Thursday, July 3, 2008

nooka loves berlin



day 4 in berlin and i am writing my blog in a laundrymat as i've run out of things to wear, and even though i do love to shop, the weak dollar has made even that thought painful [i am a practical person at heart!]. germany, like scandinavia is a region nooka should be a big star in, but we're having a slow start – so here i is! (i also have friends and godkids here to visit, so it's a great coincidence that our distributor for germania is located here as well)

day one was great! falko picked me up at the airport and took me to my über-chic hotel, the velvet oranienburgerstrasse. we later met up with ben, one of his sales people who is hollywood actor handsome [see foto]. before that though, i spent the whole afternoon trying to find a usb-ethernet adaptor as the hotel does not have wifi [luckily i know my way around berlin, but it was still difficult to find. i thought i had packed mine, but it turned out to be a dvi plug! anyway, bought one only to find out the hotel has problems getting macs online even on ethernet! between caled to NYC and going to a cafe next door, i finally got online. needless to say, there are very few open wifi connections in berlin so my iphone is offline].

we had a great german dinner and discussed strategy. it was very productive to do face to face as we had never met. as nooka is successful in 2 different types of stores and press in the US, it was confusing to how to approach in germany. also, germans like to see a brand on the market for a while before they are comfortable buying. many things to study to fine tune our communications as honestly, as a start-up and a small company, we do not have a full time marketing department to craft brand messages in every language. it's exciting to identify new things to improve though and it seems that the new photography and look book will appeal well to the german fashion market and we may even do a party like the one we did in LA last month here in berlin, but with a more fashion-focus.

i had a wonderful time riding a rental bicyce ALL over [rode one to the laundrymat too!] as like stockholm, berlin is a very biker-friendly city with protected lanes in many of the roads. i got to catch up with friends [actually spent an adfternoon with shinya and yuna for those who know who they are] and see my god kids too...so far a wonderful trip continues. not sure if berlin loves nooka yet, but i sure love berlin.

top pic, falko is wearing the new BKc collab watch, available here and at other fine retailers.