Have you visited our store? Click here.“Put your customers on the jumbotron.” – Chris Carlin
Notice: This episode is a little over an hour long and would be great listening material for long car rides.
In this episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Chris Carlin: Sr. Marketing & Social Media Manager, The Upper Deck Company. Chris has been with Upper Deck since 1998 and has been highly influential in the company’s success. He’s a champion marketer and one of the hobby’s top guys. Join us as we share dialogue on marketing, Upper Deck, and life. Links to his places are listed below:
- LinkedIn: /in/chris-carlin-644806/
- Twitter: @PeteIncaviglia
Also, I recommend the following books, which were discussed in this video:
- Got ‘Em, Got ‘Em, Need ‘Em. To buy it, click here.
- Card Sharks. To buy it, click here.
To see what’s currently on eBay from Upper Deck, click here.
Great interview, Chris didn’t hold back. Learned a lot about Upper Deck and him!
Thanks! Yea, Chris is a really pleasant fella. I’m glad he and I got a chance to talk.
Just watched the whole interview in one sitting. Awesome interview and good job from both of you! He seems like a really smart guy and you can tell he has a genuine passion for the hobby.
With that said here are 4 points that either ‘furrowed my brow’ or left me wanting more:
1. At about the 48:50 minute mark he seems out of touch with a large part of the card collecting market. While I will agree, we are far outnumbered by the collectors chasing autographs and jersey cards there is still a huge card collecting community that fervently collects cards that are “just ink on paper”. He eluded to this point a few times during the interview but the minute mark I referenced above is where it really ‘struck a chord’ with me. Resources to prove these collectors are alive and well are the “super sweet 90’s insert” thread on FCB (and FCB as a whole), about 90% of the members that participate on the flourishing website tradingcarddb.com, and let’s not forget to mention the interviewer.
2. Making cards for a player the year they come up is a horrible idea in my opinion. He spent so much time on this point that it seems he is extremely adamant on this concept. I can see where he is coming from, I just wholeheartedly disagree as I think the majority of today’s collectors would as well. I think anyone that has ever card collected would attest to the fact that an enormous allure of card collecting is owning a card that appreciates in value. We’ve all fantasized about it one time or another. Even if you don’t collect to turn a profit it’s nice knowing you can. The thought of opening a box, stashing away the cards in an 800 card storage box only to find out many years later a player (you didn’t think highly of) has emerged into a MVP caliber player. There are so many examples of this that I don’t need to go into detail but I’ll leave one name here: Mike Trout. “Prospecting” is a HUGE driving force in today’s market of collectors. Absolutely enormous. Not to mention, it probably has one of the highest margin profits for the card manufacturer because it is not focused on a new innovative card design or securing those highly priced game used jerseys he mentioned. Also, let’s not forget the significant impact this Upper Deck pre-rookie card has had on the collecting market: 1993 SP Derek Jeter, Jeter wasn’t in the majors until 1995. Just Sayin’.
These last two are things I was hoping you’d bring up to get his perspective (but I realize the interview was already over an hour long):
3. How to try to market more to children/kids. This point has been beaten to death over the past couple of years, but it’s a major concern: Who will carry the baton of the hobby into the future if kids are literally priced out of the market completely? I choose not to partake in opening packs or boxes but even if I did, I would have a hard time financing it with a full-time decent paying job. I often ask myself, if I were kid today would I even collect cards? Probably not. That’s weird to even think about because of how much of my life now revolves around the hobby. ha!
4. His thoughts on virtual product and more specifically: Upper Deck e-pack website. This is the only way I “bust” new UD product with the free pack each day. Albeit, it is hockey and I’m not a collector of hockey cards but I still find it fun to open the free pack and try to build the set. How much of the market does he think will be e-cards in 5, 10, 25 years?
Steve,
Thanks for the excellent feedback. You bring up a lot of interesting points.
1. 1990s Inserts: As passionate advocates of this category, you and I both know this is a big deal in the hobby but I’m always left wondering if it’s of majority interest. With all of the many box breaks going on online, I almost never see anything other than your typical gu/au/rpa stuff. Exciting, sure, but it’s not ’90s stuff.
2. Prospecting: This is, indeed, an important part of the baseball card industry. I agree with you there. What I can appreciate, however, with say Hockey for example is that the approach to releasing a card only when the players plays a pro game makes rookie card identification much more accurate. As you know, this designation has been muddied up significantly in the baseball card hobby over the past 15 years or so.
3. Targeting to kids: This is absolutely essential for the reasons you stated in your comment. I agree with you completely. Had we had more time, this would have been an excellent addition to the conversation.
4. Virtual Products: This is an interesting point that I often don’t think about. I think that’s because the virtual thing is still in its infancy. Good point on longevity consideration.