ICYMI: Read a high school student's simple solution to Shinola's branding problem

In case you missed it ... sure, the Internet is lousy with plenty of thinkpieces about Shinola, the luxury watch and bicycle brand that opened in Detroit last year and is credited for such lofty claims like "bringing manufacturing back to Detroit." But if you can be bothered to read one more, you should read the opinion piece penned by high school student Jillian Gordner over at Deadline Detroit last month.

To Gordner, Shinola has a simple — yet major — branding problem by choosing to evoke the Model T with their new Henry Ford Pocket Watches, a limited edition piece which are sold for $1,000 each out of an edition of 1,000:

It just seems a little odd, if not outright disconcerting, that Shinola chose to capitalize on the image of the Model T to sell a product that is aimed at the elite, rather than the masses for which the Henry Ford car was created.

It's a simple problem, but she has a simple solution:

Perhaps, at some point, Shinola will take Henry Ford's lead and produce at least one watch that the local masses can afford — even if it's only sold as a limited edition.

Read Gordner's whole story here.