Falling for a Brand: Bevel
I have a problem. I fall for brands that I haven’t met, touched, tested or even seen in a store to see. These brands aren’t your average brands that influencers like Drake or Jay Z would talk about in their songs. Those brands, I have no interest in them; they are merely sponsored promotions. The true brands I love are like the quiet girl in your class that the average person would ignore. But I’m intrigued, there's just something about her. It’s always the quiet ones who leave an impact on me. The same applies with my intrigue in particular brands.
It’s because they can truly enhance the lifestyle that I desire or even one less item to carry in my bag or problem to deal with. So you’re probably wondering what brands am I even talking about.
So how do you get a guy with no beard that can’t participate in ‘No Shave November’ to care about a grooming brand for men of color? You create a blog that educates and discusses topics I wonder about. You design a product that’s so sexy and classic that I can’t help to not photograph it and share on IG. You have also have a CEO that’s so relatable that I can laugh and joke with on him social media. That is why the brand that I have fell in love with is “Bevel” by Walker & Company.
Product designer at Bevel, Quinnton Harris, is a really cool guy on Twitter and he actually follows me so it’s always inspiring when he likes my tweets or interacts with me on there. Aundre Larrow holds it down on Social Media and Creative Direction during photoshoots, which is a craft that I understand and give nothing but respect to him.
So when I found out they were carrying the brand in Target, I became even more hype. I drove around to a few stores in Charlotte until I could see the packaging in person. It was trully love at first sight. I later learned that they have an investment lineup sharper than their new Bevel trimmer can give you on a Saturday at the Barbershop. Starters include: Andreessen Horowitz, Nas, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, John Legend and King Bach. I shouldn’t forget to include San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York and President Paraag Marathe, Golden State Warriors’ own Andre Iguodala, and Dallas Mavericks forward Harrison Barnes. You thought that was it? Musician Ryan Leslie and graphic designer/computer scientist/author John Maeda, among others have also put major bread down to support the brand.
I’ve come to accept that nobody but myself really knows this much about a company, their key members, and CEO but I honestly just believe in what they are doing and would love to be apart of it one day. Like I mentioned before, it didn’t take me owning the product myself or even be apart of their target audience to do so.
