Long Tail products don’t need to go viral
The long tail is all about capturing and owning a niche, not selling a product to every household in America. Introducing the We are Numbers Project (thank you to Jonathan Stern for introducing me). This project is a perfect example of the vision Chris Anderson laid out in The Long Tail: “…the future of business is selling less of more”.
That’s precisely what this project does. These shirts are each hand-designed by the mysterious Dutch designer Twan Verdonck. Each shirt has a different number starting with Verdonck who is also Number One and counting up from there. Here’s Verdonck designing his Number One shirt:
How is it more of less?
The shirts cost about $38 USD, so they’re not cheap. But they are handmade and they are also your ticket into a global community. When you buy a shirt you send in a picture of you wearing your shirt, which is then uploaded to the website. Instant celebrity/camaradarie! There are only 37 pictures shown right now and the first 100 will be featured in the We Are Numbers Project Book. So you really are getting more for your money than just a t-shirt (and there’s still time to be featured in the book!).
There is also a principle behind the movement. This is Verdonck’s take on the fashion industry:
“I see fashion industry speeding up and seeing people buying t-shirts for one night, I’m asking myself where it ends. Should we create disposable “one night stand” fashion? With low quality, low costs and low ethics. Or are there more sustainable ways to create innovative fashion without the quick degradation of the product?”
Verdonck’s is a vision of sustainability in the face of ‘fast fashion’. He’s also not going for volume, I’m sure he will make as many shirts as there are demand for, but that’s not the business model at this point. He wants quality over quantity.
Tell us what we’re paying for
Communicating the ‘more’ that you are selling is an important aspect of the Long Tail model. People are willing to part with their money but they need to know why they should spend almost 40 bucks on a T-shirt. Verdonck breaks it down on his site, he lists exactly what those 25 Euros will go toward and it’s not just the shirt/labor/shipping. A small fee even goes to support other artists that get involved. Honestly, after reading the laundry list of what goes into the production of these shirts, they seem like a bargain.
So bravo We are Numbers, we can all learn a few things from your clever fashion project.
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