Australian underwear company Knobby launched into a world where direct-to-consumer social media sales were still in their relative infancy. Launching just over ten years ago there were local mattress companies like Koala just getting started, with selling DTC primarily through Facebook and Instagram a pretty big, untested gamble.
Today, Knobby is still going. Based out of the Sunshine Coast, it has a large national footprint with its subscription business alongside a thriving online store. It has also opened a local bricks and mortar store and has found success with a Knobby vending machine located in Sydney’s T2 Domestic Airport. And now it has a bold plan to deliver NFC underpants bridging the experiences of textiles and digital.
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The company still relies predominantly on marketing through social platforms, but is working towards diversifying its channels more. In a conversation with Mediaweek, founder Rob Rand said that “It’s very easy to get on that Meta drug where it’s all just Meta paid advertising. We’re now getting into more traditional media as well, to Outdoor… we’ve got a retail store too, which has been great for us.
“A lot of on-the-ground activations too. That’s been really good for awareness. We do a thing called the ‘Undie Exchange’ and it actually works so well. We have these portable change rooms, a big perspex container, and people just come in and they just take off their old underwear, put on a new pair of Knobbys and that’s it. It’s really good to be able to get people in the product. Once they’re in the product, they generally stay in.”
Rand told Mediaweek about a recent report he received from Australia Post about its distribution footprint. “They were quite surprised at how much of a rural focused customer base we have over Metro. Not to say we don’t have Metro, that’s significant… but it’s just how we’ve managed to reach those rural areas.”
What is Knobby?
The subscription business still accounts for around fifty per cent of Knobby’s sales. For around $25 a month, the company mails a new pair of underwear to your house, each month with a different, bold art design. The company started selling just boxers for men, but have since expanded their line to include underwear for women and kids.
The company also sells one-offs and seasonal items like Christmas-themed underwear. Knobby claims a new pair is sold every 36 seconds.
It’s a company that continues to grow. In August Knobby was announced as a brand partner and supplier for the Australian Olympic team ahead of the Milano Olympics next year.
Sustainability is core to the brand, using a ‘BottleBlend fabric’ made with recycled plastic bottles. It also sells pairs using fibres crafted from raw wood.
The underpants of the future
Knobby also has a future-forward perspective, with all of Knobby’s underwear set to be NFC enabled.
A recent PAC-MAN limited edition pair enabled users to scan their underwear with their phone, which would open up a phone browser to let users play a game of PAC-MAN. A novelty, sure, but it opened the door to what was possible with the technology.
Rand explained that “We wanted to find a way where we could eventually one day connect the customer more with the product and where they could start to ask questions like ‘how many washes is it had?’ Or start to gamify it more as well – by just holding your phone near it you can turn the underwear into augmented reality experiences as well.
“Our biggest challenge for a long time is closing the gap between like a print and digital. We’re slowly getting closer to that now, which is super fun.”
There are also plans to enable customers to use the NFC capability to track the origins of the material in their purchases, connecting the user with the brand’s promise of sustainability.
The origin story
The idea to launch the business came from Rand living in Far North Queensland while his wife was doing country service as a teacher. He would see the locals queue at the local post office for mail, which arrived just three days a week in the town that he said has more cows than people.
He was also keen to lean into his creative passions. Rand recounted: “I really wanted to create artwork on textiles, but something that wasn’t so trend and fashion driven. Something like underwear is great because it’s so far from fast fashion because you can wear it forever and nobody’s ever going to judge you.
“It was cool. Somebody could wear bright pink floral unicorns and no one would ever know. But it might empower them.”
These days it isn’t Rand doing the art. The business has a couple of graphic designers and a product designer on staff. They’re also working to get more external artwork too so that they can avoid it looking too much like it has an in-house style.
Rand launched Knobby with the subscription model, which he admits was challenging at first.
“This is coming off the back of 24 month phone plans where people felt like they never get out of them. So we had to re-educate people that you’re not going to be locked into anything.”
The subscriptions were also a great motivator to keep the business moving forward.
“You had an obligation that you had to deliver that product to that customer every single month. They’re expecting it. It wasn’t like a traditional e-commerce store. The first day I sent out the very first pair, I was like: ‘Whoa, they’re expecting this every month now’. I couldn’t just contact them and say: ‘Hey, you’re not getting this anymore’.”