in wintry…Nebraska? (“I wish it was sunny here today in Omahahu, cold with a high of 13,” Mike Markowski wrote me; then…“Yes! Please blog about the contest.”)

So here’s a post about lust. And also combining Facebook and website and email. And crowdsourcing. It’s the Mad Gringo Facebook “Like” contest.

Greg Chambers, the Mad Gringo himself, boosted the use of social media to promote his lines of “Go Slow” clothing. Because I have bought a shirt or two from him, I’ve kept up – as you can see from Signalwriter posts like this one. He announced back at the beginning of January that he was going to offer a limited-time low price on the Mad Gringo shirt that topped the “Like” chart. I of course went right to the loudest shirt I could find on the site, the El Chapin, and clicked that Facebook button.

Participatory marketing is fun. On a discrete scale it’s better (for me, at least) than a giant retail push. So I sat back to await results. But whoa! Midway through the contest period, Mad Gringo’s report on the voting indicated that my fave shirt was running a poor second.

(Here’s where the lust comes in, I wanted that shirt. For 11 bucks.) What to do, what to do? El Chapin needed more votes.

I crowdsourced the problem. You have read about crowdsourcing on Signalwriter. I don’t have thousands upon thousands of people to call on but I do have some friends on Facebook myself. So I sent ‘em a note. Asked ‘em to do just what I did: Go to the specific Mad Gringo web page and click the “Like” button.

They did (thank you!) and a week later, Mad Gringo announced the results via Facebook and email:

…The people have spoken. (Well, they clicked on the Like button a bunch of times on our website.) El Chapin takes the prize and will be on sale today for the low, low, low price of $11 from 10am CST to 4pm CST.

Mad Miguel (the above-mentioned Markowski) filled in some blanks thisaway:

For the contest we had two styles in the running…El Chapin and Jade Scorpion. El Chapin won with 36 likes and Jade Scorpion came in second with 24. We had a total of 39 orders. Which is funny to us because El Chapin is one of the older styles and Jade Scorpion is one of the newer styles. But the public spoke and we put the winner up for sale.

Not everything worked out right for Signalwriter as Markowski relates:

I am sorry that we had to switch out the Kokoberger shirt for you. We didn't expect an older shirt that we didn't have much left in stock. Well I hope that is enough info for you.  We will be running more contests in the future: naming tees, tattoo prints tee, polos and fleece contest as well. All good stuff.

No fear, Mad Miguel and Mad Gringo. Here’s me enjoying a tiki-themed alco-beverage in my new 2X Kokoberger from Omahahu. Lust temporarily assuaged.

I’ll reward my crowdsourcers (see Warning No. 1) with a tiki drink of their choice too, redeemable at our next bar outing. And here’s to the guys and gals on Nebraska’s big island. Oddly, they all want to retire to someplace warmer.

You could support that plan by purchasing a great shirt or even two. Think of it as your own crowdsourcing experiment. Tell them Signalwriter – or if you prefer, Mad Tex – sent you.

Sunday Best

Forty-year-old Southeast Asia joke: You know you’ve been stationed in the Philippines too long when you save your best flip-flops to wear on Sunday.

In today’s advertising supplements (the “season’s hottest”):

Reef Krystal
BCBGirls French
Volatile Mimi
Reef Butter
Reef Jet Setter

Kenneth Cole Golden Glam
Volatile Ariel
Tredz Chelsea
Nike Celso
Cobian Zuma

Gotchas
Tredz Snake Print
Sperry Santa Cruz
Tredz Siesta II
Tredz Baja

North Face Base Camp
Teva Bowen Coastal
Camden Nubucks
Teva Mush
UGG Fluffies

Reef Little Ahi
Chaco Flip
North Face Slippy
Sanuk Who’s Afraid
Reef Sweet Pea

Reef Philthy Grom
Havaianas Camuflada
Mossimo Gemma
Chaco Hipthong ($75)
PechePlatinum Crocodile ($400)

We were such trend-setters, back when we’d drop a five-centavo coin (.05₱) on the floor of the jitney and then get down on our hands and knees searching for it. See also jandals.

Slate Failure

Richard, don’t buy Slate cologne again.

You paid way too much for 3.4 ounces of “Eau de Toilette for Men.” (If you really want more, you can buy it online for, like, 40% less. Doh!)

You know Banana Republic, the retailer, made the sales experience very nice. The guy in the Rice Village store was engaged and professional. You’re the one who decided to buy it. One, ‘cause you needed more foofy water and were trying to find some. Two, ‘cause you were in a rush and Banana Republic was right there.

To be sure: It’s 100 milliliters of charming “fragrance notes,” citrus, silver sage and ginger root. But any claim of scent life that touts anything length of time over an hour is a foul canard – no pun intended. (That one website, saying scent life is 6-10 hours, well that stinks.) Slate smelled really good on you right out of the spritzer but it faded, it faded fast. After 50 or 60 minutes the stuff is unsniffable.

Packaging? Well, you fell for that. The 3.4-ounce bottle is heavy glass with a heavy silver-coated stopped that you’ve already dropped in the sink twice because of its unaccustomed weight. The box? “Natural wood box packaging,” according to Banana Republic, deeply black and also really heavy, with magnetic closures. Magnets. Case, bottle, cologne – the total weight of the thing is one pound.

A reviewer on one fragrance website mentioned the packaging specifically, thought it was great for collectors. In fact, like so many product classes today, you could have read the online reviews first: Fragrances, for men and women, is so fraught with science and art, it’s a special realm all its own. You’d benefit from guidebooking, dog.

To be fair, Richard, Banana Republic is guilty of nothing more than good merchandizing. You’d have been smarter to have purchased a Slate “mini” and tried it out first. Caveat emptor is the Latin you’re looking for. Sucka.

PS: The Banana Republic brand owner, Gap Inc., turns 40 this year. It’s just been ranked #1 Retailer among the 100 Best Corporate Citizens for the fourth year in a row. PPS: Do NOT buy this for yourself for your upcoming b’day!