Journey’s Catalog: Keepin’ It Real

Cool design and real-life models keep the Journeys catalog on the cutting-edge of teen fashion

Taking a cue from MTV, the networks are filling their schedules with reality-based TV, especially after the success of “Survivor.” It’s easy. You don’t have to pay actors, write scripts or spend for big-time special effects. Just turn on the cameras.

Viewers seem to have great interest in seeing real people in front of the lens. And one company has taken that ball and run with it into the catalog space.

Officials at Journeys, a retail chain with more than 400 locations, launched their catalog during the 2000 holiday season with a reality-based design format. The catalog markets shoes to youths—from skate-boarders to club kids, preppies to punks.

How can you truly stay on the cutting-edge of teen fashion? It’s simple. You go where young people hang out. If it’s hot, they’re wearing it. Journeys’ photographers capture real teens on location, in restaurants, at the beach, in skate parks and attending the X-Games. The idea: Customers will identify with their peers, not some super-waif fresh off the runway whose closest run-in with a skate-board came when her limo passed the park downtown.

Carliss Million, creative director at Catalogs by Lorél, Journeys’ design agency, describes how they arrived at their format: “We really looked into our demographic, how our market responds to sales pitches. [Buyers] want things that are real, true. They don’t want to be talked down to or sold to. Authenticity is important.”

The Models

Imagine you’re 15, chillin’ on the wall with your friends, watchin’ boarders pull off some sick stuff in the half-pipe, and suddenly people with cameras ask if you want to be in a catalog. “It’s because you look fly,” they say. (They’ve also got $50 American Express checks for you and your friends.)

Bret Moore, vice president of marketing and e-commerce for Journeys, describes a photo shoot: “You can’t really plan it. It’s all ad lib and off-the-cuff. You’re at the mercy of your environment in these situations, and you have to put faith in your creative team to pull it off. We’re there for the ambiance and environment, a place where we can pick a person off the street who is already wearing the type of apparel or has the look we want captured. We don’t have to do hair or makeup; we just put shoes on them, and we’re set.”

Typically, Lorél photographers search for Journeys’ next stars in places where young people congregate, such as concerts and athletic contests. The creative crew recently completed shooting at Jazz Fest in New Orleans, and shots from the Big Easy will be featured prominently in the fall issue.

The photo shoots are presented in slice-of-life film strips, running around the borders of the catalog’s pages. All Journeys’ models sign a release allowing the catalog unrestrained use of their images. Models younger than age 18 also need parental consent.

The Look

This is not your run-of-the-mill shoe catalog. White space is almost non-existent, and pages are packed to the point of overflowing with images of products and the customers who use them.

According to Mary Field, Journeys’ account executive at Lorél, the catalog’s design is meant to fit with what its customers see at the movies and on TV. “We look at their influences and try to shoehorn all the information and styles into the page,” says Field. “But, we didn’t want to walk away from the things deemed successful in traditional catalogs. We wanted to break rules, but not at the risk of not selling shoes.”

Moore says that the catalog’s energy and enthusiasm make it unique. “It’s carried off in our stores, and we wanted to capture that in a print vehicle in a real way. We were concerned that if we hired models, it would look staged. That’s why we decided to use real people for the creative. It gives a different look and feel.” Journeys’ logo (above right) also reflects the going-in-all-directions chaos of youth.

The Attitude

The catalog’s feel is swaggering and cutting-edge. The motto says it all: “Attitude you can wear.”

According to Moore, the idea is to make customers comfortable. The informal copy reads as if it’s still floating in a bubble next to the customer’s mouth. The company’s store locations play the same music videos customers see on MTV. “Music is a big part of their culture,” says Moore.

The copy inside last winter’s inaugural issue develops the attitude for both the magazine and the individual brands:

Talk is cheap. And anyway, who’s listening. It’s your life. It’s your look. It’s your feet. So somebody’s gonna tell you what to put ‘em in? Right. Not our job. We’re just here with the coolest shoes on the planet. You got an attitude? We got no problem with that. We do got your shoes, though. ... Look you didn’t come by this attitude easy. Stand by it.

What’s Hot

In addition to modeling for the catalog, to the surprise of no one, many teens freely provide consulting services. Million says, “We don’t have to know what’s hot. Our customers tell us. We keep a finger on the pulse of these kids and what they want, footwear-wise.”

That said, Journeys’ buyers still do research throughout North America and Europe. “If there’s a hot product, there’s a 95-percent chance we’re already carrying it in our stores,” he says.

Market research and street buzz are fine for established brands and widely sold products, but what about items that are hard to find elsewhere or are unique to your catalog? It can be tough to predict how they’ll sell. One such item was the Kitty Kat shoe from TUK (above). Offered in Journeys’ Spring 2001 catalog, the $139.99 item sold out in less than a week.

The Pace

You think it stresses out teens to try and stay cool? Imagine what it does to adults trying to stay on top of teen trends. When asked what they’d change, the folks at Journeys point to the hectic pace of youth fashions. What’s hot changes so rapidly that 98 percent of every catalog edition’s product line-up is new. Consequently, each issue is redesigned completely.

The catalog is mailed three times a year: holidays, spring and fall. Each issue has three drops to cover the categories within the shoe business: athletic, men’s and women’s. Versioning changes occur on the covers and the second and third pages.

Nuts and Bolts

Almost all of the copy for Journeys is written by Gerry Stankus, creative director/copywriter at Lorél. Since much of the copy affects the merchandise branding in the catalog, brand managers from, say, Skechers or Timberland can review their page layout. According to Field, most vendors are happy with the copy. “It’s wonderful to work with clients who say, ‘Go. Break the rules. Do your thing.’”

Moore reveals that in the half-year it’s been mailing, the catalog has exceeded the company’s sales forecast. The average order is $90. The catalog is printed by Quebecor World, Elk Grove, IL, on Meade Vision Velvet 50 matte stock.

An aura of authenticity may be the key to selling to youths in the 21st century. What better way to achieve that aura than to have real people, off the street, modeling your merchandise? Indeed, this cataloger enjoys a combination of real people as models and a savvy design team that can stretch the boundaries.