How Ford Models became the hottest thing on YouTube.
Clothes made from recycled materials can, as it turns out, be a little itchy. Still, Jackie Stewart is determined to dwell on the positive, and so she is chatting engagingly about what she is wearing, a dress by designer Kate Goldwater constructed from scraps of fabric. She points out that in addition to striking a blow for mother earth, it fits well and is brightly colored. The dress does, in fact, look great on her, though Stewart, absurdly long-legged, breezily poised, and pretty in a way that somehow seems both Midwestern and exotic, would probably make a dress put together from inner tubes look smart.
Stewart is so comfortable talking up green style that it's easy to forget she is on a set being filmed, until director Damian Weyand interrupts to suggest she not flourish her arms to call attention to the dress. "It's a little too Price Is Right," he says. "We just want you to be Jackie, not spokesy."
Just being Jackie isn't the sort of thing normally asked of Stewart. She's a professional model in the stable of Ford Models, the storied agency that for six decades has been a headquarters for many of the fashion world's most memorable faces. Ford, in fact, is producing this 83-second video--one of more than 1,000 the agency has made featuring its models gabbing informally about style, hitting the racks at clothing boutiques, sweating through workouts, and hanging out backstage at fashion shows and photo shoots. The videos have become a new-media hit, turning up all over the Web. On YouTube, some have garnered as many as a million views, making Ford's videos YouTube's third-most-popular destination.
At a time when companies from all industries are struggling to tap the marketing power of the Internet, Ford seems to have cracked the code. In doing so, it has transformed itself from an old-line modeling agency rooted in providing personnel to fashion-show runways, magazines, and mail-order catalogs into a hit new-media production company. Its audience extends far beyond teenage girls. Advertising agencies, apparel manufacturers, and retailers, eager to connect with consumers online, also are calling--not only to hire models but also to sponsor videos. Revenue is up 140 percent over the past five years. And in December, the company announced that it had received a "significant" investment from Stone Tower Capital, a New York investment firm that manages more than $14 billion in assets--funds that will allow Ford to burnish its online brand even more.
Now, instead of merely serving the fashion influencers, Ford has become a leading digital-age fashion influencer. "I can't think of many other companies that have been as savvy as Ford in marketing themselves online," says Pamela Seidman, director of communications for Express, the 500-store fashion retailer. Ford's success is strong evidence that the online world has barely begun to reveal all the surprising opportunities open to businesses. It also demonstrates that there's no telling which are best positioned to take advantage of them.
An outsider might imagine the Ford headquarters as a den of icy, gorgeous high style. But it turns out to be surprisingly friendly and down to earth--stylish in a funky rather than fashion-obsessed way, with bookers, models, and clients all mingling. That informal atmosphere is encouraged by Ford's CEO, John Caplan, who joined the agency five years ago. Caplan, 38, has no formal background in fashion. Rather, he started his career, in the early 1990s, in advertising, helping to build the Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) and AriZona Iced Tea brands. In 1996, he joined the dot-com boom as a marketing executive at About.com. He rose to the rank of president before leaving in 2001, after the company was acquired by publisher Primedia for more than $500 million.
Meanwhile, Ford Models remained an industry icon, albeit an increasingly embattled one. It was founded, in 1946, in New York, as one of the first modeling agencies, by former model and fashion reporter Eileen Ford and her husband, Jerry. Eileen became famous not only for her ability to spot photogenic bone structures but also for the protective and demanding attention she lavished on her mostly teenage talent, often taking models in to live at her home. The company quickly came to dominate the business and over the decades commanded top attention as well as top dollar for names such as Cheryl Tiegs, Christie Brinkley, Ali MacGraw, Rene Russo, and Jerry Hall, all while remaining under family control.
In 1996, Katie Ford took the reins from her parents. The agency was facing stiff competition for the most promising new models from several directions, including large rivals like Elite, a growing horde of boutique agencies, and powerful sports and Hollywood talent management firms like IMG, which were expanding into fashion. Ford, who holds an M.B.A. from Columbia University, attempted to put the company on more solid footing by seeking a merger with another player in the talent management business. She negotiated a deal, in 2000, to sell a majority interest in Ford for a reported $22 million to Magnum Sports & Entertainment, which specialized in representing athletes. But the deal fell through.
By then it was clear that most media-driven businesses were relentlessly being pushed willy-nilly onto the Web, and it seemed to Ford that fashion would inevitably be forced to follow--and that perhaps there was an opportunity to lead the charge. Ford Models, she decided, needed a new-media makeover, and a headhunter pointed her to Caplan, who joined as chief operating officer in 2002.
His first move was to tweak the core business: booking jobs for 2,200 models, hairstylists, makeup artists, photographers, and other talent, a business that comprises some 65,000 transactions a year in 14 offices around the world. He moved the New York headquarters from its legendary two-floor digs in SoHo to a new headquarters uptown, where the 90 bookers would be closer to the media and fashion action. A new state-of-the-art booking system put a wide range of data at bookers' fingertips.
