It seemed like a sure-fire plan: Hipper homeshopping for the Baby Bust set, and the Baby Boomers too.
Take MTV Networks-home to MTV, VH-1 and Nickelodeon-with its coveted demographics and prodigious viewership. Enlist fashion’s premier rock n’ roll designers-Marc Jacobs, Todd Oldham, Isaac Mizrahi and Anna Sui-to churn out trendy yet affordable street duds.
Toss in Cindy Crawford and another supermodel or two. Add twentysomething vee-jays with slacker sarcasm, peppered with you-gotta-have-it enthusiasm. Finally, crank up the tunes.
Can’t miss, right?
Wrong.
“The Goods,” MTV Network’s foray into the lucrative world of electronic retailing, was launched last August with different shows targeted for each of the three networks. But “The Goods,” hasn’t quite produced the goods, industry analysts say.
For VH-1’s Boomers, there were designer Todd Oldham’s clothes and housewares and the Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge tour bomber jackets. For hip-hoppers, there was “The Goods: House of Style,” featuring the streetwise styles of Sui and Jacobs. On Nickelodeon’s Nick-At-Nite, there were “Bewitched” and “I Dream of Jeannie” watches and the retro-fashions of designer Isaac Mizrahi.
“The Goods” wraps up in early June with its final segment: “Think Positive,” a special that coincides with the fashion industry’s AIDS fundraiser, “7th on Sale.”
MTV officials won’t discuss sales. They point to some successes, namely, Woodstock II concert tie-ins and licensed products such as Beavis and Butt-head paraphernalia. Boomers tuning in to Todd Oldham on VH-1 and Isaac Mizrahi on Nick-At-Nite showed some interest.
But they admit that most of the fashion failed to entice. Teenagers-MTV’s lifeblood-who travel in packs and don’t carry plastic, prefer their shopping on the low-tech side-namely, in the mall.
“Every marketer in the country would love to tap into the $16 billion of the bubble-gum set,” said Alan Millstein, editor and publisher of Fashion Network News, a New York-based industry newsletter. “But the teenage market doesn’t sit at home endlessly watching TV. (MTV) was playing Beethoven to an audience that wants to hear rap music.”
Maybe so, but Viacom Inc.’s MTV wasn’t the only company disappointed by electronic retailing.
Tribune Co. failed with “Can We Shop?” hosted by Joan Rivers; QVC’s younger, hipper counterpart, “Q2,” failed as well. And, in the past several years, virtually every shopping network-and there were dozens-attempting to topple Comcast Corp.’s QVC and Home Shopping Network Inc. ended up hopelessly mired in mud. Even heavy hitters such as Macy’s, Spiegel and J.C. Penney never even got on the air.
Why? for one thing, analysts say, home shopping irritates more than it entices. MTV’s “The Goods” was no exception. And even if MTV found a way to overcome viewer apathy, industry analysts say, cable is a tricky business. Or, as John Motavalli, editorial director of “Inside Media,” puts it, “This is not a field that’s open.”
Those trying to launch a network need two things: millions of subscribers and an agreement with a giant cable operator, such as TeleCommunications Inc.
In this era of cable regulation and limited channel capacity, that doesn’t happen very often, Motavalli said, adding that infomercials, with their low-cost productions, almost always outperform home-shopping shows.
So, the decidedly low-rent ambiance of QVC and HSN might elicit snickers, but everyone, including MTV, wants a try at the $1.2 billion in sales each network rakes in annually.
Despite the lackluster showing by “The Goods,” MTV says it’s still bullish on launching a fourth network geared toward interactive shopping.
“The Goods,” said Mark Rosenthal, the executive in charge of the venture, was just a test. In the event that MTV blows up “The Goods” to a 24-hour operation, the company will be ready.
“We wanted to see if we could turn people on,” added Gabe Doppelt, who heads up non-music merchandising acquisitions for MTV Networks Shopping Inc. and snared the hot designers for “The Goods.” Doppelt said she’s convinced they did turn on their viewers; she just wishes more teens had credit cards.
So what’s next?
According to Rosenthal, a team of MTV researchers is deciding whether to create a network that could grab a chunk of the 96 percent of TV-watching Americans who don’t tune in to QVC or Home Shopping Network.
“If you’re providing a service to people and you’re doing it in a relatively cool and classy way,” Rosenthal said, pounding his fist for emphasis, “They will come.”
Meanwhile, while MTV ponders its next move, there is at least one participant who was thrilled with the outcome.
For fashion’s media darling, Isaac Mizrahi, starring in “Isaac Mizrahi: A Frockumentary” for Nick-At-Nite, for which he designed clothes inspired by classic television characters, was an “ideal situation.”?
While showing clothes on QVC wouldn’t be good for his image, he reasoned, selling clothes on trendy Nick-At-Nite “in an edgy way” would be great for his image-so great that he starred in his own show for free.
“But let’s not deny this: You can’t buy a fitted suit or couture on TV,” Mizrahi said. “But you can buy easy clothes in a second. It’s better than a catalog.”
