Interview by Kenyatta D. Pious

FashionLedge: As a point of departure, can I get your title and what brands you oversee?

Jameel Spencer: I’m the Chief Marketing Officer for the Roc Apparel Group so I oversee the marketing for Rocawear, State Property, Pro Keds, Team Roc and then I am also involved in the marketing for all of the other brands that are under the umbrella of Roc brands, which means I work in conjunction with Dash Films etc. I am the intermediary between all the different companies and how they sort of interact with the clothing companies. I have been here since February (five months). Before that I used to run a company called Blue Flame, which meant I ran the marketing for all of [Sean “Puffy” Combs] companies for five years before this.

FashionLedge: I want you to make a comment about the morale right now at Rocawear. One is incessantly bombarded with comments about the inability of Jay-Z and Dame Dash working together. How has that impacted the business, negative or positive?

Jameel Spencer: The only way it affects us is that you find yourself answering the question. [For example] every meeting that I have that question comes up. The job is still the job. Contrary to popular belief Jay and Damon do have a lot of respect for each other and do have a great personal relationship. I just think that they are no longer in business together except for Rocawear, which is actually one of the great things is that this is the one place that they are still in business together today. So the morale is cool. I think people are just sort of overwhelmed with the questions and because no one is actually coming and making any statement about what is really going on people are left to make their own. [A lot of people] sort of enjoy that whole thing; it’s fun, standing there like you’re watching a soap opera everyday. But from a work standpoint it doesn’t affect the work at all.

FashionLedge: What has been the most effective way to market the brands?

Jameel Spencer: The interesting thing about these brands is that we do not have a large budget that some

of our competition would have. We like to think of ourselves as competing to some degree with the Tommy Hilfigers, Nauticas, and the Ralph Laurens of the world, but they obviously have much larger budgets than we have. I think what we do a great job of is taking advantage of what we know about our customer. We feel like we know our customer way more than [other companies] know their customer. We find creative ways to show up seamlessly on that road map.
We market to a lifestyle so if I know that the same kid that wears Rocawear likes to wear Pro Keds sneakers and likes to go to parties and listen to Kanye West music or Camron music or whatever it is, we can show up in those different places without spending a lot of money. A perfect example is right now we are working with Bow Wow. Bow Wow is doing the “Scream Tour,” which is tens of thousands of kids coming out to see him and Omarion and these other young stars and so the have send you a sponsorship package. But you know we don’t look at that packet the same way that maybe a marketing guy at Ralph Lauren would look at it. I look at it and I see that there is an incredible reach but we don’t really have a budget to go and spend a whole bunch of money or giving them money and have them throw a banner up. So instead, we have a relationship with Bow Wow. I have him come in and have his mom come in. We sit down with them and he gives us his vision on what he sees his outfits looking like for the tour and we specially design them for him at Rocawear and in turn he’ll do in-stores for us in six different cities. We just come up with more creative ways that are either charged by our more intimate understanding of our customer or immediate access to talent or just ability to be creative. We really come up with things that are in our world looked at as easy to come up with, but if you think about our counterparts on the other side they don’t do it. They are doing it a different way. If they are going to sponsor a tour, they usually spend 100s of thousands of dollars to do it. Whereas we spend sweat equity and relationships.

FashionLedge: That is a very nice way to put it. You mentioned lifestyle and I want to hear more. Is that one reason why Rocawear has decided to go into accessories? I was on the website and I was blown away that you guys are actually doing belts, hats, sunglasses, strollers etc.

Jameel Spencer: I think that when you are trying to grow your brand a lot of people make mistakes in trying to do too much too soon. A perfect example is FUBU. FUBU at one point was one of the bigger brands in our space then they started doing like home furnishings and things like that. FUBU should have been a little more protective of their brand and not gone after the licensing opportunities that just came to them, but should’ve gone with the licensing opportunities that were consistent with their customer.
Rocawear started in 1999, about six years ago. The sweet spot for the Rocawear consumer is about 17 years old. 17-year-old consumers are now 23 year olds. In our space people start having children when your 23 years old, you know 23, 24, 25 around there. Now you have a need for a stroller as opposed to if we tried to do strollers in 2000, it wouldn’t have worked. You have to provide your customer with what they need as they grow with your brand.

FashionLedge: What is the most difficult part about creating brand loyalty because it seems that many designers are being termed “urban” and many use similar color palettes, material etc.?

Jameel Spencer: I think the most difficult part about creating brand loyalty is having faith that your vision is something that your market is always going to want and not turning into a situation where you chasing a moving target. For instance, the concept of what was urban five years ago is totally different from what it is now. Nowadays people are wearing suits, people are wearing blazers, jeans or blazers, jeans and sneakers together. The concept of urban has evolved. However, Rocawear, as a brand, has value proposition. Its value proposition is really rooted in it being authentic urban apparel, street apparel. You don’t really expect to go to buy a button up short from Rocawear, but because the urban consumer now wants a button up, Rocawear will react to that and make button up shirts - - but the reaction at retail will be mediocre at best because that is not what that consumer expects from Rocawear. You expect Rocawear to be the anti-button up shirt; the guy that still doesn’t care if this is what everyone else is doing. This is what we do and this what we do better than everybody else. When you want to do this, yeah you should wear your button up shirts, but you’re not going to get them from us. You don’t want to get them from us. You probably want to go to Ralph or Tommy with his H line or Gucci or some other brand to get that. When you want to be cool and cutting edge and authentic street, wear Rocawear!

FashionLedge: I just got a glimpse of your new unreleased campaign with Jay, which seems to reinforce this ethos of authentic street.

Jameel Spencer: I think what we are trying to do is return back to where we came from. We know that when we stay where we’re supposed to be, no one can beat us, no one can even touch us. When we start straying and trying to do what other people do then now we are in a different competitive zone it doesn’t make sense for us. A perfect example is Vibe magazine. When Vibe magazine first started men read it heavily and as they went after advertising pages to become more fashion it became more of a woman’s magazine. But as a woman’s magazine it isn’t as exciting of a buy because there are way more women’s magazines that do that way better than Vibe can ever do that. You are not going to beat Vogue, Elle or Harpar’s Bazaar. So once you start going after those pages, editorial you start to lose your reader that is your strong suit.
Now when get back to it being 60% men and 40% women that is a much more comfortable place. This is like a boxer going into a different weight class. Roy Jones will whip your ass all day as a middleweight, but when he tries to go up [a weight bracket] he is suddenly not hitting as hard. We need to stay at the weight where we can hit the hardest! The way to hit hard is for us to stay authentic street: snorkels and denim and those things. Now like I said, the consumer has progressed as well so we can do different variations of that, but the core of our business needs to stay consistent with our customer has known us for being the best at.

FashionLedge: Tell me more about your target?

Jameel Spencer: Well, it’s that kid that is the coolest in his class. The kid that doesn’t care if everyone is wearing button ups because he is still going to wear his Timberland’s and his hoodie and that is fly to him. And he may have his moments where he goes to the club and is more dressed up, but we are that brand when you want to “keep it real,” for lack of a better term.
What happens is a brand often creates aspirational existence or personality for their brand. So if your brand is a triangle, the top of the triangle is what you see marketing wise, that is what they only show you. And when you look at the brands you really don’t have that many brands that make sense to the aspirational customer. If you look at Sean John, they do a great job of it. Sean John is probably the only brand in our space that is accepted as higher end and that is probably because of Puff’s own personal sense of style. He is a type of person that you see in the morning wearing a suit and at the Rucker and you see in sweat suits at the White House and it makes sense to you because he is all of those things. He is not really known as one thing. I think that Jay and Damon are both graduation to that. You are starting to see them a little more dressed up because they are getting a little older.
So what happens is that there is more value for Rocawear staying closer to the bottom or middle of that triangle when it comes to its marketing because that is what people want us for. It’s cool to be [at the top of the triangle], but our existence in that space needs to be something that you don’t promote. We can promote it because have high-end individuals that live that lifestyle. For instance, you know that Damon Dash is going to London in private jets, you know he can afford that so that’s not fake. You know that Jay-Z is Jay-Z and for all the reasons you know that’s not fake.
But when we are marketing our brand we don’t want to jump out there with that because that is not what our customer wants from us. Now the customer that does want that from us, we do have some products that do make sense to them but we don’t promote them like that. We know that this particular customer is all about discovery; he doesn’t want everybody to know about it.
If I had a tighter fitting European style cut as part of Rocawear, the person that is down to wear that doesn’t want us to promote that in our advertising campaign. They don’t want everybody to be on that. Our top of our pyramid we get through word of mouth. We get through just being cool and cutting edge and not talking about it and then we do what you expect us to do.

FashionLedge: Why do you shun 7th on 6th?

Jameel Spencer: Quite honestly for our brand and who we are and giving our customer what they expect, I don’t think that is the right outlet for us. You end up spending a lot of money and for it to make sense to the fashion community, you end it having to produce a lot of clothing that you won’t sell in the stores because our customer doesn’t want a mink coat from Rocawear or any of the high fashion items that we would need [to make] to make sense. Now what could make sense is for us to launch a fashion show in maybe Toronto or Milan, someplace that has a different appreciation for what we bring to the table.
If we did the regular clothes that what we do right here at Rocawear that we sell in the stores somewhere in Milan, they would go crazy. I just came from Milan and their love for this black man culture is enormous. They would appreciate us just being us. Whereas if we did 7th on 6th we would have to be them. That doesn’t make sense. I did it for years with Puff and the only reason it made sense is because we did so much media behind it. We had a television show one year on it and we sold DVDs the next year as examples. We were creative enough to make it work and like I said earlier Puff is probably the only person that can be in it and it makes sense. Dame and Jay are moving toward that but it might make sense to start in their weight class.
Some of the things we concentrate on are retail shows [like the Macy’s show]. You can go afterwards and buy the clothes in the store. It is more about us being partners with Macy’s and us coming up with creative ways to keep the brand exciting with our partners. So we will have artists performing [in this case, Memphis Bleek, Young Gunz,a and Teairra Mari] and we will do signing afterwards and all the clothing they are wearing will be available in Macy’s.

FashionLedge: What is the most difficult aspect of this job?

Jameel Spencer: I have been doing this for about 15 years now and I will be 37 years old this year. Nothing is really difficult about this job, honestly. I love what I do. I look forward to getting up in the morning and I hate when it is Friday because it is going to be the weekend. This isn’t really a job to me. This is really what I want to do. I love coming up with an idea and executing it. I like driving in my car and listening to the radio doing a promotion for Batman Returns available at the Rocawear shop at Macy’s and [knowing] that I wrote that copy myself, negotiated the deal with Warner Bros. There is some satisfaction in if for me that is immeasurable.
When I think about what I could be doing I think that I am blessed because I was able to choose my career before my career chose me. What happens is that when you get a certain age you do whatever you have to do to feed your family or whatever else. I was fortunate to be focused at an early age and know where I want to be at in life and pay my dues then. I didn’t make a lot of money at 22 or 25, but I have a great life now and it all makes sense now.

FashionLedge: Do you have any final comments on Rocawear or the state of Rocawear?

Jameel Spencer: I said this in an interview when I was still with Puff, someone asked me about Jay and Dame going their separate ways and I said that they both have a great appreciation for the time they spend together and for what they were able to achieve together. You will never see something like that again because it was a cultural phenomenon. That was like when Bad Boy first started. When Bad Boy first started every album they came out with was platinum, every single was platinum; they were just on fire. That went over to the West Coast and Dre and his team had that same kind of run and I think Jay and Dame had a similar run.
I think that what they were able to achieve was so culturally relevant to young kids and I say this about Puff all the time. Young kids now don’t talk about having a job, but they talk about owning their own situation. They want to simultaneously be an artist and an executive and own a clothing line and fragrance company and all these different things. That realm of inspiration is culturally relevant and when history is written about Rocawear and Roca Fella, I would hope that people will concentrate on what they did together and also what they are able to do moving forward. This [will] be more beneficial to us as a people then all the catty things that people talk about. And that is something that if you are in it you don’t see as much: they are not fighting. They are in meeting together and it’s not what you would think. I think it is the worst black on black crime for people to think that these two people that made millions of dollars together don’t get along.
When Dame had his birthday party one of the first people at his birthday party was Jay with Beyonce and he spent hours there laughing it up with his friend. I think they shouldn’t be judged on their inability to work together but they should be judged on the work they did together and the legacy that they built. When you are in those clubs and you hear all those songs you know [what they have done]. Two great men in one building can only go so far, but two men in two separate buildings create more opportunities: more jobs, more brands etc. I just hope that people are cognizant of what they were able to do together and not make it out to be something terrible. Neither one of them [thinks] something bad about each other because they have needed each other to create a cultural phenomenon and I think they would both agree with that.