Liberating men's pockets: Corvallis company sells guys bags

By ANTHONY RIMEL - Associated Press - Sunday, August 2, 2015

CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) - A Corvallis-based company has a simple goal for its new product line: it wants to overturn the aversion of American men to carrying purses.

NutSac Bags, a company that started in 2009 by making and marketing high-quality bags for disc golf, is launching three new bags it intends for men to carry for their everyday use. The headliner in the bunch is a bag the company is calling the MPD.

The initials stand for Man Purse, Dammit.

“As in ‘Yes, it’s a man purse, dammit,’” said company founder Greg Kise, who said he’s been using one of the American-made bags himself for about two months.

Kise said the company’s goal is to encourage men to entertain the idea of carrying a purse.

Matt David, whom Kise brought on as a partner in January, said that any man carrying a small bag would inevitably have it called a purse by others, so the company wants men to embrace that idea.

David, who met Kise while they were both studying business at Oregon State University in the summer of 2013, has been working mostly on the company’s marketing campaign.

The marketing effort includes a Kickstarter campaign that gives people a chance to preorder from the new line of bags, which also include a satchel and a messenger bag.

To promote the idea, Kise and David are using a campaign they’re calling the “Pocket Liberation Front.” The idea is to liberate men’s pockets from carrying objects such as keys, wallets and cellphones — or from asking spouses or partners to carry that stuff for them in their purses.

The Kickstarter page for the bags features a video imitating the style of an old movie newsreel. The video shows men in period costume marching with Pocket Liberation Front signs and banners. In it, Kise wears a pseudo-military outfit and stands in front of an American flag while he holds a book titled “The Man Purse Manifesto.”

“We believe that all men have the right to carry a small essentials bag without fear of ridicule or retribution,” he declares.

Kise said the company believes it can turn laughs into sales, and as of Thursday afternoon, the campaign had already reached more than $3,600 in presales, just two days after launching. The campaign’s goal is $11,500 and 25 days remain in the campaign.

Kickstarter is just part of the launch: The company will retail the bags through Amazon as it has with its disc golf bags, and wholesalers already are showing interest.

“The Kickstarter is giving us information about what the customers want; really, I’m thinking about Christmas,” said Kise.

Kise said the campaign video has already been viewed more than 1,000 times, which he’s heard is a very good sign for the campaign’s success.

While Kise said NutSac is using humor in its marketing approach, it doesn’t joke about its name. He said that the idea for the name is based on how people say it is nuts to manufacture bags in the United States out of natural materials. The company uses a Chicago-area subcontractor to make both its disc golf bags and its new line and sources many of its materials in the United States.

“We’re just a couple of nuts trying to make bags in the U.S. If other people are making double-entendres, we have no control over that. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.”

Kise said since it started, NutSac Bags has sold about 10,000 disc golf bags both online and at stores across the world; 3,500 of those sales were last year.

“We’ve got kind of a cult following,” said Kise. He said many of his customers asked him when they were going to make other bags.

A NEW MARKET

In late 2014, Kise said, he decided he wanted to grow the company into a new market and explore new areas of bag design; since bringing in David as a partner in January, they’ve been working on the new product line and its campaign.

Here’s part of the reason why Kise is interested in new markets: Disc golf organizations estimate that there are around 750,000 disc golf players in the United States, and if 10 percent of them bought a new bag in a year, the market for bags would only be around $6 million. While the general market for men’s bags is larger — The Wall Street Journal said in April that a study pegged it around $6.5 billion worldwide in 2014 — Kise said it is more crowded field.

Kise said he believes that the man purse can be a disruptive force in that market.

“If you are going to go into a crowded market you need something that is disruptive,” he said. “At the end of the day a bag is just four walls and a bottom. . We think what is disruptive is our message.”

Kise said that the campaign is as much about the message that men should be comfortable carrying a purse as much as it is about selling bags. If it works, they think that all men’s bag manufacturers could benefit.

“We think it is easier and more fun to sell an idea than it is to sell a $200 bag,” he said. NutSac’s new line of bags range in price from $79 to $289.

Kise said his ultimate goal is to reach a point where they company is employing full-time designers to work on developing new bags. The company wants to introduce new colors of their existing bags, has a backpack in the works and wants to launch women’s bags eventually. That design work would be centered in Corvallis, and he hopes apparel design students at Oregon State University could be hired for it.