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Crocs have taken a lot of forms over the years. From collaborating with Balenciaga to send 10 inch platform clogs down the runway to collaborating with Taco Bell to make a sold-out Mellow Slide together, Crocs is no stranger to whimsy. Now, Cros is partnering with the happy-go-lucky Finnish design house Marimekko to produce a line of shoes that feature the brand’s signature prints. Marimekko and Crocs both have a very similar brand philosophy to bring joy, positive energy and playfulness to the world, says Rebekka Bay, Marimekkos Creative Director. Our lifelong mission at Marimekko is to bring joy and color to peoples everyday lives, and collaborations with global brands such as Crocs are one of the ways in which we can execute this mission. [Illustration: Ellen Porteus/Marimekko x Crocs] Marimekko is a brand known for its bold colors and patterns adorning clothing, home furnishings, accessories, and bags. Over its almost 74-year-long history, Marimekko has developed an impressive library of over 3,500 print designs. I feel that in order for us to look forward, we also need to look back, so we are especially focused on the ways that we can reflect on our rich heritage whilst creating something forward-thinking, says Bay. [Image: Marimekko x Crocs] Starting from April 23, Crocs classic clogs and sandals will don Marimekkos iconic Unikko print, which traces its origins back 60 years. For this collaboration, Marimekko wanted to explore new ways to interpret the flower design, from playing with the sizes to reducing it to just the patterns outlines. What was cemented during that process is that Unikko is an extremely strong print that can be applied into different forms or onto different surfaces and it is still recognizably Unikko says Bay. That is why it was also the perfect pattern for this collaboration: it brings as much joy as a larger black and white print as it does as a very small multicolored print. [Illustration: Ellen Porteus/Marimekko x Crocs] The Marimekko x Crocs collection will also include socks, a 5-pack of Jibbitz charms, and the first ever printed tote bag released by Crocs. Our partnership with Marimekko highlights the shared values that define both of our brands bold self-expression, unwavering authenticity, and unapologetic individuality, said Matias Infante, Vice President of Global Marketing at Crocs. You can find the collection for a limited amount of time on the Crocs website, at select Crocs stores, and wholesale locations.
Category:
E-Commerce
In 2020, designer and brand strategist Kim Berlin got a call she was not expecting. Her small New York firm was invited to help create the visual identity of a new budget airline being formed from the bones of a former charter airline. The new airline, Avelo, would focus on bringing low-cost flights to underserved regional airports like those in Burbank, California, and New Haven, Connecticut. Berlin worked with the company to develop everything from its logo to its airplane livery to the clothes its flight attendants would wear. It was actually a huge deal for me because I’m a one-person operation over here,” Berlin says. “I was selected to create an entire airline from scratch. It’s something that not even some of the largest design firms ever have the privilege of being able to do. The bright and cheery design she created has won her numerous awards, including the American Graphic Design Award, and an honorable mention in Fast Company’s 2022 Innovation by Design Awards for graphic design. It’s become a kind of calling card project for Berlin and her firm. [Images: Avelo] But then the business behind the brand made a controversial decision that Berlin is still trying to wrap her head around. Earlier this month it was reported that Avelo had signed an agreement to begin operating charter deportation flights out of Arizona for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. It’s a process the Trump administration has already begun implementing with other partners, including the U.S. military. Some of these deportations have been conducted without the due process of law, a violation of the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court unanimously stated recently that targeted individuals must be granted time to contest their removal. Protesters in front of Tweed Airport in New Haven, Connecticut, on April 17, 2025 [Photo: Roy De La Cruz/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images] Avelo’s agreement to participate in these actions has prompted a backlash, including a growing petition to boycott the company. In a statement, Avelo CEO Andrew Levy defended the partnership. We realize this is a sensitive and complicated topic, he said, noting that the airline’s flights would be part of a long-term charter program with DHS that would help with expansion and protect jobs. Berlin learned about the partnership via a Google Alert she had set up to track the company. In contrast to previous alerts about positive news like route expansions or growing revenues, the ICE partnership came as a shock. Historically I’ve been celebrating them all along and then this shows up and I’m like, oh my God, she says. It sounded so different from the initial objectives of the [company] when we started . . . five years ago. These actions have put Berlin in the awkward position of being so closely connected to a brand that has done something she neither expected nor wanted. It’s forced a kind of reckoning over how she should respond: whether to distance herself from the brand and her own work on it, to look beyond the politics of the decision, or to find some other way of celebrating the work while also opposing the decision of the company she once served. That is the question I have been chewing on ever since I found out about a week ago, she says. Avelo’s involvement in the deportation effort came as a surprise to Berlin because her experience working with the company’s leaders was such a positive one. I love everyone I worked with on this project, she says, noting that the company’s founding effort was driven by community and idealism. It was great. It was like the little guy for the little guy. Everybody was so family-oriented. Even through the design process, some of the families got involved. We were fielding comments from wives and children. Avelo did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication. Berlin’s processing is ongoingI’m still circling,” she saysbut she’s found herself leaning toward a set of principles she believes other designers may find helpful should they ever encounter a similar situation. “As designers we’ve got to recognize that these babies have a whole life of their own once they’re out in the world. And what our clients decide to do with the work is entirely their prerogative. That’s the way business works,” she says. “I also feel like now more than ever is a time when we need to ask whether the way business works is actually working for us.” The experience has led her to reevaluate how she will interact with clients going forward, allowing herself more time to decide whether to take on new projects. It’s also led her to a place of acceptance about what she can and can’t control. “I’m really proud of this work. And just because they’ve made a particular decision that I don’t necessarily aree with doesn’t necessarily mean that the work I’ve done has no value,” she says. “It was really a dream to do.” Her main piece of advice to designers is to not conflate one’s work with their identity. “You are not your projects,” she says. “If you did your best, then you did your best. Don’t let somebody else’s actions or decisions take that away from you.”
Category:
E-Commerce
Last month, a food research organization called Nectar released an expansive set of findings from taste tests that rated plant-based meat alternatives alongside actual meat. One bit of information stood out: In terms of taste, 54% of people on average found 20 vegan products (such as burgers, nuggets, and sausages) from 13 brands (including Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, and Gardein) to taste as good as or better than analogous conventional meat products. This should probably be good news for those of us who are concerned about the environment, public health, and animal welfare. But the flipside of this discovery is that even though plant-based meat is starting to taste just as good as (and in some cases better than) animal meat, most people arent changing their purchasing habits accordingly. If taste is king, it doesnt deserve the crownand ignoring this reality will doom alt protein to irrelevance. For many decades now, people in a whole array of fields have been on a mad mission to figure out how to get people to eat less meat. It has long been clear that education alone about the problems with factory farming isn’t enough to get people to change their behavior. Certainly shaming people, demanding total lifestyle overhaul, and expecting perfection are tactics that dont workthats why I cofounded the Reducetarian Foundation, because encouraging incremental change actually does work. But even that has its limits. Indeed, I have always believed that a more pragmatic approachoffering people better options in the marketplaceis ultimately one of the most effective ways to drive change. Specifically, I figured that the pillars of price, convenience, and especially taste were a sort of holy grail for the alt-meat industry. We can’t reasonably expect people to change their eating habits unless and until the more ethical, environmentally friendly, and healthy option is also the more affordable, convenient, and delicious choice. Interestingly, weve reached a point where, at least in the case of some products, plant-based meat is indeed as tasty as (or, to some people, even tastier than) real meat. Prices are nearing parity (though aren’t quite there yet) and in some cases are even cheaper than animal meat. And plant-based meat is easier than ever to find, with major brands like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat stocked in mainstream supermarkets and fast food chains like Burger King and Starbucks offering alt-meat options. Plant-based meat may not have totally surpassed regular meat in the price-taste-convenience (PTC) trifecta, but compelling data shows that were closer than ever. And yet, weve yet to see a real revolution in consumer habits. Plant-based meat still only makes up about 1% of total retail meat sales. Were still a nation of meat eaters, eating more than 225 pounds of meat per year (and climbing), making us one the biggest meat-eating nations in the world. Suffice it to say, the scales aren’t tippingat least not to the degree wed expect to see if the so-called PTC hypothesis were wholly true. It turns out that in 2023, researcher Jacob Peacock, of the think tank Rethink Priorities, actually put the PTC hypothesis to the test, reviewing existing research on plant-based meat and consumer behavior. His conclusion? PTC doesnt explain peoples choices. At least, not as comprehensively as some of us believed it would. Peacock explains some major problems with collecting good data on consumer choiceslike not enough real-world research, unreliable self-reports, and missing control groups. He also reviews many studies showing that people still prefer animal meat over plant-based meat, even when price and convenience arent issues and they say the taste is similar. Even in hypothetical situations, people tend to report that theyd still prefer real meal to alt-meat, regardless if it’s indistinguishable in terms of price, taste, and convenience. One of Peacocks conclusions is that we’ve been underestimating the importance of social and psychological factors. Diet, especially when it comes to meat consumption, is highly politicized. Conservative-leaning people are likely to be dissuaded by environmentally friendly messaging, and several Republican politicians have proposed legislation to keep the alt-meat industry out of their states. Meat is also gendered, being socially linked to masculinity. These ideas may be divorced from rationality, but people dont always behave rationallyemotional, social, and psychological forces are at play, too. It comes as a bit of a blow to think that even if someone in the culinary or food tech spaces creates the most delicious burger the world has ever seen, and at an affordable price, most people will still go for regular old beef. One caveat to all this is that the Nectar study found there’s still room for improvement in taste even among the top performing products. For example, it reported that among those who preferred the plant-based products, they prefered them less strongly than those who preferred animal meat. In other words, the animal meat attracted more die-hard fans. This partially explains why some plant-based brands won a Tasty Award, in the language of Nectar, but not a Parity or Superiority Award, which is reserved for products that have an equal or much greater chance of being preferred. Still, the limitations of taste are clear. Given more than half of participants rated 20 plant-based meat products the same or better than animal-based meat, wed expect plant-based meat sales to be a lot higher if taste primarily explained consumer behavior. As frustrating as it may be to champions of alt-meat, this is information we can use. Price, taste, and convenience are certainly factors in consumer choice (if smaller factors than we previously believed), and it can only help the sectorand thus, make a real difference in changing the way people eatto make plant-based meat as tasty and cheap as possible. All of the time and resources going toward that have, likely, not been wasted. But now, its clear we need to diversify our attention. We need researchers to delve into the more amorphous factors that drive peoples food choices, and we need marketers and educators to include them in their messaging. When someone chooses meat over plant-based alternatives, even when they acknowledge that the plant-based option tastes just as good, we need to find out why. We need to start gathering information so we can make a real effort to combat the psychological and social factors keeping people from switching to alternative meats. What is it thats actually stopping them, and how can we remove or lessen those obstacles? Answers to these questions wont come easy, but nothing worthwhile ever does.
Category:
E-Commerce
For years, Google made it incredibly easy to look up someones address, phone number, age, and other personal info. All you had to do was type in a persons name and where they live, and youd get all kinds of details from sites like Whitepages and Spokeo, which pull together that info from public and private sources. Creepy as this is, doing anything about it has always been a slog, and most people never bothered. While some companies charge hundreds of dollars per year to remove this data on your behalf, thats not really necessary. If you have an hour or so to spare, you can hide your personal information from casual snoopers on Google, and even on the people search sites themselves. Its well worth the effort and doesnt cost you anything. This story first appeared in Advisorator, Jareds weekly tech advice newsletter. Sign up for free to get more tips every Tuesday. Googles search results removal tool Googles search results removal tool lets you hide pages that include your personal details with just a few clicks. Heres how it works: Search for your name and a bit of personal info, such as your street number, your city or town, or the last four digits of your phone number. When you find a result that includes your information, click the button next to it. In the sidebar menu that pops up, click Remove Result. When asked why youd like to remove the result, select It shows my personal info and I dont want it there. Select Contact Info, enter your name, and specify the type of info that appears on the page. (If the page shows multiple types, such as your address and phone number, you can select either one.) Type in your name and the contact info that appears on the page. Click Send to confirm the request. Google says it responds to these requests within a few days, but usually it takes less than an hour. While requests are subject to Googles removal policiesit wont for instance, pull results that are newsworthy, or that come from government sourcesit seems to be pretty lax overall. I was even able to remove a page about my wife that listed me as a relative and included a previous home address. One catch: Removal requests require a Google account, so youll need to set one up if you dont have one already. But once youve done that, youll be able to track each request through Googles Results about you dashboard . An update to this dashboard, coming soon, will also proactively surface results that include your personal info, and youll be able to get notified through Googles mobile app if new results arise. A deeper cleanse Removing a result from Google search doesnt delete the page itself. People can still look up that information through other search engines or by going directly to sites like Whitepages. If you want to delete the underlying info, start by setting up Permission Slip, a free app from Consumer Reports that I wrote about a couple years ago. The apps Auto Requests feature automates the process of getting data brokers to delete your info, some of which feeds into popular people search sites. The app is available for both iOS and Android. Beyond that, youll have to make opt out requests with each individual site. Burdensome as this may seem, usually its just a matter of finding their opt out pages, then submitting a link to the offending page along with a valid email address to verify the request. Making manual opt out requests Heres where you can find the opt out pages for major people search sites: Spokeo Whitepages BeenVerified/PeopleLooker/NeighborWho InstantCheckmate/Intellius/TruthFinder/US Search ClustrMaps Nuwber MyLife PeekYou PeopleFinders CheckPeople TruePeopleSearch USPhoneBook FastPeopleSearch SearchPeopleFree Radaris Unmask DeleteMe also offers a searchable list of guides to opting out of more sites. A couple caveats though: Strongly consider using a disposable email address for your requestsno need to give these companies more info than they already haveand do not pay for any opt out services they might try to offer. Should you pay for data removal? If all that seems like too much work, you can always pay a third-party service to handle deletion requests for you. DeleteMe, for instance, charges $129 per year for data removal service, while Optery charges $249 per year for its Ultimate package. But much like third-party antivirus software and system cleaners, these services tend to inflate the amount of work theyre actually doing. An investigation by Consumer Reports found that these services are less effective than manually making opt out requests on your own. That tracks with my own experience trying out Optery. When I signed up for its free version, it claimed that 246 sites were exposing my personal data, yet when I clicked through on many of the results, it said data was nowhere to be found. With the steps Id taken above, most sites have already removed my data or are in the process of doing so, and none of them are showing up in Google anyway. If you insist on paying for data removal service, consider using EasyOptOuts instead. It only costs $20 per year, and while I havent tried it myself, Consumer Reports found that its just as effective as Opterys most expensive planand more effective than other, pricier services. EasyOptOuts also received a positive review from Privacy Guides, another site that I trust. Security through obscurity Ultimately, the goal is not to banish every trace of personal information from the internet. Thats a Sisyphean task, especially given how often our data simply leaks into the hands of hackers. But the more friction you can introduce to the process of looking up your personal info, the more youll be able to deter casual snooping. To that end, even just a little effort goes a long way. This story first appeared in Advisorator, Jareds weekly tech advice newsletter. Sign up for free to get more tips every Tuesday.
Category:
E-Commerce
It takes a lot of chutzpah to walk up to television personality and Skinnygirl founder Bethenny Frankel, put a pair of sunglasses in her hands, and tell her, These are for an oblong face. But that bold act paid off for Kari Dowiak, founder of sunglass brand Memorí Eyewear, which specializes in sunglasses for petite and narrow faces. The result? Frankel posted a 47-second TikTok video recounting the exchange and showing off the sunnies, calling them cute and high quality. The video went viral, racking up more than 1.3 million views as of mid-April, and skyrocketing the companys sales. Of course, it wasnt all happenstance. Dowiak had signed up for a networking event and noticed that Frankel was a late addition to the speaker lineup. The founder immediately went to work analyzing Frankels social media posts to find out more about her interests and figure out a strategy to get the sunglasses in front of her. She refined and rehearsed her six-second pitch in advanceincluding noting that Frankel had called her face oblong in a post and adopting that language. Dowiak positioned herself at the location where speakers entered and exited the stage, ensuring she would have access to Frankel. It was a professional event, so approaching Frankel wasnt making it weird, she says. You have to be aware of your environment. I would never have approached Bethenny if she was getting out of the Uber with her daughter, Dowiak says. But the situation was right. ASK to receive Negotiation and leadership expert Linda Swindling says a research-based approach like Dowiaks is essential if you want to turn a big introduction or chance meeting into an opportunity. She uses the acronym ASK to map out her action plan when sussing out the potential for a sale or collaboration. First, comes awareness. You may be aware of the person or that they have a similar interest. Then, you seek greater understanding. That may require asking questions or doing research. Finally, the know phase is know your next step, once youve gathered your information, refined your pitch, and are ready to make the ask. Natalie Dawson and her husband, Brandon, used a similar approach when they sought out entrepreneur and investor Grant Cardone to partner with him on a business opportunity. They purchased front-row tickets to a 35,000-person event at which Cardone was speaking. When they had the opportunity to meet him face-to-face, they came prepared, which Dawson says is a key step in turning intros into relationships and opportunities.We’d already done enough research to know what they were offering and what they weren’t offering, and we created a solution for an opportunity that they didn’t even know that they had, she recalls. We already had a track record. It wasnt like we were asking him for a favor. Orchestrating networking introductions With social media making many folks just a post away, some of these introductions dont even need to be face-to-face. Tim Sharp found his next big opportunity on LinkedIn. He noticed Michael Browning, the founder and CEO of Unleashed Brands, pop up on his feed and was impressed by the entrepreneurs energy and enthusiasm as well as the companys Urban Air Adventure Parks, which are indoor adventure parks for children. He began interacting online, responding to some of Brownings posts. The engagement caught Brownings attention, and he asked Sharp to get in touch with members of his management team. Sharp met with some of the companys senior executivesand soon became one, being named vice president of operations in 2019. Within a few days, he was in Toronto, opening a new park. That year, the company opened 54 parks in 52 weeks. This year, Sharp was named brand president. Leveraging opportunity for the long-term Natalie says asking Cardone to partner on business consultancy Cardone Ventures was just the first step. Their pitch made the business opportunity potentially lucrative for Cardone, offering a 50% partnership. In addition, she says, the couple kept showing up. In other words, they put in the time and effort consistently to make the business successful. Last year, the companys gross revenue was $220 million. But whats more impressive is the thousands of business owners whose businesses have grown since working with us, Natalie says. Sharp says that authenticity drove his relationship with Browning and his team from the start. Sometimes, people get caught up in trying to sell themselves. The best way to find the right fit iswell, dont sell yourself and listen to what the appeal is, he says. If it speaks to you, and youre able to match that energy and that feeling, youll find that once-in-a-lifetime game changer on both sides. Playing the long game And if you dont? Swindling says that sometimes, an introduction or meeting is the first play in a long game. If you get a no, ask questions about why to get to the heart of that decision. It could be as simple as asking, I heard you say no. Can you tell me about that? You might find that getting to yes simply requires more information, adherence to a process, or some other fixable step. And, if not, it may be the start of a relationship where you build trust and interest and get to yes over time. And while Dowiak doesnt know what the future holds with Frankel, she is using the cash infusion from the sales uptick to invest in her business, negotiate better terms with her supplier, and even invest in some advertising, all of which will help make her business stronger. Before Bethenny, I never ran a single ad, she says. Now the kind of return on ad spend that we’re going to be able to get is so much higher because so many people have interacted.
Category:
E-Commerce
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