Men everywhere are ditching “shants” for classic manly shorts, thanks to the recent Chubbies line launch party.
“Sun’s out, guns out,” is so 2010.
This passé proverb for showing off your arms in warm weather has been overthrown by a new fashion statement: sky’s out, thighs out.
Kevin Hartz, our co-founder and CEO, recently challenged all Britelings to attend an event listed on Eventbrite. On August 20, I checked out the Chubbies shorts line launch party in San Francisco. The Chubbies brand, founded by three Stanford graduates, is on a mission to “get back to the awesomeness of 70s and 80s shortswear, when dudes weren’t burdened with excess leg fabric, or ‘shants’, as we call them at Chubbies HQ.”
Think Tom Selleck in Magnum PI meets John McEnroe.
“We see the Chubbies brand as a map to shortswear Utopia, guiding dudes across the country to the most comfortable, awesome shorts ever,” said Tom Montgomery, co-founder. “The in-person interaction with your first pair of Chubbies is an essential part of the overall Chubbies experience, which made our launch event all the more important.”
The Chubbies launch event proved so successful, that crowds stayed afterward to hang out in their new dukes.
The event was on the back patio of Unwind, a wine bar and restaurant in the Marina district of San Francisco. The sunlit space provided an ideal spot for men and women to liberate their legs from pants and advertise their thighs with some new dukes. After trying on and purchasing a pair of Nantucket red Chubbies, I caved and grabbed a second pair in white.
“We wanted to use our launch event to make an emotional connection with new consumers,” Montgomery said. “It was an intimate space and atmosphere, so we were able to get great product feedback.”
This is the first big-time event these guys have planned, and they learned some important lessons, firsthand.
“We learned that it’s essential to find a perfect venue,” Montgomery said. “Take the time to speak with a lot of folks and check out all of the potential places. The work you put in up-front will really pay off on the day of your event.”
Attendees were walking out of the launch party with new shorts on their thighs, thanks to a venue that allowed the co-founders to interact with attendees and share the Chubbies story.
The Chubbies team showed that throwing a launch party to introduce your brand to consumers boosts brand loyalty. People will know and understand the folks behind the brand and the mission, and remember that when they interact with your product. It’s so effective that, say, a new brand loyalist who has to wear pants on his Vespa will park, and, before entering the bar to watch Saturday football, strip down on a busy Union Street sidewalk to reveal his new Chubbies shorts.
Not that I know anything about that.
Do your tired shants a favor and grab yourself a pair of these shorts and tell us, have you been to any awesome events recently?
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