On the evening of Oct. 31, the University of Miami beat 22nd-ranked Duke on a crazy, eight-lateral kickoff return, resulting in a touchdown with no time remaining.
As a licensee for both teams, Fanatics personnel were on the phone discussing a T-shirt design commemorating the play, minutes after it occurred. Fanatics’ Jacksonville design team was working on the concept the next morning, and later that day, the graphic, which mapped out the eight laterals, was finished.
By Monday morning, after school approvals were completed, a T-shirt commemorating “The Return” was on sale at Fanatics.com for $24.99. That T-shirt was the top-selling college item on the site that day.
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Fanatics quickly made shirts commemorating miracle finishes by Miami and Michigan State.
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A combination of sales data and social media engagement measures told Fanatics when and how much digital and social marketing to point behind the hot seller and “The Return” shirt was moved from made-to-order to a stock item within a few days. “The Return” T-shirts, still available on Fanatics.com, have already sold several thousand units.
“No one could have perceived that kind of demand from a school without a real national following,” said Fanatics Apparel President Raphael Peck, “but we had the right pieces in place to take advantage of it.”
Welcome to the world of “micro-moment” licensing, in which indelible plays like the “Miami Miracle” become licensed products within hours.
For years, licensees have known that since the majority of consumer demand for championship products occurs within three days, speed to market is essential. More recently, they have been applying those same principles to smaller moments, which nonetheless still tug at the hearts and wallets of fans: a memorable finish like Miami’s, Michigan State’s equally improbable win over Michigan on a last-second return of a fumble, or one of the seven no-hitters during the 2015 MLB season.
“This is about connecting with fans as quickly as possible,” said Jim Pisani, president of VF Licensed Sports Group, which includes longtime MLB rights holder Majestic Athletic. “For us to be authentic, we can’t take weeks to get something to market. So we have a dedicated design and merchandise team ready to go and we can have product in market immediately.”
Thus, a no-hitter last season was followed by a commemorative T-shirt in market the next day. Or when hometown Reds hero Todd Frazier won MLB’s Home Run Derby in Cincinnati last July, commemorative T-shirts were being sold in the Queen City the next day.
“Those incremental moments add up,” Pisani added. “And once you demonstrate those capabilities to fans, the hope is they’ll expect it from you and look for it.”
Fanatics’ vertical integration of design, manufacturing and fulfillment capabilities puts it in a unique position to benefit from “at-once” orders. In some cases, Fanatics isn’t even manufacturing the micro-moment T-shirts until they are ordered. Then the company finishes and ships the shirts within a day.
Peck said that as Fanatics has become more focused on “micro-moments,” revenue from that segment of the company’s business has increased more than 110 percent.
“We can test the appetite of consumers quickly and effectively on these opportunities, and when you combine that with our vertical abilities, we don’t think that we’ve even scratched the surface on this business,” Peck said. “We believe we can grow it two to three times in college and pro.”
No one’s confusing the incremental sales generated by “at-once” licensing with those catalyzed by a championship run. However, they can add up.
“Our smallest risk is launching digital creative and seeing how consumers react to it online,” Peck said. “So it gets down to a belief in your own creative and what sales and social media says about that design the minute it goes up.
We can know within 20 minutes if it’s going to be a hit.”
