Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/48190
ne Business his goals. When his first box of frames arrived at his home, he said he got goose bumps, but even then, he took his time. "I finally had my samples, and I went through each frame, one by one, for quality control. I showed them to friends. I took pictures of them, and studied them afterward before choosing the ones I wanted." When the product arrived at his store, Ber- berian instructed his staff not to direct customers toward the frames or to let on that he was the designer. To his delight, the frames took off. The next step was to create brand awareness. "Often, when people create a product, they just slap a name on the product," Berberian says. "I knew I didn't want to do it like that." He created the name Todd Rogers—Rog- ers is his middle name and his mother's maiden name—and put energy into creating catchy tag lines. The idea was to invest his fledgling line with "a feeling" that felt true to his personality and vision. The next big test arrived when Berberian took his wares to the New York Vision Expo East, where they were assigned a booth at the bottom of an escalator that attendees had to use to reach some of the most popular exhibits. "We designed the booth to look like what you'd see at a concert, with T-shirts stuck to the wall," he says. One of them read: "I know you're admiring my glasses," with the "gl" and the "es" in tiny letters. Needless to say, the booth Shop Keeper Berberian at Andover Eye Care. 88 nshoremag.com December/Holiday 2011 nshoremag.com December/Holiday 2011