A New Generation Marketer

Guys, lets face it – you don’t like to shop. When it comes time to buying a new outfit for an interview, wedding, or night out on the town, you are forced to choose from the same old available shirts on the store rack.

What if [I] changed up this scenario for a minute? Imagine sitting on your couch and browsing through a website to customize the shirt you are looking for and having it delivered right to you.

Imagine no more; a company called Blank Label has solved this age-long shopping dilemma for men. Blank Label is an online clothing store just for men’s dress shirts, allowing men to customize a shirt to their liking.

Danny Wong, co-founder of Blank Label, took the time to explain this concept to us. “We are providers of co-created men’s dress shirts and have a dress shirt design application that empowers men to design their next favorite dress shirts online. We’re pushing the concept of co-creation – making consumers their own designers and bridging the gap between consumer and manufacturer.”

Blank Label’s goal is to “change the way men shop by empowering them to become their own designers,” Wong told [me]. He first became excited about co-creation when he realized that it would empower consumers to become their own designers. This allows customers to tell Blank Label what they want and how they want it; Blank Label is the platform for them to do this.

The response to their business model has been outstanding. While I am certainly not in their target market, it is evident that they have the perfect outlets to reach their key customers. Wong reported that during their six months of being in business, they have revenues in the six figures with no advertising spending whatsoever.

It seems that advertising wasn’t needed since they were getting so much press coverage. Blank Label has been featured in top publications including Fast Company, BusinessWeek, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, Forbes and more.

While many do rave, others are still scratching their heads about this idea. “Some find co-creation something hard to grasp at first because it’s so different from the conventional way of purchasing goods” he explained.

Blank Label is not alone in the push to drive consumer goods to co-creation. Companies including Chocri, a custom chocolate company, Gemvara, whom I wrote about a few weeks ago, MixMyGranola, a custom granola company, and GemKitty, a co-created jewelry provider, are making strides in this industry as well.

While many companies may be subservient and just want themselves to succeed, Wong’s desire is for more companies to understand co-creation to satisfy consumer needs. As I am a huge proponent of satisfying customer needs and providing an excellent customer experience, I was largely interested in this.

Wong hopes that Blank Label will emerge as a hub for everything co-created since they are supporting other co-creation companies as well. Wong told [me] that he likes to share with his customers and community what other co-creation entrepreneurs are doing in order to push the concept along. Many are realizing that customers are hungry for more personalized products that are made specifically for them.

“In fact, while other companies were calling themselves mass-customization businesses, we rejected that old-world term and re-created it as co-creation because for one, it was a snappier term, two, it wasn’t an oxymoron, and three, it was new and interesting to consumers.”

Wong considers themselves, as humbly as possible, market leaders in the co-creation movement. They were one of the first, and still one of the few, who understand customer needs when it comes to clothing. They truly get their consumers and now many consumers understand them.

Although I will never be buying from Blank Label, I would definitely suggest this to any guy looking for that perfect dress shirt. They will certainly be in good hands with a team that understands their needs and seeks to help them fulfill them.

To find out more about Blank Label, visit their website, check out their blog, become a fan on Facebook and follow them onTwitter. You will see on their social sites that they are making huge strides and connecting with many customers via social sharing.

[I'm] quite impressed with what Blank Label has accomplished during its first six months in business and look forward to seeing what the next six months will bring.

Does co-creation interest you? Would you buy from them or have you already?

Note: This post was originally written by me for BostInnovation last week.