I'm Eric Beder from Small Cap Consumer Research, and we are pleased to introduce Ciaran Long, interim CEO and CFO of a.k.a. Brands Holding Corp. Ticker is AKA, and it trades here on the New York Stock Exchange. Ciaran, good morning.
Good morning, Eric.
Good morning, San Francisco.
Nice to meet you.
Ciaran joined the AKA in April 2021 as CFO, and he added the title of interim CEO in March 2023. Prior to joining AKA, he was the CFO of Sam's Club, and he spent seven years in leadership positions at Walmart e-commerce division. Before that, he founded a company called CleanGrow, which developed sensor tech to measure water quality. Ciaran is an Irish chartered accountant. So, sir, welcome, and great to have you.
Thanks, Eric.
Why don't you give us a quick overview of a.k.a. Brands and kind of how it works?
Sure. Thanks, Eric, and nice to be talking to you all. So a.k.a. Brands is a portfolio of direct-to-consumer, direct-to-consumer fashion brands. You know, we've two brands on the women's side, two brands on the men's side. What really differentiates us is our data-driven approach to merchandising. We are also pretty much exclusively proprietary designed fashion for our consumers, social media-led from an advertising perspective, and also just from a technology and an operations perspective, we're very much asset-light, using best of breed that's out there and, you know, be able to be very reactive to kind of the best technologies that are out there in the market. And really for us, that just allows us to be very nimble, and scale these brands quickly as we bring them into the U.S.
We've got a video I think that gives a pretty good view of the look and feel that the consumers get from these great brands, if we could just run that.
Okay, so let's drill a little bit into that. So three of the brands, Princess Polly, Culture Kings, excuse me, Petal & Pup, are from Australia, and the fourth brand, mnml , is a Los Angeles brand. How did you end up with three brands from Australia? What was so special or about that market, or what made it more ability? Let's talk about that. How did—why did you end up with that role?
Sure. You know, I think we, we were always looking for, for great brands that are really, you know, engaging, you know, in a differentiated way with consumers and with an operating model and a financial model that, that allows them, you know, to consistently generate profit, generate cash. And what we saw with these Australian brands is they had just natural, organic demand in the U.S., and, and our focus became scaling these brands in the U.S. You know, we're, we're very fortunate at this stage, you know, about 70% of our revenue is now from the U.S., so that obviously by, by far the largest, market. You know, we grew 6%, in Q1 in the U.S., active customer growth up 5.5%.
And for us, we just really see, and the largest opportunity by far for these brands is in the U.S. You know, we're at different stages of growth for each of the brands in the U.S., but really looking to scale them, and that's from a direct consumer perspective, but also doing more now in stores with some of the brands and in wholesale and marketplace.
So let's talk about some of the points of the business model. You have this test and repeat focus. Kind of talk to us about how that differentiates you and how it lets you respond quickly to fashion trends, kind of both, I guess, online and in your stores.
Sure, and I think, look, test and repeat is just really core to what we do and what we do at each of these brands. You know, it's really how they started on their business, and with that, we are constantly introducing new product each week, and that, you know, that newness is a key driver for customer engagement, allows you to have more effective marketing. The other thing, as you see when you put on these new products, you know, if they're selling well and you get that sell-through really quickly, if consumers are responding to them, you buy back into that product and seeing it become more successful.
You know, if the product isn't working very well, you just, you know, you've bought a small number of units, you know, not a big risk from an inventory perspective. You let it sell down. And for us, you know, I think the first thing it allows us to be is just very on trend for our consumer, right? And for us, for that consumer, apparel in the fashion space, being on trend is just super, super important for, you know, the longevity of the brand, but also the financial performance of the brand. So for us, you know, it allows us to take less inventory risk, less markdowns, better gross margins, better inventory turn, and with all of that, you just see benefits across the P&L for this model.
Yeah, you know, it's actually fascinating. You know, lately, if you look at some, I guess, fast fashion, there are worries about the environment, worries about too much product being made, and I know you do this a little bit differently. Could you maybe contrast yourself with some of these, you know, like, SHEIN and some of the other fast fashion players? Because your model is definitely not focused in that way.
Yeah, I think very much. Yeah, it's a good point, Eric. I think, look, and maybe for Princess Polly, for us, our, our largest brand, I think, you know, there's, there's three core tenets for that brand, right? You know, on-trend fashion, accessible price point, but in a sustainable way. And they do a huge amount of work on sustainability, you know, and just thinking about really what that consumer wants in that sustainable way, and that's very much kind of core to that brand and core to how they, they go to market. I think the other thing for us, right, is we really focus on the quality of the product, right? And, you know, these are all brands that that's a key part of what they do.
You know, with that, we see some of the lowest return rates across that e-commerce in industry, in e-commerce apparel industry. So we're down at about a 20% return rate, which is, you know, significantly lower than others, and that really coming from the quality of the product, you know, the fit of the product. And when people are buying from us, because it's product that's exclusively, you know, designed for us, manufactured for us, they know their fit once they have bought from that brand, and really then with that, can kind of...
You know, we just have better customer repeat rates, better customer LTV, and just with that kind of focus on the model, you know, I would say very different from other people in the, you know, in the more, I would say, SHEIN and Temu space.
Great. Let's talk about some of the brands. So let's talk about Princess Polly, which I believe is your largest brand. You know, what has been driving growth there? I know you've opened up your first store, too. So how should we be thinking of the opportunities here for Princess Polly?
Yeah. Princess Polly is certainly our largest brand, and it's the brand we've really been kind of accelerating in the U.S. for the longest period. Like I talked about, Princess Polly focuses, you know, on trend fashion, accessible price point, and in a sustainable way. They have very much, you know, I would say, furthest along and have really developed that test and repeat model. It's just core to what they do. You know, they focus on that 15-25-year-old female consumer, pretty consistently, you know, pop up in kind of top 10 fashion brands that the upper income female teen is looking at.
Interestingly, they've done that, you know, probably one of the few on that list that have done that really until last September without stores, so very much just with their innovative approach to marketing as well. We have opened the first store for the brand in Century City in L.A. last September. Seeing that doing really well, you know, ahead of sales projections, nice profitability, and interestingly, about 30% of the consumers or the people buying in the store are new to the brand, right? So we see them bringing new customers as well. We're also seeing an uplift in the L.A. region, we can measure from online perspective with that store. We'll open three more stores for Princess Polly this year, and we'll continue to...
Really, that model, you know, that we're focused on, of putting our product in front of more and more consumers in different ways and taking these brands from pretty much exclusively direct to consumer, into stores and into wholesale opportunities.
Okay, and if I remember correctly, the store in the Northeast is gonna be first one is in Boston.
Next, next one in Boston, and then, Phoenix and San Diego, you know, we think later, later Q3.
You know, this is actually, the prior speaker talked about pivoting here. When you pivoted into the store, how did you have to shift what you did at Princess Polly to make sure, I believe there's a lot more product online than there is in the store. So how do you curate that to make sure it kind of flows with what you want, and how do stores fit in kind of to the, test and repeat model going forward?
Sure. Yeah, I think it's a really interesting point. You know, when we opened the store, you know, we really didn't want, I suppose, the store dictating back the model and the operations to the rest of the team. And so, you know, new product online each week is core to what this brand does, right? And so we've really developed a model where we are putting new product into our store in L.A., and we'll be doing it in the other stores on a weekly basis. It's super interesting. You see consumers come in each week to see the new product, right?
I think one of the things that's just been fantastic opening that store, you know, I've sat outside it on multiple days, just looking at and seeing the excitement of the customer and the Polly customer walk up to the store and kind of, you know, in little groups pointing at it, "Oh, look, there it is. There it is. Let's go, let's go." And just their ability to, you know, in real life, touch and feel the product is, you know, it's a big deal. We know it's an important aspect, and it's interesting seeing, you know, our direct-to-consumer brands learn that and now kind of understand that impact and are really kind of, you know, racing to bring that experience to life in the store.
So, I guess I know it's only been about 10 months, but what kind of returns have you seen at the store? And also, you have been rolling out this year, new categories of Princess Polly. How's been the response to some of those new categories, and what does it kind of tell you about kind of what that your customer wants and where you can go with them?
... Sure, yeah, Polly's done a nice job of, you know, with that test and repeat model, I would say, continuing to kind of evolve what they do and expand what they do, and really just listening to their customers, you know, engaging with them really deeply, using data to kind of help just engage better with that customer. So, you know, they've launched some product in the sleepwear category, in activewear, in kind of early Q1. You know, seeing really good response rates from that. Now, when you do that on a test and repeat model, right? You start with small number SKUs, small depth, seeing how people are reacting, and then continuing to buy back into the product and expand that range.
So I think, you know, we're seeing really strong response rate, really nice build. I think they're gonna continue to lean into those categories and kind of consistently expand the number of products in the categories, expand the depth that they buy into. And look, we're going to, you know, we will lean into new categories as we go through the year, and we'll have more to share about that as we kind of start each new category.
Cool. Well, we look forward to the stores in Q3 starting open. So let's talk about... I guess the next one is Culture Kings. Very different model than Princess Polly.
Very.
You have one-
Yeah.
I was told by the store employees, it is the one of the largest specialty retailing stores in all the West Coast, in Las Vegas as a flagship. So let's talk about Culture Kings and how it's doing now and kind of the changes that are gonna be coming there.
Sure. You know, Culture Kings is focused on the streetwear space, and they would say they're the world leader in streetwear. Culture Kings very much focuses on experiential retail. Right? I would say, look, they're, you know, about 80% online. They do have stores. They've about 8 in Australia, 1 in New Zealand, and then, as you mentioned, we opened their flagship store in the U.S. as we introduced this brand in November 2022. It's just an amazing store. It's hard to just limit it to a store. There's 13,000 sq ft of retail space. There's a half basketball court inside there, a DJ booth.
We've got a recording studio, a music recording studio, a fully licensed bar, which is really difficult to get in Vegas in a retail store. We've got a secret room that you have to get special access to, where there's a lot of one-of-one products. And that brand is really different and are using that store for not just selling product, it's doing well financially, four-wall profitable, but also those experiential aspects from a marketing perspective that we put on in the store and then amplify online, right? So, for example, for the Formula One Grand Prix, we did a collaboration with McLaren, which was one of the kind of leading teams on product that we developed with them and Mitchell & Ness exclusively at Culture Kings online and in store.
We had a McLaren Formula One car, full size, in the store for a week, driving simulators in the store. Lando Norris, one of the drivers from McLaren, came into the store and did an event, and just kind of really brings to life how different that brand is. We've also done events where, you know, there's been a boxing rink and a world championship fighter working out in the store with product we could collaborate with him on. A UFC Octagon in the store. A couple of weeks ago, there was an electronic music event in Vegas. We had one of the world's leading DJs in, doing a set in the store.
So just really, really different and kind of, I would say, not just the store, but that retail-tainment and allowing that to really differentiate this, this brand from an online perspective.
I, I guess two things here. One is, Culture Kings, to your point, has a lot of headwear. How do you... How is the breakdown here in terms of kind of first party versus third party at Culture Kings? I know Princess Polly, you make pretty much all the stuff and design yourself. What is kind of the split at Culture Kings? And I know you're in the midst of also shifting this over with the test and repeat model, and how is that gonna impact Culture Kings? Because I know historically, that wasn't the model they used.
Sure. Yeah, really good point. Right, so in the streetwear space, right, the third-party brands, you know, Nikes, New Eras, right? You know, Mitchell & Ness, you know, team product, that's really, really important for that customer, right? And really important to legitimize you. So about 50% of the revenue in Culture Kings is from those third-party brands, and then 50% is from first-party brands. About 10 different first-party brands that Culture Kings have developed themselves from the ground up, right? That's a brand they're developing, specific product for it that they develop in-house. With that, you do get, you know, better margins, obviously, on that first-party product. It allows you to have something different, more effective marketing.
You know, I would say because Culture Kings were buying that first-party or that third-party product as well, you know, more on a traditional retail cadence for ordering, right? The kind of nine months plus out, and so it's taken us time to—for us to move that first-party brands onto the test and repeat model. You know, we're doing that at the moment. We can obviously see across the three other brands, just the power of that model, right? Better margins, more effective marketing, you know, easier to manage inventory. We're doing that at Culture Kings. You know, it's a slower than you would like process, yes, to retool all the operations there, but we are seeing good early signs of progress there.
You know, the new product that's coming in on that test and repeat model, seeing nice sell- through, seeing consumers reacting really positively to it, and then allowing us to buy back into it, really quickly.
Great. Yeah, without a doubt, it is, if you're in Las Vegas, it is definitely worth visiting. It is a unique retailing experience. Petal & Pup. So Petal & Pup, how is it different from Princess Polly? Let's go from there.
Yeah. So I would say the Petal & Pup, you know, consumer is slightly older than the Polly consumer, in that kind of 25 - 35 year-old range, maybe a bit older, onto a different stage of life. You know, and with that, I would say the product is a little bit more accessible than that Princess Polly product. You know, it's still in that kind of attainable price point. They very much lean into from a test and repeat model, and more in that kind of flirty, feminine product. I think, you know, smaller than Polly because it's, you know, newer to scaling them in the U.S., but seeing a lot of success.
We took that brand onto Nordstrom and Macys.com, their marketplaces, kind of late last year or early this year, seeing a lot of success there. And I think, you know, I would say that Petal will have a different go-to-market strategy than Polly, but we feel certainly probably as big as, if not a bigger opportunity than Princess Polly from a long-term perspective.
What is the difference between the digital marketplace customer and kind of the customer who draws into Petal & Pup? And do you look upon the digital marketplaces as kind of the another kind of avenue to pick up customers here, in terms of Petal & Pup?
Yeah, sure. I think, look, core to what we are doing at the moment and kind of the strategy that we have is just being where our customers are, right? Whether that's ourselves online, in stores for Polly or in stores for Culture Kings, and also these other marketplaces. As I said, you know, on the testing we've done there, we're really happy with the performance. What we've seen for Petal & Pup is over 90%, I think 94% of the customers that are picking up on these marketplaces are new to the brand, right? And so for us, just being where customers are, it's telling us, you know, we've got great product, you know? We just need to put it in front of customers in more and more places.
And I think with these, you know, the customer bases that the Nordstrom and the Macy's have built up, I think that's a great place for us to be. We also see, right, that those businesses are they're kind of starting with their marketplace to figure out which brands they should be bringing in stores, right? So I think we're starting with them there, seeing a lot of success, and then we hope that the journey will continue to, you know, that they will bring us into stores. Look, just ultimately continue to introduce our brands to more customers and increase the overall TAM that we have at these brands, which we, you know, we think is just enormous.
Okay. And the last brand, mnml. I know mnml has historically been part of, sold at Culture Kings. You know, what attracted you to buy this, and how are you taking kind of the next step from kind of being mostly at Culture Kings?
Sure, yeah. mnml was the last acquisition that we did. You know, again, accessible product, I would say a little bit edgier than some of the other first-party brands that Culture Kings has. You know, a really strong direct-to-consumer business themselves. You know, we bought them, though, on the understanding that we would also put them on Culture Kings, bring them into the Culture Kings store. We see that they're one of the—I think they're one of the top three brands at the Culture Kings store in Las Vegas, one of the top five brands at Culture Kings online. So seeing just really nice synergies there on, you know, us being able to kind of accelerate that brand, leveraging the Culture Kings platform, leveraging our own platform that we have at AKA.
I think it's a really good view of what we can do from an acquisition perspective as we think about other opportunities. The other thing, look, that we saw at mnml is that they had a really strong bottoms business. Culture Kings had a really strong headwear, tops, footwear, and so it was, you know, filling a little bit of the gap there. And we see just a lot of synergies across those two businesses.
Okay. So if you look at the business, you know, EBITDA peaked at about over $60 million in 2021. It's been down in 2022 and 2023, and then Q1, we started to see it bounce back. You know, give us just kind of a summary of what happened and kind of where you think where you want to take it going forward as the business to kind of restore the strength in EBITDA and operations in general?
... Sure. Look, I think we're really fortunate that with these brands, you know, they all make money, and they all generate EBITDA. They generate cash, kind of irrespective of how tough it's gotten from them. You know, over the last couple of years, we've, you know, as we've gone through all this disruption, we've very much focused on just improving constantly the fundamentals of the business. So last year, we paid down $50 million of debt, you know, bring our debt down 35%, you know. The end of Q1, inventory was down 19% year-over-year, while we were growing 6% in the U.S. So, you know, you can really see the kind of progress we've made there. We've also focused a lot on just all of our operations from a selling perspective.
And for us, that's, you know, what we're doing in distribution centers, you know, the shipping partners that we're working with, how we're, you know, you know, pick paths and building technology that we're using, how we're continuing to lower return rate, and just really focused on improving all of the operations across the business. You know, I think it's, it's nice to—it's great to see us back to growth in the U.S., you know, I think... And as we continue to, to grow in the U.S., I think we'll, we'll start to see more leverage in the P&L. You know, expecting gross margins to, to increase in the back half of the year and, and just get to continued, you know, increasing EBITDA production year-over-year.
And what do you think about the Australian market? I know it's been very difficult for pretty much everyone in retail with the higher interest rates and some of the ways, their economies are structured, with every mortgage being basically variable. So all the rates go up, and the amount comes through. What can you do to kind of... Obviously, growing the U.S. reduces the percent in Australia, but what can you do to kind of make Australia kind of return to, some level of prominence here, and at least in the near term or midterm?
Sure. Yeah, look, I think firstly, like you mentioned, we're very fortunate that the U.S. is growing. Now 70% of the business growing, you know, 3 quarters in a row now, and I think, you know, will continue to expand. You know, in the Australian market, we do see differences across the brands, right? And we look, we see. There are 3 brands, as you mentioned at the start, that started there. They are all, you know, under pressure because of the macro environment there, what's going on with the consumer. But we do see Princess Polly, Petal & Pup are doing better than Culture Kings because they are on that test and repeat model, right? As we get Culture Kings further and further on that model, you know, we expect to see improvements there.
Look, we are seeing that on that new product they're bringing on from a test perspective, so we're seeing nice progress there. Look, we're just gonna continue to do that. We expect, you know, gross margin expansion in the Australian market in the back half of the year, and then we'd look for them to get back to growth.
Yeah, you mentioned last year, you paid down a significant amount of debt. You know, I know you're rolling out some more stores this year, so that'll be uses of some use of capital. You know, what's kind of the thought process for excess cash usage going forward?
Yeah, I think, look, we're for first is to grow the brands we have, right? We have four great brands. They have huge amount of opportunity, and so really, the, the focus of putting capital behind those brands. You know, after that, we're certainly not looking to be a highly leveraged business. You know, that's, that's not what we want to do. We don't wanna put ourselves under pressure from that perspective. So we will continue to pay down debt, and you should see more of that, as, as we go through the year and just continue to, to lower our leverage. And then longer term, I think, you know, just getting back to the model that we started with, where, you know, we would expect to be...
You know, as there's opportunities out there, buying more brands and expanding the portfolio that we have and leveraging the platform that we have.
Okay. So actually, it's so you've mentioned about acquisitions down the road. You know, what is the criteria that you look at? You have positions in women's, you have positions in men's. Where do you? You know, how do you think of the potential to grow with acquisitions here, and what are you looking for if you were going to do something like that?
Sure. Look, I would say first, we've a pretty high bar, right? And we have that because, as I said, four brands working well and huge opportunity, and we kind of we wanna put resources and capital behind that opportunity. As we look to other brands, I think that, you know, the mnml acquisition is a great example of what we can do. You know, buying someone that, you know, fits nicely in the portfolio that we have, where we can leverage the portfolio to accelerate that brand, help them from an operating perspective, and really drive increased sales, increased EBITDA. I think, you know, as we think about the different aspects of it, you know, we think about, you know, the profitability of the brand is important.
As we think about acquisitions, we're certainly not looking for fixer-uppers. We're not looking for people that don't know how to make money, you know. We've four really good brands, and we're just very, very selective on anybody we look at or talk to.
Okay, one more. You talked about the ability to take advantage of the best of all the different systems and operations and, you know, how do you do that? Do you have your own internal proprietary products, or do you do your back office and your front office through other people? What's kind of the thought process and the technology? So obviously, a significant sales of your stuff is, is online, so how do you look upon that?
... Sure. You know, look, I came from a, as you mentioned at the start, kind of a long background, working in places with proprietary technology stacks. We have an asset-light approach here, and I'm just super fortunate every day for it. We sit, and we leverage the Shopify ecosystem, and I've just, you know, seen such benefits of it. You know, I think, you know, not spending capital, resources, time, trying to figure out, your tech debt, what's new up, how should we be evaluating stuff, is just really, really beneficial. You know, across all of the brands, we have really strong collaboration. So, you know, as we see new technologies, you know, it will get tested on one of the brands.
We share all of the data across each of the brands. If we see something working, we will leverage it then across all of the brands and just quickly, you know, test and bring in any new technologies that are, you know, better than what we're using today and really driving value for our customers, our financials, and our shareholders. So it's, it allows us to be really nimble in an asset-light environment.
Great. Questions? So yeah, before we get into questions, I think you guys were gonna tee up a video. So let's-
Yeah, this one here, if we've got it. It's just a pretty short one, but I think it does a good job of bringing a little bit of the brands to life.
Okay. Thanks.
I just love that video. It really brings to life, I think, a little bit just how different these brands are. It's even... It struggles, I think, a little bit even at just how different Culture Kings is. You see some of the events there with the crowds outside the store, inside the store, what they're just able to do is just really, really, really cool.
Okay. So I'll start with the first question to get it pumped. But you talked about M&A a little bit. You know, all your brands, right, are singular, so they're either female, male. Would you consider dual-gender brands? I mean, there's obviously a lot of brands that are dual-gender that are struggling right now, that are probably pretty cheap. So just curious of what your thoughts are there.
Yeah, I think, I think we would. You know, we're, we're very much open to it. I think, probably particularly as I think of that Culture Kings, as a, as a platform, as an opportunity, they, they do sell to the male and female consumer. You know, they see. You know, it's, it's not totally 50/50, but there, there is an opportunity there. And, you know, they're starting to, to think about the opportunity there. You know, they're starting to talk about, "Should we be merchandising Vegas a little bit differently?" I, I think there's, there's opportunities there, and we would be open to it. And look, we're, we're talking to a lot of, of different brands out there, but, but like I said, the, the bar is very high.
Thank you. Any other questions?
You also have an opportunity with kids with Culture Kings, too. They've talked about.
They do.
Any other additional questions from the audience?
That's all I have today.
Okay.
Hi, great presentation. Really cool brands. Just wanted to ask you a little bit about the tech stack, and how you guys are harnessing all of this data, because it's... You have really unique customer bases, and I wonder how you're testing. And if this is too much, we can talk offline.
No, no, no. It's a great question, and it's interesting when we talk about that technology platform and using the Shopify ecosystem. We are very fortunate that all of the data is our data, right? We bring all of the data across all of the brands into a data warehouse, into Snowflake, and then we have different platforms that we're using that for analysis, for reporting. We're very fortunate that, you know, we share all of the information across all of the brands. So everybody sees, on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, what everybody's doing, what's going on from a customer perspective, the different marketing channels we're using, what's going on in distribution centers, you know, product categories, margins.
And just we have that open culture as well, where, you know, there's nice competition. You know, "How are you doing that? How is it working so well? I want to copy it." But also collaboration, where, you know, we have built this where the brands aren't coming back to some central group saying, "Hey, can I get on a roadmap, or can I get resources to do something?" Because they are all profitable, generating, you know, generating cash, growing. They can make these choices themselves with a fair bit of oversight. But just having that access to the data, really leaning into it, does allow these brands to be very, very, very different and very nimble.
I know he mentioned he had kind of touched a little bit on the macro environment. Now, of course, there's a lot of criticism on the fast fashion and the sustainability and things like that, and so I just wanted to know if you could touch a little bit more on the ESG initiatives, but more specifically, how you guys are using those ESG initiatives to implement it into your marketing strategy to really reach that younger generation that's starting to be more, you know, aware of these issues and more passionate about them.
Sure. It's a really good question, and I would say, look, the Princess Polly brand is furthest along there. You know, that sustainability, ESG is core to what they do, and they, you know, they have put pretty decent resources to it from a number of people, you know, and just how they're working with their vendors, with their supply chain. You know, about 30% of their materials are now recycled, reusable and continuing to increase that from new products that they're developing. So very focused on that, you know, have audited all of their tier one and tier two factories, and just continuing, I would say, to kind of raise the bar for themselves every year.
You know, they publish a pretty detailed report on their kind of website every year of, "Look, here's what we've done this year. Here's what we're looking to do kind of going forward." It's interesting there. Look, I would say they're a little bit shy in talking about all the efforts that they make, right? And they're very conscious. You know, the Polly team is a wife and husband started it. They're still in the business. They still run it day to day. You know, they are also on the board, third largest shareholder in the group. And so for them, that kind of the longevity of the brand, the sustainability of the brand is really important, so they're very, very conscious of what they do. They, they...
We talked a lot about it, how should they be leveraging it? Should they be doing more about it? You know, they don't want to get tagged in any way about kind of, you know, the greenwashing stuff that they feel kind of others are doing. So look, they talk about it a little bit. I think there's opportunities to do more, but, like, I think we will continue to do more in the area. I think they haven't figured out yet how to properly probably leverage it from a marketing perspective.
If you go to the stores, they label. There are products that are labeled that they have had lesser impact on the environment. So you can see it in the stores. I'm sure you can see it online. If you're looking for that product, you can find it there. It's a big piece of the business.
Yeah, it's... Yeah, that's interesting, Eric. Yeah, that's a good point. They, they do kind of, you know, they do call out those products, particularly from the materials they're using, and are, are seeing customers engage with it a little bit differently, not calling it particularly sustainable, but just they are differentiating those products.
I just had one last question. Can you talk a little bit about influencers and marketing and your use of influencers and any plans there?
Sure. Yeah, it's I would say the Princess Polly brand really grew from that influencer model. It's interesting, though, they don't have any large kind of mega influencers really that you would see other brands do. For them, it's all small micro influencers and smaller, so they've got, you know, thousands of influencers at any one time. And for them, really kind of as you think about the cores of that brand, kind of really being authentic is important. It's just so important for them. So, you know, and they see that kind of smaller influencer just being more authentic for their brand, but also authentic for the kind of the followers that influencer have. It's a really interesting model, right? They'll send product to the influencer. The influencer will try it, talk about it.
The influencer would have a discount code, and so they can measure the effectiveness of the influencer, and if, you know, they're doing well, getting the returns they want, they continue with that influencer. If not, then they bring someone else in. You know, a couple of years ago, they started a college ambassador program to, again, kind of go, you know, probably more micro influencers again, smaller and smaller. That's working well, continuing to evolve the model there. And, you know, I would say just being authentic for them and just influencers, but again, micro influencers that are very close for, and authentic for their consumer is where they lean into it. Other brands are, you know, following the model a little bit.
I would say quite different on the men's side, where the influencer is a little bit different. And I would say on mnml, we see a lot of their product now turn up on NBA, NFL players, and they're walking into games in these tunnel fits, where they're seeing kind of the results of that. So, you know, probably, I suppose bigger from a following, from an influential perspective, not the traditional kind of influencer model. Those people are just buying products direct from mnml themselves, they don't have the kind of the level of a program developed that Princess Polly does.
Okay. Thank you, Ciaran. It was great. Appreciate you coming.
Thank you.
Thanks, Eric. Thank you, all.