‘ Steals & Deals’ for Holiday
At lunchtime on a mid-October day, Jill Martin appeared on FaceTime clad in a set of navyand-white pajamas and perched on some lawn furniture in the backyard of her Hamptons, N.Y., home, surrounded by no less than 20 Christmas trees from a store called Rent-a-Christmas and a mountain of fake snow.
Martin, the resident shopping expert on NBC’s “Today” morning show, was filming a two-hour special, “Peacock Presents: Holiday Steals and Deals,” in her backyard for safety reasons and the pajamas — a set from Hale Bob — were among the many items, mainly from small businesses, that she will be featuring.
The first of its kind for the network as more people are expected to shop from home than ever before this holiday season amid the pandemic, the stand-alone shopping show — an extended version of the Steals & Deals franchise — will air Monday at 9 a.m. ET on “Today All Day,” the morning show’s new streaming channel on NBCUniversal’s Peacock and Today.com.
“It’s an interesting way in the pandemic for people to cross off everyone on their list because it’s such a different year for everyone so we’re doing things differently obviously,” Martin said. “We just are trying to invite people to escape for two hours with us without avoiding the obvious that we know a lot of people aren’t with their immediate and extended families and it will be a tough holiday season for a lot of people.”
As well as her family, there will also be virtual appearances by “Today” show’s Al Roker and Dylan Dreyer and celebrity guests Olivia Culpo, Kathie
Lee Gifford and Tracy Morgan, all highlighting deals across fashion, beauty, home and kitchen products, which viewers can shop by scanning the ShoppableTV QR code on screen or by visiting Today.com.
NBC has been been delving deeper into shoppable content over the past year and Ashley Parrish, vice president of its custom productions unit and executive editor at Today Digital, hopes this show could become a regular feature.
“We know that Steals & Deals is such a successful ‘Today’ franchise and it started on the show. We’ve expanded it into this innovative digital platform and this is the next extension,” she said. “Obviously, commerce is a big priority for us this year, but it really ties to our other priority this year, which is ‘Today All Day’ — our 24-hour streaming offering that we launched on Peacock and has now expanded to other streaming platforms.”
Other recent commerce initiatives include publishing more than 100 gift guides so far this year and launching the “one great find” newsletter. It has been using QR codes to shop content on TV since 2019.
As for how NBC makes money from this area, it’s based on affiliates, with the network taking a percentage of the sales, but the products they choose to feature begins with editorial and not business, according to Parrish.
“It actually doesn’t start with the business side of it. It starts with editorial. We first look at what are the great products, what are the segments, how do the products fit into the segment, how do they tell a story, do they check all the boxes we want to check for steals and deals — great product, great value, something that will last, all of that,” she continued. — .KATHRYN HOPKINS. as Marc Geiger and Kristin
Patrick to build the new company, which is one part magazine, one part fashion line, and one part media and entertainment company.
Jarrett said he was inspired to start a magazine two years ago, seeing new publications in London and thought to start a title centered on his passions. He said that he started with the apparel first and showed his collection in Paris, London and Tokyo and sold in Japan first. “The clothing line is almost even more personal, with personal, spiritual sayings that I came up with,” he said.
Pieces like army, bomber and coaches jackets, trench coats, T-shirts, sweatshirts and hoodies, knit pants, denim jeans and accessories are made in
Los Angeles and feature the name Marvin and phrases like “permanent throwaway” and “messiah on a good day.” Prices range from $72 for a graphic T-shirt to $700.
But Marvin, the magazine, has a non-traditional approach to advertising. Marvin will partner with one company for an issue and for the long and short-form video content they produce. The first partner is Porsche, which Cottrill said wanted to get more involved with music.
“To have our partner Porsche on the back cover was really important, and they did a special poster for the inside,” Jarrett said. “We’re going to be doing some video content with them as well.” The partnership will continue to the launch of the next issue.
“Our goal here is to be a company that tells stories through apparel, print, and digital media and to partner with brands,” Cottrill said. “We’re not a traditional advertising company, but we’ll partner with brands.”
They are going to be selective on what brands they partner with and aim to align with partners that “appreciate quality and culture and want to contribute to it and want to create something new and not another ad that someone won’t remember,” Jarrett said.
Koepke said he was interested in joining Jarrett on the venture for many reasons, including Marvin being the marriage between his advertising expertise and publication history. “After Vibe, I hadn’t worked with another magazine,” Koepke said. “I was very excited about the opportunity to produce something of high quality again. I think we can reinvent how brands communicate to their proposed customers. It’s about quality and quality of life. Its better than a print advertisement, I’m an artist at heart.”
While many argue that print is dead, the trio assert this is not the case. Cottrill said, “Bad print is dead. In a world where everyone has jumped to digital and it’s such a noisy crowded world for everyone, I compare this to the resurgence of vinyl.”
Koepke lamented that his friends in the printing process don’t look at proofs anymore. “We have great photographers in the world and people that work on their craft and we don’t celebrate them,” he said. “For me, it’s really this beautiful thing you can hold and it’s great to have these objects of art people have crafted.
“We’re calling it the rebirth of print,” he added. “We put it on the cover. What Geoff said is pretty true. The distribution system for magazines is in a different place than it’s been 10 years ago. Even people that are 18 or 20 years old, if they hold something like this in their hand, they’re going to get excited. This publication doesn’t belong at the grocery store, it’s a piece of art.”
— OBI ANYANWU
Already Community has signed up a mix of models, artists, musicians, actors, journalists and public speakers, and even a chef, numbering about 15 so far. Nearly all of them are in the BIPOC or LGBTQ communities. There’s Hunter Schafer, who acted opposite Zendaya in “Euphoria”; musicians like Arca and Gashi; MMA fighter Rose Namajunas; artists such as Samuel de Saboia and Delphine Diallo, and models like Aaron Philip and Lewis Freese.
Lamstein described the agency vision of the three founders, all hailing from Laotian parents who immigrated to the Midwest, as “strong and curated” when it comes to talent. And to be sure, there isn’t a conventional story to be had behind any of Community’s current clients. It’s a group that goes across genders, races and identities.
“We didn’t want to be just another modeling agency or talent agency,” Lamstein said. “We wanted to do something different, and for us, three first-generation Laotians, we don’t come from fashion. We come from factory workers, immigrants.”
But Lamstein, Cayley and Keo have all worked in fashion through modeling for the past 20 years. Lamstein was with Elite for eight years, the last few of which Cayley worked as the agency’s executive vice president after spending many earlier years at DNA. Keo also spent a few years at Elite, and DNA before that. Together they represented some of the biggest names in modeling, including Mariacarla Boscono, Doutzen Kroes and Natalia Vodianova.
The Community founders all had their contracts at Elite come up this year and decided not to renew, they said.
“We were kind of going back and forth on what made sense for us,” Keo said. “We’d been in COVID-19 for six months and we were all just having a revelation about what was important to us.”
“We could have stayed at Elite, we could have gone to another agency, but it was like, ‘What are we doing?” Lamstein added. “We have such a unique vision for where the industry is going and who we want to represent. This is the time to do it.”
“Also, when we were talking to other agencies, no one knew where the industry is going and they still don’t,” Cayley said. “So we kind of took the bull by the horns and said, ‘Let’s do this’ and then how do we do it our way and how do we empower our talent.”
As for how they go about finding that talent, it’s a mix of referrals from friends and family and online scouting. Then they simply let the clients be who they are.
Model Aaron Philip recently signed on with Community and is working with Keo after the team reached out. She called the agency and its approach to representation a “breath of fresh air.”
“What I’ve learned about being a model is it’s not about the agency you have, it’s about the agent you have,” Philip said. “It’s about the connection you have and how far they’re willing to go with you.”
With her focus on modeling, Philip said she has “no doubt” that she’ll get where she wants to go with Community.
Another client is Namajunas, a mixed martial artist, now represented by Cayley. Of her decision to join the agency, Namajunas said it came down to her belief in “energy and relationships.”
“Community is very personable and real,” she added, “and that’s what I look for in people I work with.”
And what Lamstein, Cayley and Keo are looking for in who they represent sounds similar. Cayley said sitting down, mainly over Zoom, with new clients to hear their story has been “so powerful and inspiring.”
“To hear them say, ‘I didn’t have anyone growing up that I could identify with,’ that’s our idea of beauty,” Cayley went on. “Now it’s about getting into the mass market and getting that reach for them.” —KALI HAYS