The inside story on Trump Steaks.

"The World's Greatest Steaks"

College classmate Tony Farrell is an expert on branding and marketing specialty merchandise. He has written guest posts here that apply his experience with brands to political subjects. In my introduction of Tony's posts, I have always mentioned that he handled the Trump Steaks account. I was teasing him: So you are responsible! I was also qualifying him: He handled big sales campaigns readers know well. For years, Trump Steaks were the archetype symbol of overpriced Trump-branded merchandise personally hyped by Trump. In recent years Trump Steaks have been joined by other improbable products, including Trump trading cards, NFTs, bits of fabric, Bibles, MAGA wear, "collectable" coins, and sneakers.

I have been asking Tony to tell the story of Trump Steaks, and he finally relented.

Last December, tree shopping in college logo-wear

Guest Post by Tony Farrell 

Since my connection to Trump Steaks keeps coming up, I tracked down Conan O’Brian’s memorable take on it from 2007, a hilarious six-minute video clip that shows the Donald has always been the same guy:

For 14 years, displayed in my man-cave is a framed catalog from The Sharper Image (June 2007) autographed by Donald Trump in his fat gold signature that launched a thousand executive orders.

As classmate Peter Sage has often touted, as Senior VP Creative Services for The Sharper Image from 1998 to 2008, I helped guide the “Exclusive Introduction!” of Trump Steaks, “The World’s Greatest Steaks,” and all I can say now is, “Who knew?”

Since 2016, when I relate my career highlights, I always mention Trump Steaks and then apologize, “If that spoils the karma for you, forget I said it.” But I must say: No one forgets it.

Like a few select catalogs (Neiman-Marcus; Lands’ End), The Sharper Image catalog was renowned for featuring unusual and extravagant gifts, singularly aimed at generating buzz. (Mel Ziegler, co-founder of Banana Republic, once offered me brilliant marketing advice: “If you want word-of-mouth advertising, give people something to talk about.”) 

Funny story: The month before I joined, the featured big gift was a $10,000 Hummer golf cart. The Sharper Image sold only two -- one to an Arizona man as a surprise gift for his wife, and the other to that same wife, as a surprise gift for him!

So, whose idea was this steak business? Not me (not my job); not the head merchant's (his job); and not the founder's, Richard Thalheimer, the promotional genius behind the enterprise. It bubbled up from the outside group of deeply cynical corporate raiders from New York who took advantage of Sharper’s troubled stock to, essentially, take over the company's board in early 2007. This gaggle had no retail experience, but the leader’s wife loved shopping. It was his idea.

In fairness, it's not crazy to sell food via catalog. In the 50s, my parents were big fans of Fruit of the Month club out of Medford, Oregon; Omaha Steaks is a grand success; and I'll bet that over half the revenue from Vermont Country Store's catalog is from food and candy. Sharper Image could sell almost anything, from clothing items to personal-care consumables. Electronics were the signature category but sales were not nearly as big as the public assumed. But we hadn't done food yet.

As the inventory planners struggled to gauge what sales, if any, would result, I sent my creative director to Trump Tower to shoot our now-famous cover. Trump’s licensing manager wanted him outfitted in a tuxedo, but we convinced her he’d look like a waiter. We settled on his already familiar blue suit, white shirt, red tie.

Funny coincidence: The first word my creative director chose to describe his experience was “weird.” He said Trump was “big” and “orange,” and surrounded by hundreds of photos of himself (we shot in his office). But he also said the experience was surprisingly positive. 

Too often, celebrities are practically impossible to manage in these scripted and confined situations. Often, it's necessary to hire a “celebrity wrangler” to keep the suits away and the star sober, on time, and prepared.

Trump required no wrangler. He arrived on time, greeted each participant, learned people’s names, understood my team's roles and concerns. He courteously followed directions and was patient with the process, which ran long.

Tony’s catalog, signed in gold ink

Later, as promised, Trump autographed a good number of the printed catalogs. And I got mine.

Because of the steaks’ high cost and low margin, our merchants mixed burgers into the package: lots of burgers to get the margin and average order-size higher. (Omaha Steaks does this.) But Sharper Image customers didn’t buy it, or buy them.

If the goal of this idiotic idea was to generate buzz, it was a staggering success. Unfortunately, it was relentlessly mocking buzz. Mocking Trump was a popular sport then, as now. Despite Trump's fame and The Sharper Image's iconic status, we sold almost nothing. 

Within a year, The Sharper Image went bankrupt, not because of Trump Steaks but for myriad other reasons: macro-economic; micro-economic; personnel; merchandising; the new World Wide Web; an ill-considered lawsuit. But Trump Steaks' launch was the perfect denouement, a vestige of the doomed invasion of our lovely, fun California company by clueless takeover clowns from New York City who were infatuated with Trump’s celebrity.

I lose sleep thinking that if I'd only done a better job selling Trump Steaks, The Donald would not have needed to find another job.