Company Profile
Roxy was created in 1990 by the surf brand Quicksilver. Initially developed as a young women's swimwear line, the brand quickly gained followers who were drawn to its fun, irreverent style that mixed sport with fashion. Nearly two decades later, Roxy is a $400 million "lifestyle" brand, offering everything from surfboards to jewelry, skate gear, and shoes.
A Company Uses the Adage "Know Thy Customer"
The Roxy brand appeals to girls are fearless, active and fashion conscious: Girls who surf. Girls who shred. Girls who sail. When you see a photo of a young female skier, surfer, or swimmer, chances are good that she's wearing or using Roxy gear. "Our primary customers are young women," says Chris Todd, Roxy's Internet Marketing Director. "They're motivated, driven, and highly social."
They're also wired: "They have very active social lives online," Chris explains. "It's important for us to be a part of their online experience."
Prior to creating a TypePad blog, Roxy had a primitive posting interface on their website that was painful to use. "Only one person had access, and they had to stumble through HTML to create a post," Chris recalls. "We have so many interesting stories to tell, and we needed a way to post them fast. We also wanted more of our employees to be able to blog, so we also needed something that would be easy to use."
TypePad offered the ability for Roxy to designate multiple blog authors, with intuitive tools that enabled them to post any kind of media - from images to videos - in minutes. "In the past, many of our employees were excluded from blogging simply because of the interface," Chris says. "Now we have 20-30 different bloggers spread throughout the company."
Now, Roxy fans around the world can view videos, participate in contests, and also find other sites that Roxy has created through links to Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube. "Roxy has always been a social brand," says Chris. "We're everywhere - on the beach, in the mountains, at events - so naturally we want to have a strong social presence online as well."
Sharing Stories and Inviting Participation
From a tutorial from world snowboard champion Torah Bright on how to make a snowboard to a report on the obscure world of bog snorkeling, the Roxy blog is just like the brand: fun, fresh, and engaging.
"The blog is fairly spontaneous," Chris says. "We post things as they happen, and we like to write about what's interesting to us." He reports that Roxy's 'blog strategy' is created by its employees: "Our personalities show through in everything we write. It isn't filtered through the Roxy marketing department."
Mia Heinman is one such blogger; she posts regularly on the Roxy blog, with entries about everything from the adventures of the Roxy sailing team to a report on up-and-coming singer-songwriter Zella Day.
"Contests are a big hit on the blog," Mia says. "We regularly do contests and giveaways that are really fun for our readers. Last year we did a Follow Your Heart Tour with a spokesmodel search, and lots of Roxy fans participated through the blog."
A bit of serendipity occurred in 2007 when a regular reader of the Roxy blog contributed a design to the Design Your Own Surfboard contest - her design was chosen as a runner-up, but the graphics department liked her work so much that they reached out to her. Six months later, she was joined the Roxy team as a graphic designer. "In the interview, she told us how she had come to understand the Roxy brand over months of being a regular blog reader," Chris says. "When she started the job, she was already up to speed on what we were about."
Advice for Other Business Bloggers
"Too many business blogs get taken over by the marketing department," says Chris. "They become full of marketing speak, and readers recognize it immediately."
Chris believes that business blogs should have multiple authors, ideally people in different parts of the company, to give a rich, multi-dimensional sense of a company and its brand. "Business blogs shouldn't have a single 'company' voice," he says. "To be compelling, they have to be personal and human."
Since the notion of multiple authors and blogs with "personality" can strike fear into many corporate legal departments, Chris says that it's worth taking the time at the outset to get everyone on the same team. "Before your blog goes live, you want everyone in the company to be on board," he advises. "Create sample posts; critique each other. Have the legal department get comfortable with it. Don't go live until everyone is ready."
