Amazon took our product and copied it exactly

[JohnMike]

When done right, it's eye-catching and unforgettable. Peak Design, a maker of DTC bags and carry solutions, took a creative approach to its knockoffs. This approach went viral: We sat down with Elish Patel, Peak Design's VP of Marketing and Growth, to find out how they used creative marketing to take on Amazon's goliath. How did the video of the two slings come about? Were you surprised by the response to the video? Peak Design: It started as a fun project. We are no strangers to a scam on our products. But it's usually not someone like Amazon. You can usually tell when it's done by someone else. They change the logo, or this or that. Amazon took our product and copied it exactly. Even [how we put our logo] on a patch, on a very specific part of the back, same shape and material, and they put "Amazon Basics" instead of "Peak Design." This is the craziest thing we've ever seen from them. We sell on Amazon.


Which is even crazier. We are a small company. We do quite a bit of patent infringement to protect our products. But we couldn't do Denmark Phone Number List anything but make fun of this. It seemed like another great opportunity to make a very funny video. And then we turned it up and it went crazy. I think we had over half a million views in the first day. They are a fast growing successful company. However, they continue to use the Kickstarter model. Can you tell me a bit more about why you keep doing it? Peak Design: It has evolved over the years. When we started, we needed money and input from our customers to move into production.



Especially in large numbers to be able to ship worldwide. Then as we've evolved, it was a combination of staying within our community and giving them a discount for being a part of this early on. To some degree, they can have a say in what they want and what they like [in the product]. We've made some last minute changes to our designs for certain projects thanks to the influence of our Kickstarter community.