Pandemic A ‘Growth Moment’ As Innovation Department Closes $3.7 Million To Build Brands
疫情成为“增长契机”，创新部门融资 370 万美元打造品牌
In this time of hand-wringing about jobs and the economy, one direct-to-consumer holding company will use an infusion of capital to hire and build a team to launch new brands.
在这个对就业和经济感到焦虑的时期，一家直接面向消费者的控股公司将利用注入的资金来招聘和组建团队来推出新品牌。
Today’s news that Innovation Department closed $3.7 million in capital comes just days after official declaration the U.S. entered a recession in February. Though May’s jobs report contains mixed signals, Innovation Department’s mandate to hire new talent is clear.
今天，创新部门宣布完成370万美元融资的消息传出，而就在几天前，美国官方宣布2月份进入经济衰退。尽管5月份的就业报告信号不一，但创新部门招聘新人才的使命却十分明确。
“The area we are most focused on for investing this capital is in building out team,” Innovation Department cofounder and CEO Alex Song told me in an interview this week. Founded in 2015, Innovation Department has not previously accepted outside capital. Investors include Long Light Capital, Synergis Capital, Ambridge Capital, Ryan Freedman, general partner of Corigin Ventures, and Carter Reum, cofounder of M13 Ventures.
“我们此次投资最关注的领域是团队建设，”创新部联合创始人兼首席执行官Alex Song本周接受采访时表示。创新部成立于2015年，此前从未接受过外部资本。投资者包括长光资本(Long Light Capital)、Synergis资本、Ambridge资本、Corigin Ventures的普通合伙人Ryan Freedman以及M13 Ventures的联合创始人Carter Reum。
“We have established amazing strategy and tactics for scaling up DTC,” Song says. “The scale is going to come from being able to find additional talented people in the verticals where we see the most opportunity, to then have them accelerate the growth of new brands that are brewing.”
“我们已经制定了出色的战略和策略来扩大DTC的规模，”宋说道。“规模的扩大将来自于能够在我们认为最具机遇的垂直领域找到更多人才，然后让他们加速正在酝酿的新品牌的增长。”
From JCPenney To Pier 1 And More, Over 3,000 Stores Are Now Liquidating
从 JCPenney 到 Pier 1 等，超过 3,000 家商店正在清算
What JCPenney’s Store Closure List Says About The Company’s Future
JCPenney 的门店关闭清单预示着公司的未来
Brooks Brothers Is Likely On The Edge Of Bankruptcy
布克兄弟可能濒临破产
Expanding a brand portfolio in times of economic upheaval has its challenges but Song said the Covid-19 pandemic drove demand for its WellPath nutrition products and highlighted the direct-to-consumer company’s strengths as its business model was stress-tested. Rather than rely on enormous sums of capital to fund customer acquisition, a strategy Song says leads many startups to “DTC purgatory,” Innovation Department leverages its owned media assets and DojoMojo, the technology-driven marketing partnership company he c0founded.
在经济动荡时期拓展品牌组合并非易事，但宋先生表示，新冠疫情推动了其 WellPath 营养产品的需求，并凸显了这家直销公司的优势，因为其商业模式已经经受住了压力测试。宋先生认为，这种策略会导致许多初创公司陷入“DTC 炼狱”，而创新部门并没有依赖巨额资金来获取客户，而是利用了自有媒体资产以及他参与创立的技术驱动型营销合作公司 DojoMojo。
“During the pandemic, all brands suffered and we definitely struggled as well,” he says, citing supply chain disruption among other challenges. However, Innovation Department’s omnichannel strategy and focus on health and wellness, a category that fared better than others, positioned the company well against the turbulence. Not reliant on physical stores that would be forced to close their doors for safety reasons, the company has a diverse distribution model, selling not only via its own website, but also on Amazon
“疫情期间，所有品牌都受到了影响，我们当然也举步维艰，”他说道，并列举了供应链中断等挑战。然而，创新部门的全渠道战略以及对健康保健品类的专注（该品类表现优于其他品类）使公司在动荡时期占据了有利地位。该公司不依赖那些可能因安全原因被迫关门的实体店，而是拥有多元化的分销模式，不仅通过自己的网站销售，还在亚马逊上销售。
AMZN
亚马逊
, Walmart
沃尔玛
WMT
WMT
and soon, online pet retailer Chewy (CHWY).
以及即将推出的在线宠物零售商 Chewy (CHWY)。
“We feel lucky and blessed this was a growth moment for us,” he said. “Investors saw that post-quarantine, we were growing and consistently executing month over month, better and better.”
“我们感到幸运和幸福，这是我们的一个增长时刻，”他说。“投资者看到，隔离结束后，我们一直在增长，并且业绩逐月稳步增长，越来越好。”
Innovation Department’s revenue has doubled and headcount rose 30 percent over the past six months. With the new capital, headcount is projected to grow another 20 percent, a company spokesman said.
创新部门的收入在过去六个月翻了一番，员工人数也增加了30%。公司发言人表示，新资本到位后，员工人数预计将再增长20%。
The next DTC brand coming from Innovation Department is Finn, a pet wellness brand to launch at summer’s end. The strategy driving Finn’s development, distribution, marketing and scaling-up exemplifies Innovation Department’s approach to brand-building. The company optimizes shared expertise, institutional knowledge and operational resources from across different brands under one roof, Song says.
创新部门的下一个DTC品牌是Finn，一个将于夏末推出的宠物健康品牌。Finn的开发、分销、营销和扩张战略体现了创新部门的品牌建设方法。宋先生表示，该公司致力于在同一屋檐下优化不同品牌的共享专业知识、机构知识和运营资源。
In this way, lessons learned with Innovation Department’s human wellness brand WellPath are applied to a new product category, pet wellness brand Finn. Likewise, painful missteps experienced by one brand are avoided with the launch of subsequent brands.
这样，创新部门从人类健康品牌 WellPath 汲取的经验教训就被运用到了新的产品类别——宠物健康品牌 Finn 上。同样，一个品牌经历的痛苦失误，在后续品牌的推出中也能得到避免。
“The unique thing about consumer products and DTC is even though category types can be different for the product themselves, there is an immense amount of overlap in the tactical and operational work that is done day to day,” Song says. “That makes the work very repeatable to find that path of success, which is a rational reason why putting multiple brands under one roof is really effective.”
“消费品和DTC的独特之处在于，尽管产品本身的品类类型可能有所不同，但日常的战术和运营工作却存在大量重叠，”宋说道。“这使得工作具有高度的可重复性，从而找到成功的路径，这也是为什么将多个品牌整合到一个屋檐下非常有效的原因。”
Overall, direct-to-consumer brands that remain nimble have fared well despite the pandemic and economic fallout.
总体而言，尽管受到疫情和经济影响，但保持灵活的直接面向消费者的品牌仍表现良好。
“Some bright spots for sure in DTC,” offers Mark Friedman, president of DTC consultancy Details Interactive and host of The Marketing Playbook podcast. Earlier, he was president of e-commerce at Steve Madden and chief marketing officer for Warnaco and Brooks Brothers, among others.
“DTC 领域肯定存在一些亮点，”DTC 咨询公司 Details Interactive 总裁兼《营销手册》播客主持人马克·弗里德曼 (Mark Friedman) 说道。此前，他曾担任 Steve Madden 电商总裁，以及 Warnaco 和 Brooks Brothers 等公司的首席营销官。
Friedman said DTC brands selling home products, crafts, toys and anything entertainment-related are faring well because demand for these items rose among consumers sheltering at home during quarantine.
弗里德曼表示，销售家居产品、工艺品、玩具以及任何与娱乐相关的产品的 DTC 品牌表现良好，因为隔离期间居家消费者对这些商品的需求增加。
“Businesses that had strong web businesses before [the pandemic] and were focused on customer service and reacting quickly have done well,” he adds, “especially if they did not have stores to worry about.”
“那些在疫情爆发前就拥有强大网络业务、注重客户服务并快速做出反应的企业表现良好，”他补充道，“尤其是在他们无需担心门店的情况下。”
Direct-to-consumer brands that maintained marketing momentum can expect to do well in the post-Covid-19 recovery period, says Chris Baker, founder of Totem, a digital media agency.
数字媒体机构 Totem 的创始人克里斯·贝克 (Chris Baker) 表示，保持营销势头的直接面向消费者的品牌有望在新冠疫情后的复苏时期表现良好。
“Most DTC brands have kept their marketing running uninterrupted, which means they can rebound more quickly than some other brands,” Baker says. “It is very costly to restart a stalled marketing program and in some categories, incumbent brands might be restarting only to find that they have lost serious ground to digital native brands during the downtime.”
“大多数DTC品牌的营销活动都保持着不间断的运行，这意味着它们能够比其他品牌更快地反弹，”贝克说道。“重启一个停滞的营销计划成本非常高，在某些品类中，现有品牌可能会在重启后发现，在停摆期间，它们已经严重落后于数字原生品牌。”
Being nimble, innovative and open to new opportunities is key for DTC brands.
灵活、创新和对新机遇持开放态度是 DTC 品牌的关键。
For instance, Baker points to a bedding/linens company that’s planning to roll out a line of baby products for the 2020 holiday season in anticipation of a quarantine baby boom near the end of 2020 or early 2021.
例如，贝克指出，一家床上用品公司计划在 2020 年假期推出一系列婴儿用品，以应对 2020 年底或 2021 年初隔离期间出现的婴儿潮。
Just like the linens company, Innovation Department will launch new brands by capitalizing on affinities with existing brands. Following this summer’s debut of Finn, Song says the company will launch another new DTC brand in 2021—brand name and product category undisclosed—again informed by the lessons of older sibling brands Finn and WellPath.
与亚麻制品公司一样，创新部门将利用与现有品牌的亲和力来推出新品牌。继今年夏天推出Finn之后，宋表示，公司将在2021年推出另一个新的DTC品牌——品牌名称和产品类别尚未披露——同样借鉴了老品牌Finn和WellPath的经验。
“We are always learning from new mistake that we make,” Song says, “and the goal should be always finding new mistakes to make. Once we make those mistakes, we make sure to not to have those challenges for the subsequent brands we build.”
“我们总是从犯下的新错误中吸取教训，”宋说道，“我们的目标应该是不断发现新的错误并加以改正。一旦我们犯了这些错误，我们就能确保后续打造的品牌不会再面临同样的挑战。”
