Peter DiSpirito & Damon George
VP & VP of Sales - ERGO

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TWITTER INTERVIEW WITH PETER DiSPIRITO, VP and
DAMON GEORGE, VP of Sales at ERGO
September 3, 2009

@groupY Tell us a bit about ERGO and how it got started:

@ErgoTwitt It can be pretty much summed up in one word, OPPORTUNITY. My partner Rob and I had the opportunity to create something that would take us away from a normal lifestyle and let us work in an industry we grew up supporting. We started off with 5,000 promo tees and a wrapped coach. We hit the east coast hard for a year straight before we even had product to sell. At the same time we were designing our first line which was spring 08. We had a killer booth built that we took to surf expo. We ended up writing more paper than we expected along with a best booth award in the skate section. We were like, “Well I guess we’re a company now.” Its been non stop progression since. The company truly gets better every single day. Its very exciting and humbling at the same time.

Before ERGO what other companies and projects were you involved in?

Before ERGO, I was active duty in the US Coast Guard for 10 years, where for 5 of them I was paid to live on the North Shore and travel around the south pacific searching for waves. It was like being on a 5 year boat trip. Our VP of sales, Damon George, has been with Rusty, OAM, Creatures of Leisure, Ambig, Insight and a few others. He also just launched the company that built our iPhone app called FLYFED (www.flyfed.com). Our VP of production, “Uncle” Ron Yoshida, has been with us since day one and started apparel brands such as HIC and Town & Country. He has been an industry guy forever. I think the first pair of baggies he made was for Duke Kahanamoku… So we’re lucky to have guys with extensive backgrounds and existing relationships to help us out. It took a lot of guess work out, and has helped us grow strong partnerships with legit factories.

As ERGO is an East Coast-based company, what advantages do you feel you have over west-coast originated companies?

For all young brands the hard market to break into is the east coast. We are able to give these accounts the face-time and extra care that they aren’t used to from the west coast brands. They feel like they are a part of something which in fact, they are. Another advantage that we have is we stick to our word. If we tell you that we are going to wrap 4 of your windows, get you a light box and flow a shop kid, it gets done quickly and properly. They don’t get that service from a disgruntled rep that they see 1 time per season. Right now we have the east coast and PR pretty covered. After all the buyers see how strong our Spring 10 collection is, it should be fully covered. Its pretty rad to be working against the grain in an industry dominated by Orange County and be pulling it off. The good thing is… We do have roots in So Cal. Since the beginning, our warehouse, production team, designers and Damon have been here. I can still say here for another day

Being a small company, is it easier or harder to deal with the economic changes? How have you dealt with the climate so far?

Both. Retailers and consumers are looking for something new that isn’t sold at Macy’s and other big chains. ERGO fills that void. There are no other young brands that even come close to keeping up with ERGO’s dynamic marketing campaign for both print and web. Not to mention our social networking, technology, in store pop, promo tours on both coasts and last but not least the amount of coverage our riders receive on the web, tv and little by little in the mags. However with the current economy, retailers are hesitant to take a chance on new brands since they got burned by quite a few recently. It’s all about maintaining expectations, sticking to our budget and not taking “no” for an answer. So far so good, our accounts are selling thru and are we have proven to everyone that we are here to stay.

Where do you see the brand within the next 2-5 years?

We are thriving off our natural progression. We’ve been growing steadily and strategically every day and we will continue to do so. We just dialed down some legitimate international distributors and we will slowly grow that market. We are focusing on keeping retailers happy and on categories we are good at… Denim, tees, hoodies and boardshorts. In two years, I see us as a staple in every shop with solid floor space. If we continue to grow at this pace… 5 years from now is going to be exciting!

Which trade shows will the brand be participating in?

We just finished The Moat show, which was sick! Right now we are trying to get into Crossroads at Blackbox. (Jamie, if your reading hook us up!) In January we are going to do EXPO, a bunch of regional shows and maybe Agenda. We took this EXPO and ASR off and allocated that money to our promo tour and sales team to knock on doors. In the past we’ve done 4 Surf Expo’s and 2 ASR’s but wanted to focus on regional shows this season where attendees are there to get down to business.

Are you sponsoring athletes? If so, who & what sports?

We have cultivated a solid surf and skate team. For surf we have Shea Lopez, Matt Keenan, Hector Santamaria, Brendan Buckley, Tommy Ihnken, Josie Graves, Alejo Marin and Leif Engstrom. For skate team pros we have Kris Markovich, Gary Smith and Robert Lopez Mont. For AMs we have Andrew Cannon, Shawn Hale, Tom Geilfuss, Norman Woods, George Evans and Ki Realer. We also have a pretty solid group of regional guys that represent the brand well and have a huge impact on our success. We hope to pick up a few more Cali guys soon, but we had to move some budget to the back end of our business to keep up with our rapid growth. We have also been getting coverage on MTV’s Nitro Circus. I have been sending Street Bike Tommy a box for the past 4 years. After their show got picked up for MTV we had built such a solid relationship with him that we were able to keep him on board despite some heavy offers he received. If you watch the season 2 premiere its ERGO in your face from the second the show starts and it will be like that the entire season.

Ergo has been aggressively using Social Media (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.)? How has this impacted marketing & sales?

Not sure how it’s directly impacted sales, but it’s brought a lot of attention to our brand, especially within target demographic which is a younger audience. It has also raised a ton of brand awareness within the industry. Because it’s so cost-effective, we’ve been able to put our marketing budget elsewhere… Like back into shop POP and promo events such as the west coast grab and smash tour. We have windows at most of our accounts and try to go as deep as a shop will let us with our in store presence.

Explain to us the motivation behind your new iPhone application?

The app lets us get our blog news, products, photos and videos right into the palm of our consumers’ hands. They can use the geo-locater “find near me” tool to find the nearest ERGO retailer which is beneficial both to ERGO and our retailers - at the same time providing entertaining content to users. Launching this app isn’t just another way to have direct interaction with our customers, Its a foundation for the future of technology and everyday business that we will continue to develop upon to stay ahead of the curve. The iPhone and iPod touch users that have downloaded over a billion apps fall into the same demographic that ERGO targets – we want our customers to feel a real connection with ERGO’s brand message, products and team riders.

What % of your marketing budget will be devoted to digital spend?

Off the top of my head, 30% goes into digital outlets. That money is spent on regional web campaigns, gathering content for social networking sites, gathering content for the iPhone app, developing our new website that is about to launch and some other top secret stuff. Its been trial and error. For print, right now we run a full page in TW Surf and BL!SSS, and a spread in Mundo Rad and Focus Skate Mag. Last year we ran that plus a full page in TW Skateboarding and ESM. Going back to having to expand our back end, we had to make the hard decision of pulling out of those two mags. It came down to where do we get the most bang for our buck, who gives us the most editorial love and what makes the most sense…. at the end of the day, not one person even noticed enough to say something… That right there is enough to know we made the right decision. It also paints a scary future for print.

What events does ERGO participate in/partner with?

We try to get involved with everything that fits within our budget and makes sense for us. We have been pretty lucky with getting in on events. We reach out to 4 or 5 small events with a healthy promo box and 1 to 2 larger events where we set up every month. ERGO is the official clothing sponsor for the ESA (Eastern Surfing Association). Every contest that goes down from Maine to Texas, the competitors are wearing ERGO jerseys. We plan to roll down to Cape Hatteras in two weeks pretty heavy and leave our mark on the ESA Championships with a party at Real Water Sports, a key account we have down there. We are taking the entire crew including Shea for two weeks where we have a house near s-turns. When that is complete, we plan to chase the rest of the hurricane season where ever it may take us. In October, we plan to get back on the road with Kris Markovich and the skate team to do some demos and reach out to core skate accounts that we have not yet pursed simply because we were not ready. Our product is on point now and I am excited to go show it off. Also, We are a member of SIMA and the IASC.

Given that established brands are tightening their belts, do you think the current economic state helps or hurts emerging brands?

Emerging brands start off with tightened belts and have been forced from the beginning to get creative and brainstorm cost-effective ways to market their brand. We are used to putting in time, researching new tools/technologies, taking chances and getting a little down-and-dirty in order to raise awareness, while more-established brands may be a little out of practice.

What established brands do you look to for inspiration? Who’s doing it right & wrong?

This is a tough one… Every brand has something unique and innovative that gives us inspriation. We look at brands like Volcom or RVCA who have done a great job keeping the balance between surf, skate and their brand image – As a small brand it can be a struggle to maintain the brand vibe from looking too surf or too skate. We also look at brands like Altamont and a few others for their clean raw style. More importantly, we look to our retailers, employees and people who are close to us like friends and family. They are the people who got us this far and have yet to let us down. We are not into following hipster trends, we are building a classic that will mature over time. As for the wrongs… I am not sure if I want to be calling out who is doing it wrong just yet, we have gained a lot of industry respect and thats just not our style although its tempting.

What specific things do you see brands doing in a down economy to positively drive brand value?

It seams that bigger brands are back peddling to a re-gain respect from the core accounts and consumers that they shit on while trying to out do each other over the past few years. Now we are seeing collections that they only offer to core shops, more organic grass roots style promo events and smaller less extravagant trade show booths. I know what it costs for us to set up our 10×20, so I could only imagine some of the bills the other guys pay.

Many small, new brands avoid doing “proper” PR and depend on more of an organic\word-of-mouth growth–what is ERGO’s strategy?

We work with a PR agency in LA with a background in our industry. They can speak authentically for our brand and already have strong and professional relationships with media along with some innovative ways to get our message out there. We’re mixing it up and using a variety of marketing/PR strategies. They also have relationships with non-endemic media and have been able to raise awareness for ERGO in that area. We were just featured in the fall issue of Antenna magazine in the fashion section.

What does your daily routine look like … take us through it:

I have been on the road a lot lately. I have spent the last 3 months living in San Clemente running our West Coast push. If you saw the ERGO van this summer in Cali, I was driving it. If you had a free ERGO bagged lunch on the beach at lowers… I made it. I feel most comfortable on the front lines getting the story out there. I guess you can say I am the front man of the company. Since we run such a tight crew, everyone has several duties. Right now my main duties are handling the surf and skate team, marketing, PR and face time with retailers and media, while my partner, Rob, works with the production and design teams on product development and staying on calendar along with a ton of other things. Rob also runs the ERGO sign shop. Yeah… we have a full service large format print shop in our NJ warehouse just for ERGO jobs. We have more equipment and can do bigger jobs than most sign shops. This was a move we made after realizing that we were spending 3k to 6k a month on POP and not getting everything we needed. Now we ship at least 2-3 windows, banners, signs or light box graphics a day at a fraction of the cost. We are very fortunate to have many resources that young brands are not used to and they ultimately contribute to our success. When I am back in Jersey at the office, I try to start my day with a surf if there are waves. After that I get bombarded with phone calls, emails and heated discussions till around 6 or 7 at night. There isn’t a day that goes by where something at ERGO doesn’t blow our mind. For instance a few months ago, right after my shop eat surf interview, I received an email from Bob Hurley saying how he loved our brand idea and would love to have me stop by to hear more about it. I was like, “yeah ok, who is f#cking with me?” Needless to say it was real… I took him up on that offer and learned a few things, saw some crazy stuff and made a new friend and industry contact. Every day is exciting!

What sports are you actively involved in?

Skimming, aggressive inline skating, scooting, freestyle walking and we recently built a heely’s park in our warehouse. hahaha…jk. I have been surfing and skating since I was 12. I pretty much just surf now and roll around a little bit. I never got really good at either, but I do get my fair share of good waves and get on it every chance I get. Everyone else also surfs and skates except Rob. His sport is chilllllllling and he is really good at it. If there was an olympic event for it he would win gold.

What type of music do you listen to?

I grew up listening to bands like Pennywise, Offspring, Bad Religion, Sublime, Rage Against the Machine, Rancid, Unwritten Law and all the music that gets you amped to go surf. I also listen to a little roots and some electronic stuff.

With your current position, do you travel much? If so where?

A good bit to tradeshows, contests, team trips, demos and promo events. Its fun but tiring… be careful what you wish for! haha I think my best trip so far was when I took Shawn Hale to the Amsterdam AM. While we are talking about travel, Hey Rob we need a Hawaii house this winter and I need to be there!

What do you like and not like about working within the action sports industry?

I like that everyone is friends and shares a common interest, you don’t really find that in other industries. I could live without the egos, cool kids, 18” baggies, fedora’s, tight pants, cool guy shades and groms making 6 figures.

What’s the best advice you have been given?

Focus on the path… Not the prize.

What do you think about group Y and its events?

I think the organization has been one of the most useful orgs I’ve seen from young brand perspective. It balances and somehow brings together people from every sport in the industry to share experiences, advice, etc. I’m glad to hear they’ve been expanding geographically up thru the NW and can’t wait until we get some panels over on the east coast so we can get even more involved!

Any parting words to the Twitter universe?

Welcome to The Next New Now.

Follow us on twitter (@ergotwitt), subscribe to our blog (ergophobia.com), add us on myspace (/ergophobiaclothing), add us on Facebook (/ERGOfficial), Subscribe to our youtube page (/ERGOPHOBIATV) and iPhone users download our app at the app store for free… just search ERGO.

Suggested Reading:

1. Todd Roberts
2. Jye Townend
   US Brand Manager - Rhythm