Flex Watches: Making Time to Change the World
There are companies and organizations all over the world that have the best intentions, but lack the marketing chops to make a real dent in the earth. Then there are those with killer ideas and the right combination of creativity and fearlessness. Those select few build mountains with molehills and generate enough traction to leave us all applauding in their wake. Flex Watches is one such company. Flex gives you a trendy watch (which you’ll love) while also giving charities a chance to make a real difference. But this isn’t just a product review. This is a case study on making a big idea fashionable.
Who’s behind this?
The Flex brand is the brainchild of founders Trevor Jones and Travis Lubinsky, who grew up in Southern California – where fashion and music culture come together and make beautiful, talented, trend-setting babies. Friends through high school and college, the pair started putting their heads together in early 2011 with a watch that could be flexible. The band is interchangeable and makes the watch itself unique, but because it’s silicone, flexible, and surrounds the entire watch casing, it changes more than just the band – it changes the look of the watch completely. You can now flex your personal style without having to buy a dozen different watches. True to form, the name Flex was “inspired with the vision of living in the now and being flexible throughout life.”
What else makes them awesome?
Besides being comfortable, trendy, affordable, and easily customizable, Flex answers a bigger question with every sale: what positive impact can I have on the world while still looking awesome? Let’s be honest, we all want to change the world, but if it involves buying a bunch of bumper stickers or t-shirts we’re never going to wear, many of us take a pass. This is where Flex Watches changed the game.
Lubinsky and Jones created the 10-10-10 program. They created a watch with 10 available colors, benefitting 10 charities, with 10% of all proceeds being donated. Each color represented a different charity so you could flex your creative color and your altruism muscle simultaneously. After their first local fundraiser, the pair traveled to Mexico and donated more than 15,000 meals for children in need. This was all in 2011. Later that year, MTV contacted them to partner up with “The Real World” and their circle of influence exploded.
I got my hands on one of their most popular color combinations, white on white. The feel of the band is stretchy and comfortable, and a welcome departure from a lot of other “sport” bands which often feel like that giant Armitron we loved when we were nine. Don’t lie, you had one and you loved it. I know I did. The watch casing itself is a breeze to remove and replace in the center of the silicone band, so I’m pretty excited to pick up some different colors and experiment. At $40 or less (and often on sale), there’s really no reason not to buy a bunch of these. With new designs coming every season, your collection can grow pretty quickly.
What we can learn from Trevor and Travis
There is a great need for creative minds to come together and make saving the world “cool” again. In a time when it often feels like profits and persona are the only things that make headlines, we can often feel like nothing we do will ever make a difference. It’s simply not true. Flex Watches took the idea that ordinary people, especially younger generations, could be a huge driving force behind some incredible charities. With trendy, interchangeable watches, customers get what they want while the charitable donations mean we make the world a better place with each purchase. Now that feels like a change we can all make time for.
And I’m officially done making time puns. You’re welcome.
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