S16 E02: Cliff Robinson, CEO of Revo

[Music] You're listening to the luxury item, the podcast on the business of luxury, and the people and companies that are shaping the future of the luxury industry. Here's your host, Scott Kerr. IWARE has been increasingly important for the bottom line of luxury brands. The overall IWARE category has been a strong growth area within the luxury sector, outpacing overall luxury market growth due to factors like accessible luxury, technological innovation, and accessories becoming a focus for brands. RIVO sunglasses hold a cult status in the US with a heritage reaching back 40 years. RIVO's roots are in the American space industry. It was founded in 1985 by NASA astrophysicist and optical engineer, Dr. Mitch Ruta, who pioneered the idea of adapting space-based technology into high-performance polarized sunglasses. RIVO quickly became a global IWARE icon and established itself as a leader in polarized lens technology and performance IWARE. Over the years, RIVO passed through the hands of many big players, including Ray Ban and LaXatica. In 2018, the brand was acquired by US IWARE Group B. Robinson to revitalize and reposition RIVO in the premium IWARE segment. In recent years, RIVO expanded into new retail markets and launched collaborations with high-profile athletes, celebrities, and companies such as Lexus, and most recently the Rolling Stones. My guest on the luxury item is Cliff Robinson, CEO of RIVO, a role he has held since 2018 when he was part of a private investment group that acquired the brand. Previously, Robinson was the CEO and owner of B. Robinson, a renowned IWARE company founded by his grandfather, which he led from 1992 to 2021. Welcome to the luxury item, Cliff. Nice to see you again, Scott. Yeah, thanks for joining me. The story of RIVO goes back to 1985 when optical engineer Dr. Mitch Ruta adapted space-based technology to create lens coatings for human IWARE. Can you share the story of how Dr. Mitch Ruta came to found RIVO back in 1985? Sure. And let me say, Scott, I want to be really clear. I never had the opportunity to meet Dr. Ruta. And so I'm sharing the story, but I can't say I spoke with Dr. Ruta directly. If you remember back to when you were a child, think of when you were watching cartoons on Saturday morning, and you know the light bulb moment goes off in your head. Yeah. If you can think of that visual, that's how RIVO really started. Dr. Ruta was a NASA scientist. He was working on these protective coatings for satellites in space, which was at the time a very new groundbreaking technology. And he also happened to be an avid outdoorsman and an avid skier. And he was on the slopes one day, and it was sunny, and literally think back to the cartoon visual of the light bulb went off in his head. And he's like, if I could do up there in space and protect these multi-million dollar satellites for NASA, you think I could, you know, get my eyes a better experience down here on the ski slopes. And that's really, you know, how RIVO was born. It was a true, as we say, revolution, which is where RIVO comes from, revolution in I wear. He created a better mouse trap. I'm sure he faced some challenges in translating space technology into everyday I wear. So again, I was not there for the beginning. I know, you know, the early year stories. We only got involved with RIVO about seven or eight years ago. So I don't want to overstate my knowledge. You know, as I hear it, and everything, you know, 40 years later is, you know, looked at in a very different lens, no pun intended. He tinkered around in his basement, which, you know, then tinkered around in the lab and developed what became this RIVO lens, which is known for its, you know, special mirror coatings and protective coatings that give it the performance and, you know, clarity aspects as we say, and that RIVO is known for. But in that classic entrepreneurial start-up story, you know, the lens got introduced to the market and, you know, again, given the NASA reference, you know, it was off to the moon. Yeah, I was just immediately accepted. It wasn't like, you know, years of toiling and problems and whatever. It just sort of worked. The timing was right and it all clipped. So in his mind, he actually wanted to start a sunglasses brand. You know, again, I, he probably didn't start a sunglasses brand until he realized he could. Yeah. He had a problem. I mean, most great brands, you know, there's, you know, a problem. You know, someone asked a question and then a problem is solved. Right. You know, if you watch Shark Tank, you know, half those entrepreneurs, something happened to them personally and they're like, I can create a better mouse trap. And that's really what happened here is his eyes bummed him on the ski slope. So he's like, I can fix this. And here we are literally 40 years later, because this year's RIVO's 40th anniversary. And, you know, we're still talking about this, again, revolution that Dr. Rude has started. He created the performance-based eyewear market. It didn't exist before him. So in those early years, how did RIVO position itself versus other sunglasses brands like Ray Band and Oakley, which were really the dominant forces in the 1980s? Yeah. So back then, Oakley was a different kind of dominant force than it is today. Oakley was a very sort of surf, California cool brand. You know, nothing against Oakley, but they weren't really known for lenses the way they are sort of focused on lens technology today. They were really more of this, you know, cool, South California cultural item. And RIVO back in the 80s, you know, the market was very different. The landscape was smaller. There were not 15 million brands competing for our attention. There was no social media. You know, you had partnerships with retailers and you had what I'll call traditional legacy advertising. And RIVO gained traction by, you know, first of all, offering a completely new revolutionary product. And partnering with, you know, best in class retailers to feature that product. And because the product and the lenses were so new and unique and great, it sort of all fell into place. And you know, RIVO became this best in class lens that everyone sort of had to have. And as legend has it, you know, these time younger people who are now sort of my age, you know, we all grew up being like, wow, I want to have RIVO. And we get calls to our call center and emails to our, you know, our customer care team every week being like, man, I love RIVO. I used to work three jobs when I was 19 because I had to have them. They were so expensive, but they were the best. And that's really, you know, how RIVO became so iconic is it all starts with the product. It's just a little bit better than everything else out there. So when did RIVO start to gain traction and become a significant player? What was that pivot point? I mean, in 1985 when RIVO launched, seemingly overnight, all the right optical stores, all the right specialty stores, you know, started to carry it because it was just, it sort of caught fires, you know, a very, classic entrepreneurial story. It almost went viral before viral and social media existed. And RIVO has been owned by several companies since they're founding in 1985 Italian, I wear giant Laxatica, a choir, RIVO in 1999, where it was managed alongside flagship brands like Ray Band and Oakley and was eventually part of Oakley's brand portfolio in 2013. Oakley sold RIVO to a licensing company, sequential brands group, and then in 2018, your company, BeRomance, an optical led by you and a team of investors to create RIVO holdings. So when you acquired RIVO, the brand was receiving less investment and support compared to its peak terms, independence in the 80s and 90s, how did RIVO kind of lose its way? So it's a great question, Scott, and you know, we could spend an hour just talking about sort of this history question. I wouldn't say RIVO lost its way. I would say that as happens with many independent great brands, they get gobbled up by large conglomerates and priorities change and ownership changes. And then of course the market changes. And so as you said, RIVO started as independent. It was bought by Ray Band. Ray Band was subsequently bought by Laxatica, Laxatica bought Oakley, and all of a sudden you have all these great brands competing for Mindshare within the same company. And so it's not that RIVO lost its way. It's just that everything changed. In addition, the market changed because now not only were Ray Band, RIVO and Oakley in the same portfolio, but they were now numerous copycat competitors being like, hey, maybe this lens space is sort of a good space for us to play. And so you know, over the years, you've had a number of people try to tell a lens story, which was sort of RIVO's story from the beginning. And so I think a brand like RIVO which, you know, was always a little smaller than a brand like Ray Band or Oakley, and was always sort of, I don't want to say cooler because that's not fair, but it was more like it was an underground kind of experience as opposed to mass popularity. And these kind of independent brands, they need to, you know, they need a different kind of love in TLC that a more mass distributed brand like Ray Band. or Oakley needs. And so, Rivo just didn't make sense in a larger portfolio. And so, we were honored back in 2018. We were able to purchase Rivo, as you shared, from, you know, Laxatica/sequential brands. And Rivo's where it belongs now, it's independent again. And you know, I'd like to think we want to just be a good steward of the brand and pay tribute to the heritage and what Rivo is known for. And give it that love and TLC that it really needs. That's where Rivo belongs as an independent brand. So when you took a look at this brand, where did you see the opportunity to revitalize and grow it to its original premium identity? Yeah. So, you know, as you've been saying a few times already, Rivo was this very large, you know, independent, cool brand in the 80s and 90s. And so when we took over back in, you know, 2018, there were millions of fans who had sort of lost touch, had forgotten about what was going on with Rivo. It never went away. But, you know, brands come and go even though they're still available in the market. And so, you know, our first goal here was how are we going to connect to the millions of fans who know this brand and remind them that, you know, Rivo not only never went away, it's still here and it's better than ever. The lenses are amazing. The product is great. And in our humble opinion, you know, we still think it's better than all the other products on the market. And there are many other good products that help there. So step one was who are these millions of fans? Where are they? And now with the internet, because that didn't exist back in the 80s and 90s, we have all new ways to connect with people who love the brand. And on top of that, you know, now these fans of Rivo all have kids. And so how do we now also talk to the next generation who, you know, as long as something is authentic and good and you're not selling it, so to speak, you know, that next generation respects what their parents think is cool. In addition to that, you know, there's just been a lot of sameness in our market up until very recently for the last 10 years. In the last year, there's been a lot of innovation. But in the last 10 years, you know, not a lot happened in our market. And you know, we felt that we could, I don't want to say reintroduce because that means it went away. All right. So we're going to use Rivo to this market and say, hey, you know, we've got the best lenses out there, everybody. And if we keep that story organic and authentic, it resonates. And that's what's been working. I don't have to tell you that revitalizing a heritage brand requires vision, patient, strategic investment and a careful blend of honoring the past while embracing the future. It comes with distinct challenges like balancing past and present, preparing perceptions, differentiation, and building cultural clout. So what have been the strategic levers you're pulling to make an American heritage brand like Rivo culturally relevant again? That is one loaded question, Scott. And I can move in an hour, right? I'm going to answer that as best I can and as succinct away as possible. You know, the first thing I'll say is, you're right. It's not easy. I like to say that, you know, every day we wake up and we are pushing a large rock up a steep hill. Because there's just so much noise out in the market and it's really hard to cut through all of the noise. So we're very mindful of that. We try to connect with our fans as well as new people. I've said this, you know, a moment ago, authentic and organic is really important. And I think if you present an authentic and organic story, you can become more culturally relevant again. You know, in the end, I like to say people want good product. And if you offer a best in class product, chances are you are going to cut through that clutter and you are going to get to the people you want to get to. So there's the product piece of it, which has to stay authentic and has to say true. And then there is, you know, what I'll call more pop culture, ambassador, influencer marketing, which, you know, we have to play that game also. And that's how you make brands culturally relevant is you align yourselves with, you know, whether it's celebrities and bassitories, athletes, influencers who can help you tell your story. I mean, we want to make one plus one equal three. We don't have enough money and enough size to sort of tell that story only on our own. We need help, whether that's through influencers or whether that's through retail or partnerships, which are also of course important. And so, you know, from the, what I'll call the marketing side, we have teamed up with a number of ambassadors, influencers, athletes, musicians now, which I can talk about that as well to, you know, help us get that message out there. And one thing I will share, which seems sort of counterintuitive in today's world, we don't pay our athletes and our ambassadors. You know, there are a lot of other companies out there that, you know, write a big check and say, we'd love you to wear our product. Right. And then the lawyers get involved and you have a contract and, you know, someone says, well, I'll post five times this year and that's going to cost you X. We lose out on some ambassadors because that's how the market works, but we really believe people should wear our product because they want to. I'm not because they're paid. And so, you know, that also contributes to our sort of, again, that organic and authentic message is we want people wearing our product because it works for them and because they like it, not just because they're getting a check. And that's how we really like to work and make the brand culturally relevant again. So when you relaunched Revo, who do you feel would embrace the brand revival the most? Was it the customers we just just talked about before who grew up with Revo in the 80s and 90s? Yeah. I mean, look, we, we certainly want to start with people who know the brand. That's the easiest place to start. And so, you know, goal one, and it still continues to this day, seven years after we made our acquisition is connect with all those millions of original fans who love Revo. And as I said earlier, you know, call our call center, send us emails being like, man, I love this brand. And then we want to reach to that next generation who is also looking for heritage, but in, again, an organic and authentic way. Yeah. Because many young millennials in Gen Z are probably not familiar with Revo compared to other high profile, to other high profile sunglasses brands due to ownership changes in the shifting distribution, just periods of lower visibility that we just talked about. How are you addressing that brand awareness gap with the next generation of customers? And how do you make them care about Revo? Yeah. Look, good question. Easier said than done. You know, what's interesting about this younger generation, and I have kids who are, you know teenagers in early 20s, this younger generation knows when they're being sold and they know when something's authentic. And they don't like being sold to. I've learned that, you know, both the hard way and the easy way. And so our goal with this younger generation is really we have to remain authentic. It's got to be something that they figure out for themselves and that they discover. Because if we're trying to sell them, it's all of a sudden, it feels sort of fake and forced. And so, you know, we certainly want to connect with our core audience and hopefully that, you know, core connection will trickle down to the next generation. But that next generation, as I said, they want to figure out the why for themselves. If we tell them why Revo is great, you know, they sort of tune out. But if we can, you know, leave the tidbits and the nuggets and, you know, sort of explain or show in a more organic way what makes our brand special and they figure out the why for themselves, it works a lot better. And that has been working for us. You know, when we, when we show up at events on site and things like that, we engage with a number of younger fans and new people who become fans who are like, when they, when they learn about our technology, they're like, man, this is really better. You know, glad I learned about it. And that's how we try to do it. Is that one of the reasons why you recently announced the collaboration with Lucas Jagger, the son of Mick Jagger, who's now the face of the Revo Rolling Stones, I wear collection. Can you talk about that? Sure. So you opened up the big elephant in the room, huh? Yeah. So just again, to be completely clear, the partnership with, is not with Lucas Jagger. Lucas is an ambassador of ours. He is, of course, Mick Jagger's son and he is the face of a campaign that we've just launched. I am a huge Rolling Stones fan. And so I am beyond humbled to say that we were fortunate enough to create this really unique partnership. First, we have a partnership with the Universal Music Group. We have a strategic alliance where we have the ability to partner with Universal Music artists to bring, I wear to more of a mass audience, again, in an organic and authentic way. Because again, what goes better together than Shades and Rock and Roll? That's a great experience of audio and visual and everything together. And one of the first projects we did with our UMG strategic alliance is we've teamed up with the Rolling Stones. What other band over the last 50 plus years has archives upon archives of cool sunglasses and great fashion and shades. So we teamed up with the stones, we dug through the archives. types sort of together and have created a Rolling Stones Revo collaborative IWare project where we're telling the story of favorite IWare the band has worn over the last 50 years in now a modern new way. And so the point of that whole project is going back to some of the things we've been talking about. How do we tell a great story that's been to get people excited about what we're doing with Revo in a cool organic authentic way. And we felt this was the way to do it. What better way to get our lens technology out to our wider audience than to partner up with arguably one of the five most iconic bands and logos in the world. And so if that great red tongue is associated with Revo, we feel we have the credibility from a product side to tell that story. And we are again honored that the Stones chose to work with us to get this really cool story out there. So is the broader collaboration with UMG? That's the legends and sound where you could just keep dipping into and working with UMG on different-- Absolutely. Thanks, yeah. So the point is we're just rolling the sound now. We launched literally two weeks ago. We have this strategic alliance with the Universal Music group as I shared. And the idea is whether it's every six months, whether it's every 12 months, is do cool collaborations? That again, I'll keep saying, I'm going to repeat myself that are organic, that are authentic, that telegrade story. So whether it's with the Rolling Stones from a legacy rock standpoint, or whether there's a great country artist that fits what we're looking to do, or even if it's like a K-pop band in Korea, what makes sense to help us tell our story? And again, being truthful here, teaming up with these world famous celebrities helps get our message out there in ways that we couldn't do it before. And so we want to stay true to the brand. We want to stay true to the product. And I will always say our product gives us the credibility to partner with these people. We're not just slapping a logo on something. We're not just doing a marketing story for the sake of making noise. We're doing something to help get our true message of product out to that wider audience in a way that we could just not do on our own. It always goes back to, as I said, how do we make one plus one equal three? And with Universal, we feel we can do that. And Riva was engaged in some notable collaborations outside of this with cultural and athletic partners in the Galfing Arena, Lexus Automobiles, National Geographic Photographers. What is the focus of your partnerships? What is the collaboration strategy? All very unique partnerships indeed. But what is the common thread? When it comes to what I'll call these more specialized partnerships outside of our Universal Music Music sort of collaboration project, a lot of the people you just named, we've worked with Onik, we work with Onik, A Sorenstum, we've worked with Bodim Miller, we've worked with Jimmy Chin, we've worked with Renon Ozturk, you mentioned Lexus, when we partner up with people in what I'll call the Athlete Ambassador World, we want people who love Riva for them. And as I like to say, because they want to wear it in their day job, because it's gear, almost that works for them. And so, to just do a collaboration with an ambassador or athlete who doesn't wear our product, but posts about it a few times and whatever, that doesn't pass the organic and authentic tests that I keep talking about. You know, again, I'll use Onika as the example. Onika wears our product and she wears it because she loves it and she has the choice of any other brand in the world. She happens to like hours and the same goes for Renon and some of these other people I mentioned is they just like our product. And those are the people we want to work with because they're gonna, again, I'm repeating myself, they're gonna organically and authentically get our message out as opposed to me getting an email from someone in their office saying, you know, how would you like athlete X to talk about your brand? If I've got to give them the talking points, it's already not authentic. According to Bain and Company, I wear was one of the only luxury categories to experience growth last year, reaching $19 billion, $17 billion Euro in global sales volume and expanding by three to five percent year over year, runaway success of wearable tech offerings along with I wear being an accessible luxury splurge in a time when consumers push back on high prices as created this unique opportunity for brands. How has Revo seized this opportunity in the market to distinguish itself? - I'm not gonna fight with facts and numbers, but I would not believe all you read. There's a lot of great ways to spin a story, so to speak. And while wearables are the hot thing to talk about and there's a lot of press going on about wearables and the biggest companies in the world are getting involved in this wearable tech offering, it's still a very young, nascent market in I wear. A lot of people are spending a lot of money in wearables on I wear. And as far as I can tell, the amount of money being spent has not necessarily generated the commensurate return on that investment and I will say yet. And so it's very easy to tell gross story in sales, but what some of these statistics you just shared with me aren't saying is how much money's being spent to get that increase in sales. And as of today, let's just say the money being spent is a lot more than the return on that investment. Now again, from a long-term standpoint, that investment will most likely pay off over time. And I think some of these larger companies, and Google and Met are now involved. They're gonna build a new category and like everything else, it will be a category with an I wear, but I don't know that it replaces the business that we see today. And I'm also, and this is just my opinion, we actually have a wearable product as well in RIVO. In our product, it's audio only. We believe that our audience is really happy to take a phone call, they wanna listen to music. But I'm not yet convinced a large, large audience wants to be reading emails and doing all of this stuff in their glasses. That remains to be seen. And so I'll just say I think wearables is here to stay. But if you go back in history of our business, contact lenses when they were new, we're gonna completely replace people from wearing glasses. Contact lenses settled in, it's about 10% of the total I wear market and people who wear contacts are happy with them and people who wear glasses are happy with those. And so I think wearables becomes something like that story where it becomes a portion of our market. I don't know that it becomes our entire market. But again, that's just one person's opinion and I could be wrong. - So yeah, that's from the wearable standpoint, but we're also seeing what Bane was saying is that we were seeing growth last year because of the idea of accessible luxury that I wear is accessible luxury. So are you seeing the effects of that? - I would say yes and no. Again, I'm one small data point in a very large I wear universe. I think from a global standpoint, the economy is tough. And so I wear naturally is less expensive than maybe a handbag or something like that. But still, it's not cheap. The tariff issues have caused prices here in the US to increase across the board. And so we're seeing modest growth right now, but we're very cautiously optimistic about the longer term growth. And I wear right now is segmented from a US standpoint into categories. You have a sub 100 product and the over 100 product. We compete in the over 100 product. And again, I'd say there's modest growth and that growth is probably attributable to wearables in some of this new technology that we've been talking about. 'Cause if you don't bring the consumer something new, you don't give them a reason to buy. - Right. - And that's what we're trying to do both with our wearable product, with our collaborations with people like the Rolling Stones. Obviously with our Nassolens technology in general is in a tough economic environment, you've got to give the consumer a reason to keep spending 'cause you keep offering the same thing over and over again. That leads to a stagnant market. - A couple of years ago, Rivo opened its first European flagship brick and mortar store in Barcelona, Spain. So I was reading that you described Barcelona as a risk-free way to test retail strategy for a global cosmopolitan audience in a city well known for style and tourism. How are you using the technology? using this flagship store to immerse customers in the Revo brand story. - I jokingly say Barcelona's like our off Broadway (laughing) because we're an American company. - Oh, all right. - And while Barcelona's an incredible city and I love it, I've been many times, you know, if you fail in Barcelona, people don't hear about it, as if you fail in New York. And so that's why we chose to start in Barcelona. Today we have a store in Barcelona, we have a store in New York and so how. And we think retail is really important for what I will call all the obvious reasons, you know, which I can lay out for you here. You know, first, you have the internet where you can show your entire breadth of product. But in the internet, you can't touch and feel it. And then you have third party brick and mortar, what I'll call traditional retail, you know, whether that's blooming dails or the local doctor's office in your neighborhood, in the mall. And when you work with traditional retail, whether it's a brand like Revo or really any other brand out there, you're getting a very curated, small selection of the overall brand story. So you walk into Dr. Smith's office around the corner where you live and Dr. Smith might have 36 pieces of Revo in his or her location. It's a nice assortment, but it doesn't really give you the breadth of what Revo does. And so we feel retail, our own stores, is the way to really give the full immersive experience of what Revo is all about. And so whether it's in Barcelona or if you have the chance to visit our store down in Soho in New York, you can really experience Revo the way it's meant to be experienced. In our store, we have a history wall showing the 40 years of heritage of Revo. And you know, there's pictures of Dr. Rudan the wall and there's pictures of all these different ambassadors that we've worked on over the years. And then of course you have the full range of product. So you know, IWare is very personal. Everyone's face shape is different, colorations are different. And so you know, it's not like in the car business, you have five models of cars and you pick one. And IWare, you know, we have 30, 40 models out on the walls. And so retail is the best way to tell that story in the best way we can. And that also helps raise the bar for our other third party Brick and Mortar retail partners 'cause if we're telling the story of Revo really well, it only helps lift the boat for when you walk into a third party store and you might see 36 pieces of Revo. You just have a better feel for the brand. All right. And that's why we feel retail is really important. - Some curious, what are the European's perceptions of Revo? Do they see it more as a sports performance sunglasses or less of a fashion statement brand than the US consumer? - It's a bit of a mix. Interestingly enough, Europeans in general and I don't want any Americans to write in and you know, complain and tell me I said something that was disrespectful to American consumers. Europeans are more discerning when they shop. They might shop a little less, but generally speaking, they shop for quality and are willing to pay higher prices. The US generally speaking is a little bit more of a mass audience and in most cases looking for slightly lower prices. And so our European business is unique because they really see Revo as like top quality and even if they don't know the brand as well in some of the markets as you know, our US consumer, they appreciate the level of quality and you know, no questions asked about price. And so we love the young, we love the US market but we love the European market because they really respect what we do. - So do you see expanding in Europe in the near future? - Yeah, you know, we're a US company. So the retail expansion for Revo probably would happen here first in Europe. There's always opportunities to have some more of our own stores. The European expansion is probably more through traditional third party brick and mortar customers. Sunglasses also is a seasonal business as you may know and in Europe, you know, other than maybe a little bit in Greece, Southern Italy, Spain. Sunglasses is not a 12 month of the year retail business as much and so it's harder to operate stores that are open 12 months of the year like again. I love London but it rains for six months in the winter. Not a great sunglasses business in December in London. So, you know, we wanna be very strategic about where these stores might be and really focus on partnering with our, you know, traditional third party partners to, you know, tell that brand story. - Between strategic collaborations with lifestyle focus brands and designers, these high profile partnerships and new flagship retail experiences in New York City and Barcelona sure looks like Revo is increasingly embracing a lifestyle positioning though its roots are firmly in performance eyewear. So can Revo grow as both a lifestyle and a performance brand? - It's a great question Scott and I first wanna respond by saying I actually don't think Revo's roots are firmly in performance eyewear. I think Revo's roots are firmly in performance lens technology. If you go back to the, what I'll call the early days of Revo back in the 80s and 90s, half the frames were what we would today call a lifestyle frame and half the frames were, you know, what we would call today a sports performance frame. And so Revo has always been sort of at this nexus of lifestyle and performance and I was actually talking about this with a partner of ours the other day. Lifestyle and performance are really connected at the hip. All of our frames are lifestyle if you wanna really think about it. It's just there are different kinds of lifestyles. You're a runner, you're a cyclist, you're a golfer, you play tennis or maybe you just like to take walks in the city or walks in the park. Those are all different lifestyles. And our lens is, is what ties it back to the performance element. So whether you're walking down Madison Avenue or you're playing 18 or you're running a marathon, we have frames that fit your lifestyle, but the lens is always gonna, I hope, perform better for you in whatever activity it is or not activity that you are doing. And that's really how we position the product is the lens is the performance piece and the frame which creates the whole package is how you use it. And in addition to the performance, we always wanna make sure you know you're getting the best protection for your eyes. And so it's not just about performance clarity and all that, but it's cutting down the glare and we all know to wear SPF on our skin when we're out in the sun, but we don't know to wear lenses to protect our eyes 'cause your eyes get just as damaged from the sun's harmful rays. And so we wanna make sure we're protecting your eyes as well as giving you the best performance for your eyes in whatever it is that we call lifestyle. So I hope that makes sense. - Yes. And this year is Revo's 40th anniversary. You celebrated with major limited edition releases and collaborations to amplify the story of Dr. Mitch Ruta and his technology. So what's your ambition for Revo in the next 10 years? - We talked earlier about this strategic alliance with the Universal Music Group and that is one of my personal ambitions is how do we take this unique alliance and really turn it into something even more special. And so we're launching with the Rolling Stones now. We will have numerous other artists over the next 12, 18, 24 months and then up to the next five to 10 years. How do we tell that story better? How do we keep it authentic and organic? Which is what we've talked about. And as I like to say, you know, it would be nice to be one of the biggest I wear brands in the world. We're certainly not the size of a Ray Van or a real clear or anything like that. And we really take pride in our office. We really wanna be recognized as one of the best. Don't need to be the biggest, but we really want people to say, oh, Revo, like they make an awesome, awesome lens. They got a really cool brand. That's really the ambition is how do we do something that is long lasting. As you said, we're celebrating Revo's 40th anniversary this year. 40 years from now, I want people to still be saying, man, Revo, what a great, great sunglasses brand. What a great lens, you know, they may not be the biggest, but they really are the best of what they do. And that's the overall goal here. - Well, Cliff, my final question is the luxury item question, which I ask, oh my guess. So if you were, yeah, so if you were stranded on a deserted island and you can only have one single luxury item with you, what would that luxury item be? It can't be any form of air or water transportation to get you off that island or anything that requires mobile service. So you can call some of your friends, your family to get you off that island. You're just stranded on this island all by yourself, but you have one luxury item with you. - Okay. - What would that single luxury item be? - So I'm stuck on the island and I can't get off, huh? - Can't get off. - Does the island have power? - No power. - Wow. The luxury item I would have said, had we had power, is I would have the most amazing stereo system on the planet, and I would just be playing great tunes all day long. So I would have to come up with a few more questions. with some solar powered stereo system that played great tunes all day long. 'Cause if I'm stuck, I better have some damn good music. Cliff Robinson, CEO of Revo. Thank you so much for joining me on the luxury item. Thank you so much Scott, really appreciate it. It was a fun conversation. Indeed. (upbeat music) That's it for this episode of the luxury item podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this useful and entertaining, I would be really grateful if you can share it with a friend or colleague. I would love it if you subscribe so you never miss an episode. And while you're there, be sure to rate and review us on Apple podcasts. It really helps other listeners find us. The luxury item podcast is a production of silver tone consulting. I'm your host, Scott Kerr, until next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)