About Mammoth
Founder Rowena Crittle established Mammoth Merchandise in 2005 out of a combined passion for fashion and music. She launched the business as a promotional products and merchandise company. With her experience selling merchandise it didn’t take long for bands to approach her and ask could she start doing the full range of tour merchandise services. Mammoth has built a network of over 200 sellers in Australia and New Zealand who work at the live events to sell the merchandise and we’ve managed tour merchandise for the likes of Michael Buble, Paramore, Laneway Festival, Nitro Circus and many more.
Two by Two has established its point of difference by embracing technology. Rowena is passionate about creating innovation for our clients to enable new revenue distribution channels which means an increase in revenue generated by merchandise. In 2009 Big Woolly was launched. It was established to enable the bands to be able to sell through leftover tour stock. Not before too long its full potential was realised with social media integration, tour merchandise reporting console, and strategic marketing support.
In late 2010, Rowena restructured the company to ensure we keep up with the changing trends of our industry and client’s needs. We made a direct shift from been a “product” based company to a “services” based one. Mammoth Merchandise is a merchandise agency offering a full range of services. Besides the primary custom solutions, we offer different packages to suit our client’s needs and offer white labelling packages for affiliates as well.
By March 2011, we will launch our own flagship Big Woolly store. It will be called Band Of Villains (BoV) and we’ll sell direct to consumers. It will showcase what our Big Woolly software can do and offer something unique to online consumers with a strong emphasis on social media as our key marketing tool. The store will be a destination where a fan can create their own band t-shirt by picking the t-shirt cut, colour and which design they like out of their favourite band’s approved designs. We digitally print on demand (i.e. print per order) which means for our clients that we’ll license band t-shirt designs from them and pay a royalty fee per unit sold. There is no outlay of cost or risk of dead stock on the shelf.
After much research, we will proactively move into the traditional Brick n Mortar Retail distribution channels by the end of 2011 seeking licensing deals on behalf of our clients. Rowena spent over six months researching this marketplace and utilising her degree in Fashion & Textile Design to come at retail from a fashion perspective and not a traditional merchandise view. This is the toughest market to gain success but if done properly we can maximise the volume of merchandise sales and nearly triple the revenue made from tour merchandise for the same band.
We know the key to music branded fashion merchandise is to ensure it follows the processes associated to developing and producing a seasonal concept fashion range. It’s got to be more than just throwing a few printed t-shirts into a store, it has to be more sophisticated than this and we’ll develop for selected clients a FASHION LABEL.
About the Founding Director
Rowena Crittle achieved a BA of Fashion & Textile Design majoring in photography, graphic design, pattern making, sewing, screen printing, fashion illustration and marketing. Whilst completing her degree Rowena worked in music and fashion retail working for Dangerfield and Fish Records. The day Rowena graduated she knew she wanted to start her own business but at the age of 21 she had no idea what the business was going to be, all she knew is that fashion retail wasn’t it after seeing how unreliable it can be.
Rowena was offered a full time position at Fish Records as Assistant Area Manager. Her responsibilities included weekly visits to each store to maintain store appearance and the product range, monitor sales reports, and helping improve the sales in each store. This was attributed to monitoring best selling genres and ensuring the layout of the store matched this and the stores were well signed. She worked alongside the Area Manager out on the road and the rest of her time in Head Office doing the buying for the chain of 12 stores with the independent record labels including Inertia and Creative Vibes. Rowena also used her graphic design skills to design ads for press and signage for the stores.
After been with Fish Records for three years Rowena was offered a position at BMG Records as Sales Coordinator. After six months in this position she jumped across to Universal Music as Australian Artist Coordinator working for the A&R & Marketing managers. She used her graphic design skills, marketing and retail knowledge to assist her managers in releasing and marketing Universal’s Australian roster and worked with signed labels including Dew Process, and Modular People. At night Rowena used to work selling merchandise for ATM (Australian Tour Merchandising) and established a network of sellers in Sydney.
After one year, she took the plunge and decided to leave and set up her own business. She saw a gap in the marketplace for a fresh and innovative approach to promotional products and merchandise. Rowena combined her experience and passions for fashion and music to create Mammoth Merchandise. She went on to work at Warner Chappell on a contract as licensing coordinator and then at Carisma CDs whilst setting up Mammoth Merchandise.
Nothing but good hard work, a willingness to take risks, and a sheer determination this young entrepreneur believes was the recipe to the survival and success of her small business. It was built from scratch with no funding or investment. Rowena takes pride in where the company stands today with herself still as sole owner. She had a clear plan of her goals and objectives, and started with no money in her bank account but a $5000 credit card debt. She slowly paid off each item on her list to get the business going from printing business cards to registering her business name.
When Rowena knew she wanted to start up Mammoth Merchandise she knew she needed to learn more Business Management skills and enrolled in a Small Business Course at Surry Hills BEC Centre. After this she launched the business in 2006 as a sole trader. After two years of the business been run from a home office, the business was growing at a rapid rate and building a strong reputation and needed staff to manage the workload. Rowena enrolled through her local BEC centre again in 2008 to join a Female Business Mentoring Program. The course ran for six months and run by the government. It enables a young female business owner to have a mentor that will work one on one on their weaknesses and help the business take the next steps to grow if substantiated. At the course graduation Rowena was asked to speak about her growth and experiences. Rowena was profiled on the Government site for the program and asked to participate in a book published by the government called “Heels in Motion” which celebrates Women in Small Business.
In 2008 Mammoth Merchandise was a Finalist in the Sydney Business Awards, where Rowena accepted her certificate from Clover Moore. At this time the business changed from a sole trader to a company with Two By Two Enterprises established. Mammoth Merchandise was set up as a trading entity underneath it’s banner. In 2009, Rowena was invited to talk for the Government at a local BEC Meeting called China Lunch Room about Importing from China. The talk was in front of 150 attendees and she states it was a fantastic and rewarding experience. After the talk she sat at a table talking to other young start up business owners wanting to learn tips on how to start importing and trading overseas. Following this Rowena was interviewed for a book published by Austrade called “Importing from China”.
About the Team
Our expert team come from a variety of different backgrounds including fashion, tour merchandise, retail, record companies, and design. They have worked for a range of large corporations to other small businesses. Our team are trained up using our staff manual and have a clear understanding of our company’s mission, vision and culture statements.
Our team includes:
