Dank Leathers NGC

[arveno]

Hi All ,
I am helping a friend of mine , his name is Carlo , that started his own business and decided to post here his website.
He's very skilled guy and can do anything leather related. Bags , wallets, saddle bags,tool kit, seat upholstery  ... you name it ..
I just gave him an old leather jacket and asked him to use it as reference to make me a new jacket with horse hide , will post pics when done.
 
http://www.dankleathers.com/

for those one that does facebook , here is the Link

https://www.facebook.com/dank.leathers

thanks

Marco

[Lannis]

I must say I'm surprised at his choice of trademark, tho' .... "Dank" means moldy, musty, wet leathers thrown in a corner and left to molder .... I thought the thread was going to be about how to restore a set of ruined leathers?

My marketing advice aside, it does sound like a good and unique service for someone with a much-beloved old leather jacket that they'd like copied or something similar, or re-covering a motorcycle seat maybe ... ?

Lannis

[Chuck in Indiana]

Yeah, me too, Lannis. Not a good choice of name, IMHO.

[PJPR01]

I have to agree completely...poor choice of Marketing / Branding

Dank, The Scent of Authenticity, A dark basement set of stairs...

Not really a compelling marketable way to sell products here in the U.S.  Highly recommend a more palatable name...I can't think of anyone who would want to walk around with any leather with the word Dank on it.

[arveno]

Thank you for the advices , I will pass them to him.
He said the name choice was given by the strong smell of good leather .( probably he did not think about the molded leather, like Lannis pointed out.
I remember the first time I walked in his shop , the strong smell of leather....

Thanks again , always good to have feedbacks.

[PJPR01]

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2009/06/23/15-manly-smells/

This may give him some ideas of how to market the image/feel/scent of leather but in a more appealing way...

Ciao!

[rodekyll]

Dank is also a drug culture term for marijuana.

[Triple Jim]

Of course it *is* used to mean "very high quality" when referring to marijuana.

(typed in parallel with rodekyll's post)

[ed.bremner]

Yeah, I just came across a positive usage of 'dank' too..



Caught me offguard.  I need to hear it in use a few times before I get my head around it.  Sound like an adjective, except you can't use it to refer to anything directly.

Can you say:  "I say, what a very 'dank' leather jacket you are wearing young man"  or does it have to be used simply as: "Hey fella, that's really dank"

Anyway....we digress.

eib

[Lannis]

Thank you for the advices , I will pass them to him.
He said the name choice was given by the strong smell of good leather .( probably he did not think about the molded leather, like Lannis pointed out.
I remember the first time I walked in his shop , the strong smell of leather....

Thanks again , always good to have feedbacks.

Smells/odors are extremely evocative .... like good leather, like my grandfather's den where he smoked good cigars and pipe tobacco, like good fresh-ground coffee beans, like Hoppe's #9 powder solvent, like honeysuckle on a hot summer's evening as your bike dips into a low spot ....

The website is very positive and gives a sense of "We'll do it your way, try us!"   So many folks these days are all like "Warning - we do not work on MTD equipment" or "We do not do zipper repairs" and the like.   I'll check around and see if I've got some older leather gear that I gave up on but still like ....

Lannis

[Lannis]

Yeah, I just came across a positive usage of 'dank' too..

.........
Anyway....we digress.

eib

One more digress ... years back, David Letterman did a "man on the street" search for a genuine 1990's "Hippie".   He found some street dude that was pretty funny and featured a segment on him for a month ... but in his street patois, "Dank" was the term for something good, and "Schwag" was the term for something bad.

I doubt if enough people would remember that, though, to overcome the common usage of the word!

Lannis

[LowRyter]

I think it's a hipster thing. 

I can almost hear Lannis yelling at them to get off his lawn.

[PJPR01]

...like my grandfather's den where he smoked good cigars and pipe tobacco  Lannis

Agree...the basement in my grandfather's Wisconsin house always smelled like pipe tobacco mixed with a bit of a musty smell...a very pleasant combination.  If one can evoke that kind of nostalgia with a name, you'll sell millions!

[Nic in Western NYS]

I think 'dank' means something different to the younguns.  Maybe analogous to 'rad' in the 1980s?

[Lannis]

I think it's a hipster thing. 

I can almost hear Lannis yelling at them to get off his lawn.

I don't think I know any "hipsters"?   I don't live or play in the same places or do the same things as they do, I don't think.

Be that as it may, though, I'm pretty sure they don't belong on my lawn, whoever they are .... !

Lannis

[PJPR01]

I think 'dank' means something different to the younguns.  Maybe analogous to 'rad' in the 1980s?

That would be either "dope" or "sick" or "phat"...

[oldbike54]

 Some of you guys possess , er , well let's call it esoteric knowledge 

 Dusty

[Nic in Western NYS]

That would be either "dope" or "sick" or "phat"...

I think those are more from 90's and 00's.  Rad was dead by then.  Over and out, buckaroo! (50's)

[oldbike54]

 Them's the berries  Oh sorry , we were discussing ...

 Dusty

[Fuzzy]

There ain't no hippies from the '90s, unless they are from the '60s. Early 60's was beatniks.  If it's the '90s, I don't know what the heck they are. In fact, if it past the '60s I don't know what they are.

I thought I knew most of the weed terms, but dank is new to me. I'll try it on and see how it fits.

[Lannis]

There ain't no hippies from the '90s, unless they are from the '60s. Early 60's was beatniks.  If it's the '90s, I don't know what the heck they are. In fact, if it past the '60s I don't know what they are.

I think that was part of the Letterman joke ... ARE there any leftover hippies, sort of like are there any leftover Japanese soldiers in the jungles of Guam who didn't know the war was over yet ....

Lannis

[pikipiki]

Google asked: Did I mean 'Dawn Leathers' which is quite surprising really as I hadn't heard of that either and half expected to be asked did i mean 'Spank leathers'

[Mayor_of_BBQ]

You guys are old lol

"dank'' means strong, potent, powerful and good quality....  yes it originates from herbal culture...  But it's a catch-all term for cool, rad, etc nowadays

[oldbike54]

 Uh oh , apparently The Mayor is a HIPSTER  Hell , I'm still trying to figure out whether it is hep, hap , or hip 

 Dusty

[guzzista]

Asides from all the side tracking on the original posting, what sticks out to me is  the disagreement on naming the business Dank being counterproductive on the marketing end. Reminds me of a conversation I had years ago with Dave Richardson ( Moto International) when the BMW 1200C was introduced. My words: BMW guys will never buy a cruiser! and Dave: Thats exactly the point ! BMW wants new customers. Same for Dank /Carlo. His future looks a lot brighter if he points toward Hipsters, Millenials etc,  for future business Otherwise if he was hoping that red suspender types buy his stuff, he might as well serve pizza instead. So to Carlo: Tanti Auguri di Grande Successo ! or Dank on, brother !

[Lannis]

Asides from all the side tracking on the original posting, what sticks out to me is  the disagreement on naming the business Dank being counterproductive on the marketing end. Reminds me of a conversation I had years ago with Dave Richardson ( Moto International) when the BMW 1200C was introduced. My words: BMW guys will never buy a cruiser! and Dave: Thats exactly the point ! BMW wants new customers. Same for Dank /Carlo. His future looks a lot brighter if he points toward Hipsters, Millenials etc,  for future business Otherwise if he was hoping that red suspender types buy his stuff, he might as well serve pizza instead. So to Carlo: Tanti Auguri di Grande Successo ! or Dank on, brother !

That's true, and Carlo may have already considered that.    Feedback never hurts, though, and (I'll assume he's reading this first- or second-hand) if he looks at the comments and says "The negative comments look like they're from old toots that aren't my target market anyway; the ones that will spend money with me are the young guys who understand what 'Dank' means", then that's a positive outcome for him.   Normally you have to pay real money for market surveys and studies!

Fay and I are off shopping today - we're going to the "Skank Shop" to look at sweaters, and then to "Jockstrap Soup Cafe" for lunch ....

Lannis

[PJPR01]

Otherwise if he was hoping that red suspender types buy his stuff, he might as well serve pizza instead. So to Carlo: Tanti Auguri di Grande Successo ! or Dank on, brother !

Not quite...I would definitely buy the leather products for their quality (we don't even know what the pricing is for these products), but I wouldn't buy something that has the word Dank printed on it as a brand showing prominently.  Good quality is worth paying for, but if the name is funky, I'd pass.  Initially I thought he was shortening the word Danke (thanks in German)...but I'm guessing not.

Suppose your Guzzi was named Gassy...would you still buy it? 

I bought a lot of really fine leather when living in Argentina...great jackets, vests, hats, gloves...all superb quality for decent to higher prices given the quality of the leather, but most brand names were the family name rather than a slang / (lunfardo in Spanish). 

[Lannis]

I bought a lot of really fine leather when living in Argentina...great jackets, vests, hats, gloves...all superb quality for great prices...most brand names were the family name rather than a slang / (lunfardo in Spanish).

Sometimes even the family names need a little discretion - there's a 100-year-old engineering firm in our town named "Hurt and Profitt" (it's not a joke, unlike the 'Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe" legal firm), an assisted living place named "Runk and Pratt", and a funeral home named "Bruce and Stiff".

They seem to be doing OK though, so maybe the name isn't so important.   They sold a lot of "Gas Gas" trials bikes.

Lannis

[PJPR01]

Sometimes even the family names need a little discretion - there's a 100-year-old engineering firm in our town named "Hurt and Profitt" (it's not a joke, unlike the 'Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe" legal firm), an assisted living place named "Runk and Pratt", and a funeral home named "Bruce and Stiff".

They seem to be doing OK though, so maybe the name isn't so important.   They sold a lot of "Gas Gas" trials bikes.

Lannis

  No doubt!  The Funeral home could be lifted right out of a Monty Python skit...mind if we call you Bruce!! 

[v7john]

"Hampton Tool Hire" was a good one. A real company in the days of my youth. If that doesn't transfer to the other side of the Atlantic. Hampton - Hampton Wick is Cockney rhyming slang! http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hampton

and a tool is the same thing.