Nata PR School (EN)

It’s my pleasure to welcome Eric Wazana, co-founder with his brother Jacob, of the YOGA JEANS brand.

North America’s leader in fair trade denim, with sustainable and social practices, YOGA JEANS are still made in Canada. YOGA JEANS is a company constantly improving its manufacturing practices to reduce its carbon footprint, continuously minimize waste, and work towards a circular economy.

I met Eric more than 20 years ago, before he created Yoga Jeans, when the brand was being marketed as SECOND CLOTHING. As NATA PR has been the brand’s PR agency for over 15 years, I witnessed the creation of YOGA JEANS. I have seen the tremendous evolution of this brand as it continues to provide women with what are, without a doubt, the most comfortable jeans in the world.

Thank you for accepting my invitation, Eric. Here is my first question.

1- Who is Eric Wazana?

2- Tell us about YOGA JEANS today.

3- How do marketing and PR fit in at YOGA JEANS, and what is your plan for the future?

4- "Back to the Future" I obviously know the history of Yoga Jeans, but please tell our listeners about the beginnings of the brand.

5- During the pandemic, you were the very first clothing manufacturer in Canada to step up and begin producing medical equipment for health professionals. Can you tell us about this incredible story?

6- For several years now, you have made transition to sell part of your production online. Can you share with us your best practices, what you've learned, and what you're putting in place now?

7-  I know you have environmental issues at heart and that you have put in place manufacturing solutions to produce more sustainable YOGA JEANS. Can you share with us what you have implemented and the next steps to keep improving your manufacturing processes?

8- To finish, what should we hope for you?

To find out more about YOGA JEANS

https://yogajeans.ca/

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After examining this law, which might seem off-putting at first, we can see that it means less is more.

Many PR and marketing professionals expect better results based on the quantity of products launched or how often news is released. They are undoubtedly unaware of the law of sacrifice, or the 80-20 rule, according to which 80% of revenue is generated with a single client or product.

As a result, you have to be selective in order to maximize profit. The Law of Exclusion, which involves making choices, is the polar opposite of product proliferation. It is more profitable to rely on one excellent product than several items that are mediocre or in which your clients have little interest. However, being selective is difficult because who can precisely predict the future?

Sometimes, I mention to my clients that they still haven’t found their “501”. Of course, I’m referring to Levi’s iconic jeans. The brand’s flagship product has been made in all styles for men and women. Think about how far they have come since they were created in 1873!

According to Wikipedia, Levi’s jeans were created in 1873 by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss. They differ from competitors’ products thanks to the rivets used at the points of strain. Starting in 1922, all Levi’s jeans, including 501s, would be exclusively manufactured using denim produced by Cone Mills in Greensboro.

Even the Levi’s and Guess Jeans of the world have been involved in product proliferation. However, this is generally a temporary trend, and brands quickly revert to their flagship products – 501s in Levi’s case – during difficult times.

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Since the pandemic started, there’s been no need to convince anyone of this law. Still, that doesn’t mean you should give up on setting goals and making plans.

So why plan anything when it’s so hard to predict the future now?

Three key reasons:

- A plan guides your actions

- A plan helps you make choices and decisions

- A plan tells you what to invest in, and how to allocate your money and resources

But the Law of the Unexpected is also very important and knowing this gives you the edge. This law tells us that:

- You never (or very seldom) know your competitors’ plans. What are they planning for one, six, 12, or 24 months from now?

- You’ve got to build on what makes you different – what sets your product or service apart – so that you can create a better plan for your future.

Developing your short- and long-term plans based on what makes you stand out will help you adapt to crises and unforeseen circumstances.

This is what Yoga Jeans co-founder Éric Wazana shared with me. Even though the pandemic took a bite out of their in-store jeans sales, consumers are still looking for comfortable jeans, especially if they’re also locally made.

Building on what makes you different, talking about it regularly through public relations and on social media, gives you the edge when the unexpected happens. It’s actually what could help you survive the next public health or economic crisis.

The Yoga Jeans brand is the perfect example of a company that can handle the unexpected, thanks to its long-range product guidance. Yoga Jeans – the most comfortable jeans in the world, especially when you’re working from home!

So even if you can’t predict the future, it’s important to stay flexible enough to seize on the trends and opportunities that arise in times of crisis.

Since Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007, our smartphones have become indispensable. Back in 2007, I never would have believed that the built-in camera would become one of the main criteria for selecting a phone. “But who’s going to want to take pictures with their phone and leave their camera behind?” I wondered. Turns out, a huge part of the population! In 2007, who’d have thought we would practically stop calling each other and that voice calls would be replaced by text messages (SMS) and emails?

There’s a big difference between predicting the future and trying your luck by following the trends.

Watch out for this Law of the Unexpected.

Expect the unexpected...!

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This law has become essential since the advent of social media, and no one can do without it in a crisis.

And with consumers suddenly able to voice their dissatisfaction to an audience of thousands, many brands and businesses have learned this lesson the hard way.

In our pre-internet marketing classes, we were taught that an unhappy customer might share their cutting comments with ten people in their circle. Today this seems like a tremendous underestimate, when we know how quickly a new hashtag can spread around the world.

The Law of Truthfulness has always been vital in public relations. Nothing is sadder than a spokesperson who tries to conceal information from a reporter during a live interview. The avoidance of the truth is reflected in their voice, their gestures, and the way they express themself. They say the body doesn’t lie.

Do you remember the unfortunate incident at that Starbucks? Back in 2018, there was an employee who felt threatened by two young people sitting at a table waiting for a friend. The employee called the police for no apparent reason.

Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, both 23, met at a Starbucks in Rittenhouse in downtown Philadelphia. The two contractors, who were expecting a third person, were seated at a table when an employee came to ask them if they could be helped. They explained that they wanted to wait for their guest to arrive before placing their order.

A few minutes later, police officers came into the Starbucks, walked over and handcuffed them. Management had called the police to remove them from the premises.

The scene was filmed by a customer and shared on social media. The arrest, during which the two young men remained calm, quickly went viral, giving rise to the hashtag #boycottstarbucks and sparking a series of protests.

This story is a great example of successful crisis management, because:

1- Starbucks quickly admitted their mistake

2- Starbucks made a public apology to both customers

3- Starbucks came up with a solution

Three simple steps to contain a crisis, and maybe even come out of it stronger.

All too often, a negative incident is run through the 24-hour news cycle, and then the world moves on.

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The Law of Firsts – or the Law of Leadership – is one we all know.

Let’s see if you can name the first brands that come to mind for you, and for consumers in North America, or elsewhere in the world:

- Laundry brand in North America?

o Tide

- Luxury brand of women’s clothing?

o Chanel

- Most popular soft drink in the world?

o Coca-Cola

- Most coveted sports car in the world?

o Ferrari

- Leading brand of ibuprofen?

o Advil

You may have heard that to be first, you just need to create a category where you are first. This is partly true. It’s easier to get into the minds of consumers when the brand is first in its category, instead of wasting a lot of energy explaining why your brand is better than aspirin or safer than Volvo.

I’ve watched Canada Goose coats take off! In Canada, what a wonderful example of the first in its category. It’s really scored a coup in managing to be exported all over the world. Do an online search for “winter coat.” Chances are, Canada Goose will pop up in images and clickable links. I’ve witnessed this obscure brand reach the point of owning the category for warmest coat. This didn’t happen overnight, and public relations played a major role, presenting new products and styles to the media and donating coats to celebrities. It’s a textbook case, but a really good one. When a European settles in Montreal or North America, it’s a safe bet that they’ll buy themselves a Canada Goose. By the way, French friends, this is how we pick you out in Montreal or Toronto!

How do you get to be first in your category? Even if you don’t, there are, fortunately, other laws that can help you, including the law of words, the law of perception, and trends.

In addition, the Internet is a game-changer, allowing several brands to go online quickly, with few resources, and find their consumers easily.

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Hello!

Welcome to this 45th episode of the NATA PR SCHOOL podcast.

It’s my pleasure to welcome Alain Audet, General Manager, Canada of PHOREST Salon Software, an Irish company and a global leader in salon and spa management systems.

Alain Audet is, without a doubt, the most respected professional in the Canadian Professional Beauty Industry. Before returning to Canada, where he launched the Kétastase brand, he worked for major international luxury brands in Southeast Asia including Prada, Gucci, Fendi and Armani. I like to think that with his 23 years of experience with hair brands, hair salons and spas, Alain knows the names of all the hair salon owners across Canada, a country almost as big as Russia! Alain is also an enthusiast, who knows how to forge solid links with all those who cross his path.

I met Alain more than 20 years ago when he came back to Canada to work for denim brand, Parasuco Jeans, which was, at the time, looking for a professional of his caliber.

I could spend a good hour describing Alain’s impressive accomplishments, but I know it will be more interesting to let him add to this introduction what he wants to share with you.

Thank you for accepting my invitation, Alain. Here is my first question.

1- Who is Alain Audet?

2- Tell us about Phorest and what you are putting in place for them?

3- How do marketing and PR fit in at PHOREST?

4- I know that you are constantly learning and, during your years at the ABA (Allied Beauty Association), I saw how digital technology like Facebook and Instagram have become essential tools that you have learned to master. Why is that?

5- Back to the Future – at a time when the internet was not as developed, you launched Kérastase in Canada and you hired us to take care of public relations. It’s a long story, but I find it most interesting in today’s environment. Tell us about your PR / Marketing strategy for the launch of Kérastase, which was a huge success.

6- During the pandemic, reinvention, “reinventing oneself” became a trend, a buzzword. As you have always been a pioneer, you knew how to reinvent yourself long before this trend. From the luxury goods sector in Asia, to the beauty industry in Canada, how did each of these new professional experiences lead you to “pivot”?

7- Many of our clients are obsessed with the Web. Since you work for a company that offers products and services online, is your perception of the Web changing?

8- What about the future of PR and Marketing? What do you think the new trends and brand needs will be?

9- To finish, what should we hope for you?

To find out more about PHOREST SALON SOFTWARE:

www.phorest.com

Free consultation

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This rule is literally the key concept of public relations. It’s also true in marketing, but there it doesn’t work the same way.

We know what the compound effect is on our savings and investments. It’s also a powerful law in communications. How do you put it into practice? Right now I’ll give you an example of a compound effect strategy, to show you how we apply it.

A client once awarded us a contract to promote the advantages of PVC windows. Now, PVC sometimes gets a bad rap in a world where we believe (often mistakenly) that only wood or natural materials are environmentally responsible.

We proposed a three-point strategy to them that activates the law of compound effect.

Point 1: Did you know PVC windows are green?

Point 2: PVC windows are a creative and trendy choice.

Point 3: The Expert - we’d chosen an architect who swore by PVC windows for their projects.

We then had to make each of these points newsworthy by publishing a press release or two.

And we created a schedule for strategically issuing each press release.

You should know that when you send out that press release, no one’s waiting for it on the other end. Journalists may very well be interested in your first press release, but not react until the third one.

Nothing is more effective for a subject like PVC. Multi-point messaging gives you the compound effect.

I like to ask my friends if they’ve ever heard of certain brands. If the answer is yes, I ask them where they saw (or heard about) that brand.

If their answer is yes but vague: “I think I read something, or heard about the brand from an influencer or a radio station,” then you know the compound effect works.

There is a balance between getting people to talk about a brand, its creators and its new products, just enough and often enough that it plants the brand in people’s minds. There’s nothing like smart repetition with relevant information for applying the law of compound effect.

In marketing, this law is put into practice with an ad campaign. Today, it can be hard to choose the right channels to make yourself known: Facebook, Google, Instagram, YouTube, or online advertising? There are so many options.

Here’s a little secret: PR is your tool for adding the famous “organic” part to any ad campaign you want to develop.

Take Starbucks, which literally built itself, and made its name thanks to PR. Even today, Starbucks doesn’t do massive advertising. Interesting, isn’t it? PR is still the least expensive part of your marketing plan. Don’t let your new digital marketing agency tell you that PR is expensive and there are fewer traditional media outlets anyway. This is totally false. It doesn’t factor in all the digital platforms of influencers and the mainstream media. The New York Times and all the major magazines went digital a long time ago.

We analyzed our results and calculated many (ROI – return on investment – cost per thousand). PR is still cheaper than a new customer acquisition campaign.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what we do. Since our top value is serving at the highest level, it was crucial that I answer our clients’ questions. We never sell a service just to sell a service. This goes against our deepest values, and it doesn’t fit with our long-term plan any more than it fits with creating partnerships with the brands we serve. We’re committed to being useful, just like this podcast proves to you (I hope) at your business, every week.

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We tend to believe that the best sales come from the best products.

Many great marketing managers spend a tremendous amount of time making sure their product is the best so that they have all the components and arguments they need to confirm they’re the best on the market. Seems like they’ve taken all the right steps, doesn’t it? Well, they didn’t count on the law of perception.

You remember the famous VHS videotapes that were so popular in the 1980s and 1990s. Yet the BETAMAX format was clearly superior in terms of image quality, and TV stations required it when we wanted to feature our clients. Still, VHS won out, claiming more than 60% of the market. The issue revolved around the major manufacturers: Sony, which relied on BETA quality, and Matsushita, which relied on VHS because it could record more than an hour of content.

And today, closer to home, the same kind of battles are being waged by local microdistilleries, which have been proliferating since the pandemic. Each of them is trying to ride the “buy local” wave. As you can imagine, though, the quality is not always there. These companies often know how just how to play to consumers’ perceptions. They use techniques that are as old as the hills, but still effective:

- Hire a celebrity who can rep for the brand and use their name to promote spirits, which, much of the time, are absolutely not locally distilled;

- Play with words and new names, such as “bottled locally”, when no local ingredients or expertise are used;

- Copy recipes from competitors to appropriate that local touch;

- Or invest heavily in ad campaigns, and meanwhile the smallest artisans lack the same resources.

These companies are relying on the law of perception. They try to get people to believe that their product is local. It’s easy to understand how consumers might be confused by these names:

o Bottled in the country

o Manufactured in the country

o Locally sourced

As the proverb goes: “Perception is reality”

In other words, we believe what we perceive to be accurate, and we create our own realities based on those perceptions. And although our perceptions feel very real, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily factual.

Changing perception is a huge task, and, in my opinion, it’s unnecessary. It’s a losing battle, because when consumers assume that what they’ve read is the truth, it becomes real for them, and then it’s practically impossible to change their minds.

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You may have heard of the law of focus, which is that one of the most powerful concepts in marketing and PR is to lodge a word in your customers’ minds. When it comes to PR, I call this the law of words.

Our business often requires us to define key phrases and words for our clients and their products. I’m partial to this law, because it makes us think about the content of our press releases, the words that absolutely must be included.

This law challenges us to distill our message (press release headlines, email subjects) into a single idea. If you can figure out how to hitch your product to a single idea, or even a single word, you can be a market leader.

Our client SECOND CLOTHING saw all their collections transformed when they came up with YOGA JEANS over 15 years ago. Because of the power of these two simple words, all their collections bear this name today; naturally, they own the trademark.

It’s impressive to witness the power of words. Europeans have long been protective of many of their words; for instance, when they use the French controlled designation of origin (e.g.

Champagne, Cognac, Roquefort) or the European protected designation of origin (e.g. Parmesan).

In America, it’s companies and products that have left their mark in people’s minds, such as:

Frigidaire

Google

Apple

iPhone, iPad, etc.

Once these words are associated with a particular business, there’s no point trying to make them your own.

For example, the VOLVO brand is synonymous with safety. If any other auto makers tried to identify with this word, they’d be wasting their time. That’s the law of words. Other brands cannot make these words their own because they’re so ingrained in consumers’ minds that it amounts to a belief.

What is a belief? It’s just a word or idea, repeated. Religions are quite handy with the repetition principle. I think Amazon is in a good position to appropriate the words “low price” and “fast delivery” for e-commerce.

Whereas Walmart and Costco continue to lead in North America, with everyday low prices for the first brand, and wholesale for the second.

Here again, we come back to Step 1 of the NATA PR model: Why would they talk about you? The answers to these questions also match consumers’ expectations, such as a locally-made vegan frozen dessert.

That’s why it’s important to choose the words that represent and define brands. My partner and I have thought long and hard about the words and phrases that define the agency. In recent years, many of our competitors have let themselves be influenced by the internet, abandoning the PR label to become communications and marketing agencies. We’re so glad we resisted this trend because PR is a term – a word, even – that more companies are searching for than ever before. I’ve taken it even further by defining what we do: MAKING YOU KNOWN.

The law of words must be followed scrupulously and thoughtfully, with a generous helping of openness and creativity.

Need advice on development and brand awareness for your business? Book a free consultation now – and I’ll tell you in all honesty if I can help you.

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Two years ago, I wondered how I could, as a public relations agency, use the web to help our clients even more, while also selling our services online. As you may know if you listened to Episode 22, service quality is the agency’s number-one value.

Long before we created our new service, NATA PR SCHOOL, I wondered if it was possible to come up with PR topics every week. So, I decided to go ahead and make live appearances on Facebook. Sure, at first it was strange to be talking to my computer without knowing who – if anyone – was listening. After that, I found I could speak for 10 minutes on a topic and that I knew my field well enough to have something to say every week.

So, little by little, week after week, I built what is now NATA PR SCHOOL.

This great adventure began in 2017. My curiosity and my desire to learn often lead me down unusual paths. On Netflix one night I discovered Joe Berlinger’s excellent documentary, “I Am Not Your Guru,” which features Tony Robbins in action during one of his seminars: A Date With Destiny.

And while I was looking for Tony’s podcast, the Apple platform generously showed me several other podcasts, including The Life Coach School with Brooke Castillo. A single podcast from this coaching school has helped me beyond all my expectations, to:

1- lose weight when my doctor no longer knew what advice to give me (women’s hormones can be really tricky);

2- find the man in my life;

3- and skillfully grow the company to the point where our sales were up 40% (before Covid).

For now, I’ll stick to showing you how I adopt this technique at work so that you can make yourself known and develop your business. This method, which we use every day, is definitely paying off.

Here’s how far I’ve taken it:

1- I am an LCS-Certified Life Coach.

2- I’m also a seasoned professional public relations coach who created NATA PR over 20 years ago.

3- Two years ago, I set up PR RENDEZVOUS: live presentations on Facebook that I host regularly, to stay in the habit of talking to my computer while knowing that you’re listening.

4- It was PR RENDEZVOUS that led me to create NATA PR SCHOOL, to share the basics of our profession and the tools to grow with businesses and self-employed entrepreneurs, free of charge (since they have no PR budgets).

I say it loud and clear in this podcast – I want to reinvent PR while highlighting the human relationships. They’re the core of our profession and they carry us further and faster together – reaching even more people on the internet.

This new Wild West that is the internet was, after all, created by humans, for humans. Today, it gives us a tremendous universal connection, to which we humbly bring our own humanity.

You can find everything on the web, and we’ve chosen to showcase our ability to do good and multiply our opportunities so that everyone can use this fabulous tool – PR combined with social media. And we never forget that the real world continues to exist!

By “chatting” with my computer for two years, I’ve discovered the value of using the internet wisely.

If you need to clarify your communications and development strategy, don’t wait! Contact me for a free consultation, and I'll tell you in all honesty if I can help you.

Free consultation.

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