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Best of B Team: Purple Bag Power, Building a Luxury Brand in Northwest Arkansas · The B Team Podcast

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the B Team Podcast.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_03: I am your host, Josh Stafford, with my co-host, and our permanent guest, Rob Nelson.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: We're here every week to talk to you about all things Bettonville, bourbon, and business.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: The B Team Podcast.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_03: Be here.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: Now, Ben, since we're talking about booze, you are a jeweler.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_03: But rumor has it that you have your own line of Prosecco.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we do have a Blakeman's Prosecco.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Since we're a jewelry store and not a liquor store, we do not sell it at Blakeman's.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: But it is available for purchase around Northwest Arkansas, as well as specifically in Bentonville at Gasu.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: So they've been a wonderful partner.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can also find it at Anchor off of Pleasant Grove and Rogers, Liquor World in Fayetteville, and then Bordino's Restaurant, Pinnacle Country Club, and Emilio's over in Eureka Springs.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: Now you are a high-end jeweler, so I'm expecting to go find us at Angkor for like 400, 500 bucks a bottle.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: It should be.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: But we're also a fair jeweler, as you know, Josh.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know that?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: It's expensive.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I said premium.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Correct, correct.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yes, but we are also fair.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so with it being a Prosecco and not champagne, it was important for me, kind of like with this Stapleton bourbon we're sipping here.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted bubbles because I felt like that was a good complement to our Blakeman's brand.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it also couldn't sacrifice on the taste um and just the overall look and aesthetic of it as well.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so with this being a Prosecco, it does not come with the price premium that champagne tends to carry, you know, internationally, really.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so most bottles of Prosecco you can find uh you know, Walmart liquor stores five bucks, ten bucks, fifteen dollars.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Ours is a little bit more than that, but still very reasonable at$24.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: $24.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: How many cases do you have at the house?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you know, the funny story here, I was going through my ice machine the other day, and I found a bottle of the prosecco buried at the bottom of the icing machine.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: So it's all over the place.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Look at that.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's beautiful.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, is that new?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: So uh with the Prosecco here, it's got a thicker hand-carved glass that they do in Italy, so it gives it the aesthetic beauty, but you also see the beautiful coloring of the prosecco on the inside.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, being the glass cut as it is, a little bit thicker, a little bit harder to chill.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, probably my fault when Rob found his in the bottom of the ice maker, because I always recommend 10 minutes before open, like always keep it chilled, but 10 minutes before you open it, put it in the freezer, put it in the ice maker.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, my advice likely led to Rob leaving his maybe a bit longer than 10 minutes.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you were over.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: Or maybe I put it in buried in this comfort.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: What else is buried in your house?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: So share what share with us what you can.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, there's some things you probably can say, and there's some things you can't say, but I mean the famous purple bag, I mean, I don't think you brand it as far as like in the way of the purple bag, or do you around the Christmas tree?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right, and holidays and birthdays and all that, like all our wives.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you see the purple?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: Did you get approval bag or not?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So is that like was that like on purpose or there was definitely some thought that went into it.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, we don't want to be and we don't act like we are Tiffany, but it they're obviously famous for their, you know, powder blue, baby blue, turquoise blue, uh, you know, bluebird blue, whatever you want to call it.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Robin's egg blue.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and we felt like a lot of people in the industry, some tried to kind of go with their own shades of blue, others just kind of stick to kind of a harsher black or neutral.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we just felt like purple had an appropriate place.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and once we started with it, and now that we have a correct combination of kind of a purple and a soft rose and a yellow kind of happy medium, we just feel like it's been great building the purple on purple and promoting the you know, the purple bag holiday.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: I I know around my family, and I could speak for Matt and Josh.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, when the purple bag shows up under the Christmas tree or for a birthday or Valentine's Day or whatever, like it almost doesn't matter what's in the bag.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: They know something special is coming out of it.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, and we appreciate that.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I asked about.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we certainly appreciate the three of you and making sure that there's purple bags under the trees at these other occasions.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: We kind of have to treat it a little bit like Santa Claus gifts.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: So you can we can't get the purple bag out until the morning of Christmas because we don't want the kids or anyone to know.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: Well, let me ask you a question at the Mars household.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: If there's no purple bag under the tree, how much trouble are you in?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_03: Like a lot.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: It ain't good.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's not good.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's not good.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: I could have answered that even it.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, whatever.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny because talking about your branding, that's the girls, that's what they say.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: They're like any purple bag.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like they don't say, is it from Blakeman's?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, is any purple bag coming out?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's cool.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that I love more than like you were asking about the name on the bottle.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, that's cool, but really when someone is just going by the purple bag and making sure that there's a purple bag or inquiring about a purple bag, that means that our brand, our service, our product, our everything is on point because it takes all of that to make the purple bag memorable.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's what we continue to try to do and produce more purple bags around Northwest Arkansas.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: Did I tell you my purple bag Christmas story?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_03: Did I tell you guys a story?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: So um I got a beautiful necklace from for Emily.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you for picking that out.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: But Emily goes, Josh, you always buy me sneakers.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a sneakerhead.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: So I pulled out a box of sneakers and I wrapped it up and I took out one of the two sneakers.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you first open the box, she sees this sneaker and it is ugly as all hell.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: It was ugly.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, sneakers.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: And then she was like trying to be grateful, even though it was like terrible.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I go, no, no, look at the other shoe, and the other shoe was a purple box from Blake.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: It didn't matter what was in the box.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: If I could have looked at the shit out of it.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: But then she opened the box and she was real happy.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like, so I did good for Christmas.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: You did very well at Christmas.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: I I know that necklace specifically, and you did very well.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean, that's that's just amazing.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it we love that we have the following, and we are so appreciative and grateful for you know the three of you sitting here, but as well as the following that we built around Northwest Arkansas.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: We work hard to maintain it and grow it, but we wouldn't be able to do it without people continuing to come back to see us.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you very much.