J. Crew Results

If you want to review thoroughly enjoyable comments from J. Crew management, take a look at the most recent investor conference call. Management offers surprisingly candid views on folks who are copy-cat merchandisers. They also plan to reduce catalog circulation, following successful tests in Q4-2008 ... this is the irony of the multichannel model, folks. We were taught that we had to mail catalogs to drive sales --- except that the retailers testing this stuff are cutting back on catalogs or discontinuing them. Hmmmmm.

If you check to see if J. Crew has a Twitter presence, you'll see they have parked the J. Crew name.

But no need to worry --- other folks do the marketing for J. Crew. 1,119 folks follow the Jcrewaholics on Twitter, or follow via the Jcrewaholics blog. When I posted a comment about J. Crew on Twitter last night, Jcrewaholics pinged me back in about five minutes ... mind you, they probably never knew I existed prior to my comment on my Twitter page.

Imagine what all this stuff looks like in five years, should momentum really pick up. If this discipline can be done right (a huge "if"), how much marketing would really be needed?