He stood, drink in hand, away from the busy red carpet, surveying the room and ensuring his friends were taken care of. We chat, crack jokes, and watch the coveted party fill up. People came slowly, and then, like a flood, the place was packed. This wasn’t just a Treats Magazine party; it was Robin Thicke’s first night after his “historic” 2013 VMA performance with Miley Cyrus.
And this isn’t just anyone to my right. My friend James Monsees, co-founder of Ploom, sponsored the event that night. He is not alone. Not too far away are Marketing Director, Sarah Richardson, and Marketing Manager, Lauryn Livengood. The face of the fast-growing vaporizer company, Ploom.
Ploom isn’t just any cookie-cutter start up. In this ever-changing technology platform, it takes more than one charismatic individual to make dreams interesting. Formula needed.
In a small room in his Palo Alto home, Ploom began as a master’s thesis, a project formulated between the Monsees and Adam Bowden. Several years after sparking the idea, the Ploom has become the closest Apple product the vaporizer has come to. The rest can be easily found on Google, but what the search engines will not tell you is how this company wasn’t built by a genius, one-man gig, but rather by a family.
Whether it is at Pax’s coveted cabin at Sundance, or a launch party in downtown NYC, ego gets left at the door. Any sense of self-possession dissipates as quickly as a puff of smoke is released from the flagship Ploom. This is how brands are created. It’s no longer about one person with an idea, as there have been enough. A startup needs to be unique, fun and connect with its target market in the right way. The product, they say, is pretty much as good as the people who make it. Those words also apply to Ploom.
As we move forward in an prosperous society crammed with technological advances and changing trends, new products literally must dazzle our generation to catch our attention. Not only in terms of what they do, but also how they’re presented to us. Steve Jobs understood this. Gen-Y loves slick looks. We love the sexy aesthetic.
As Don Draper says, we want to feel the mischief of holding the product, as if we were, in some way, cheating. And as much as we love it, we’re interested in the people behind it. We want to interact and get to know these people on a personal level; that is the key to connecting with a Gen-Y audience.
Some emerging startups really understand the importance of a genuine personal connection with their audience. A young team of beautiful people, playing foosball during breaks at the office, combining creative powers and sparks of genius, and unwinding with Friday drinks, accompanied by Ploom products obviously. This is where innovation multiplies. In an environment conducive to creativity, thinking outside the box, and being yourself. Everyone is the face of the company. Everyone is a representative of the culture. Everyone is appreciated. Today, it isn’t one kooky personality that sells a company, but the people who put it together.
The event was a hit, with celebrities coming in and out, carefully smoking Ploom products, and taking pictures. Robin Thicke performed, and the crowd went wild. Forget dusty garages, boring meeting rooms, and immature dorm rooms. This is how newbies party, and this is how a brand is cemented.
