BusinessCurious

As a big fan of Seinfeld, this brief CNN story on Festivus caught my eye today. If you’re not hip to the genius of co-creator Larry David and show writer Dan O’Keefe, here’s a clip featuring Frank Costanza and the Seinfeld gang that explains it all:

And if you’re really into the holiday, here’s a full description.

Besides being a very funny response to the rampant commercialization of Christmas (how can you not love a holiday that features Feats of Strength and the Airing of Grievances?), the spirit of Festivus -- in a life-imitates-art moment -- has spawned an actual business.

Kind of neat in and of itself, but what’s even more interesting is the story behind The Wagner Companies, the Milwaukee-based parent company of www.festivuspoles.com, and a manufacturer of products for metal fabricators and a producer of custom products — primarily for handrails. Wanting to know more, I contacted Tony Leto, their Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Not only was Tony gracious enough to send me a video clip about the product, he agreed to be interviewed by yours truly right before their Christmas party. Turns out that behind what sounds like a rather ho-hum manufacturing business whose jobs would have ended up outside Shanghai a long time ago, lies a pretty cool business philosophy and sophisticated marketing machine not typically found in the B2B world.

Tony’s responses about their Festivus Poles reveal some simple, yet powerful lessons (emphasized in bold) about how to succeed as a 21st-century business, even -- or perhaps especially -- if you are are manfucturer in the heart of the Rust Belt. The biggest takeaways ? See below…

How many Festivus Poles does your company sell?
First year (2005) we sold about 400. Second year, Associated Press did a story and we hit 2,000. Since then we are at about 1,500/year. That’s a mix of 6 foot and 2 and a half foot poles (about a 3 full size to 1 table top ratio). We also sell with Allen Salkin’s book, “Festivus, the Holiday for the Rest of Us”. This year we added mini desktop pole as part of “Festivus in a Box”. We expect to sell about 500 of those. 6 footer is $39, 2 foot 6 inch is $31 and Festivus in a Box is $22.95.

Have sales declined or increase since you started selling the poles?
As noted above, sales grew in the first two years and then stabilized. We don’t do any print or traditional advertising so all of it is through the web and PR. [They have over 3,000 Facebook fans! - MK] This year was quiet until the CNN story hit this morning. Since the story appeared, we have had 9,000 CNN-generated links to our site in 90 minutes. This being our last day of business before the holidays, because of the CNN mention, we now have people entering orders for guaranteed next day delivery at a cost of over $180 for the UPS charges alone.

How difficult was it to get internal approval to start up the side business?
Fortunately, Bob Wagner has a very good sense of humor. When I went to him with the idea in Dec. 2004, I showed him the article from the New York Times by Allen Salkin which indicated that years after the episode had aired (Dec. 1997), people were actually celebrating Festivus. Allen indicated the centerpiece was an aluminum pole. Being handrail manufacturers, we certainly had enough aluminum pipe in our warehouse. I promised him, “We may not make a lot of money but we’ll have fun and get a little publicity.” He agreed and we bought the website — www.festivuspoles.com.

In October, 2005, Allen published his book, “Festivus, the Holiday for the Rest of Us”. I showed the book to Bob and said, “It’s going to happen”. He agreed and we put some engineering time into designing the base and cutting it on our water jet. Since we had much of the ground work in place, it took us two weeks from his “go-ahead” until we were live and in the Festivus Pole business. Keep in mind that this is far from a major portion of our business but our existing infrastructure — manufacturing, engineering, customer service group, web site, and e-commerce site — made it possible for us to more easily get into this product. If Festivus Poles didn’t match what we already did, we would never have attempted to move in that direction.

Was the effect on employee morale good, bad, or neutral?
The effect on employee morale has been great. Those who knew of Festivus jumped right on board. Those who didn’t, took a while to understand and warm up to the idea but everyone now has a great time with it in November and December. Our customer service people report on how people are actually giggling on the phone if they call in to place an order.

How has this unique side businesses affected your main company? (i.e., does it lead to orders from customers who may not have otherwise known about you?)
It’s not as if CNN, the AP or other news outlets are beating down the door to do a story on our railing business so it allows us to get our name out to the world in a humorous vein. We give away many of our Festivus Poles to customers and vendors. It’s a wonderful way to get a smile from them and promote a conversation. I do architectural presentations and I always close with the line that “In addition to all of our architectural metal products, we are the world’s largest manufacturer of Festivus Poles.” Half the group is confused but the other half “gets it” and they instruct the others. Eventually, everyone is laughing and they will remember us when the time comes to specify metal railing products.

I loved how you sent a Festivus Pole to the Governor of Wisconsin. Have you given them to anyone else of note?
Wisconsin Gov. Doyle is known as a big Seinfeld fan. He often would quote the show on the floor of the state house. Bob Wagner is on the state arts council board with Lt. Gov. Lawton. Back in 2005, Bob gave the Lt. Gov. a Festivus Pole for the governor and she reported that he was thrilled to have it. In fact, he insisted on paying for it so that he would not have to report it as a state gift. The following year, due to the heat from the Michael Richards racist tirade at the Laugh Factory, he gave his Festivus Pole to the Wisconsin State Historical Museum where it is now on display.

Mark Metcalf who played “The Maestro” on Seinfeld has one as well — he lives nearby. Last year, there was a controversy on “Fox and Friends” over Festivus. We sent them a pole and Gretchen Carlson gave it to her two co-hosts as a gift. I don’t know who got to keep it afterwards.

I love success stories of American manufacturers who still make products in the U.S. Is there anything special about your story that readers should know about?
The Wagner family has been in the metal business in Milwaukee dating back to 1850. The current incarnation of the company (dating back to 1955) was named R & B Wagner by the founder in honor of his children — Robert and Barbara. Bob and his sister Barbara Karol are still active in the business.

A key element of the Wagner philosophy is to continue manufacturing in U.S. — specifically Milwaukee. We provide metal stamping, forming, bending, polishing and welding services for architectural and OEM applications.

The one take away from all of this I would share is the willingness to bring fun into your business every chance you get. We never got into this because it would be a “pet rock” phenomena. We always saw it for its potential for promotion of our company and a morale boost at the end of the year. After our second season, in 2006, when we had a tremendous spike following the Associated Press story, we literally had the executive team packaging last minute orders because everyone else had gone home after our holiday party.

I turned to Bob and reminded him of our discussion the year before. “Bob, I kept my promise. We’ve had fun, gotten plenty of publicity and we’ve even made a little money.”

He smiled and said, “Yes, it’s a Festivus Miracle.”