Drew and Jonathan Scott, the siblings higher often called HGTV’s “Property Brothers,” have constructed, rebuilt, renovated, redesigned and reimagined tons of of areas since their TV careers took off in 2011.
However the property they’re most proud to have constructed is their very own Scott Brothers World empire. The corporate, based mostly in Los Angeles, is house to a bustling manufacturing entity, Scott Brothers Leisure, in addition to retail and e-commerce home-furnishing product traces that seemingly go on perpetually. The brothers have mastered the flywheel strategy of utilizing their huge TV presence to burnish their private model, which in flip drives retail and e-commerce gross sales, endorsement offers and advocacy in areas the brothers really feel enthusiastic about, akin to sustainability and inexpensive housing.
Extra from Selection
The 44-year-old an identical twins from Vancouver have turn into towering figures on the earth of way of life media — and never simply because Jonathan is 6 toes 5 inches tall and Drew, 6-foot-4. The pair have deftly used their serial entrepreneurial abilities, drive and Canadian attraction to turn into four-quadrant crowd-pleasers.
They’re additionally adventurous, seizing the Peak TV second to supply (and promote) a collection a couple of drag queen renovating a seven-room motel in Palm Springs: Scott Brothers Leisure delivered “Trixie Motel,” starring “RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars” winner Trixie Mattel, to Discovery+ in June. “As a drag queen, I’m used to having to elucidate an amazing alternative to folks as a result of it’s a bit wacky,” Mattel says. “The brothers beloved ‘Trixie Motel’ from the primary pitch.”
“Trixie Motel” is a first-rate instance of how the Scott brothers purpose to develop the scope of their manufacturing exercise with TV and digital content material. They’ve equally expansive plans for his or her different enterprise ventures, a lot in order that Drew simply accomplished an 11-month management growth program at Harvard Enterprise Faculty.
And they’re forging forward at this trans formative time for media and enterprise with an organization that they personal outright. They don’t have any personal fairness cash, no silent companions. And so they personal all rights to their signature “Property Brothers” TV model, due to a savvy deal they struck about two years into their run. “It was so necessary for us to take it in-house and work out our development technique,” Drew says.
“Sooner or later sooner or later, some points of our enterprise will likely be partnering with the correct folks to assist issues proceed to develop. Nevertheless it’s been thrilling for us to have the ability to be those to carry the management, to have the ability to make the choices, as a result of on the finish of the day, I belief Jonathan by and thru. He’s not some stranger that I introduced in with cash to do one thing or vice versa. We all know we’ve got the identical values.”
Jonathan nods and says, “I’ve one accomplice.” “And he’s fairly handsome,” Drew provides.
THE SCOTT BROTHERS Leisure manufacturing arm is in energetic manufacturing on 13 unscripted TV collection, from cornerstones “Property Brothers: Eternally House,” “Brother vs. Brother” and “Superstar IOU” to a rising lineup of reveals that don’t function the brothers on digicam.
In retail, the pair are so ubiquitous that their presence turns into a type of promotion — and product integration — for the TV reveals. There’s the Drew & Jonathan line for retailer Residing Areas, promoting furnishings, mattresses and wall artwork. There’s the man-cave assortment for Macy’s — barware, serve ware, rugs and tabletop video games. And there are upwards of 10,000 Scott Residing-branded objects offered by brick-and-mortar and on-line retailers akin to House Depot, Lowe’s, Wayfair and Amazon, from wallpaper to window remedies to digital fire consoles to toilet vanities. In lower than 10 years, the Scotts are nearing greater than $2 billion in retail gross sales.
The brothers even have a wholesome endorsement enterprise, which has helped make Drew and Jonathan family names even for viewers who don’t have HGTV as a preset on the distant. In recent times, the twins have served as pitchmen for the ADT safety agency, Chase Financial institution, Dish Community and American Household Insurance coverage. ADT capitalized on the brothers’ honest-broker repute with the launch of an enormous advert marketing campaign in the course of the Tremendous Bowl. “The private model the Scott brothers have created aligns with ADT’s model when it comes to high quality and belief,” says Casey Blair, senior advertising supervisor for ADT. She provides that the brothers “helped with recognizability of the brand new marketing campaign and signaled one thing new.”
As they settle into their second decade as TV stars, the brothers are centered on rising Scott Brothers World with recent content material and ventures akin to cell video games. In dialog, the 2 are as excited and aggressive about their new product line with Lowe’s as they’re about spreading their wings as TV producers for different expertise. “The standard of the kitchen cupboard line that we’re placing out, the worth level for folks to enter — it’s going to piss off everybody else within the cupboard enterprise,” Drew says. “It’s going to be revolutionary for folks.”
The profit-making potential for the brothers’ retail dwarfs the TV content material enterprise. However there’s no query that the Scott brothers didn’t turn into family names till Canada — and, shortly after, america — acquired a take a look at them pounding nails and selecting out paint colours of their well-fitting denims.
The “Property Brothers” idea of a house renovation present hosted by siblings — one a contractor, one an actual property professional — debuted in 2011 on Canada’s Corus. Three years later, the brothers had been an in a single day sensation of their U.S. debut on HGTV. At the moment, “Property Brothers” and different of theirshows air in additional than 160 nations and are a pillar of the soon-to-merge HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming platform. Because the scope of their actions has grown, the brothers have leaned exhausting on Scott Brothers World president David Dembroski, a distinguished Toronto leisure legal professional who represented them for years earlier than becoming a member of the corporate in 2018.
Matt Horowitz, the Scotts’ longtime consultant at CAA, has additionally been instrumental in guiding their profession for greater than a decade. Drew is extra intently concerned with the event and manufacturing of TV collection; Jonathan is extra into product growth and design. “We divide and conquer every thing within the firm,” Jonathan says. He additionally describes their efforts as consciously “information pushed.” Suggestions from followers and clients is a helpful loop if you know the way to make use of it. Jonathan factors to the kernels of perception about shopper preferences they gathered from the 20 billion video games that followers have performed on the “Property Brothers House Design” cell app that debuted in 2019 in partnership with writer Storm8.
“We get all of those analytics in, after which the group makes use of that to create route for the place we need to focus,” Jonathan says. “As a result of we will do 1,000,000 issues on the market, nevertheless it all dilutes the model. Our mattress program is among the most profitable issues we’ve ever approached. [Partner] Restonic has been unimaginable. They allow us to design mattresses the best way we really feel is true from all of the connections we’ve had with folks in actual life and with our purchasers. They allow us to design mattresses that really repair the issues that folks have, and maintain it at a value level …” Drew interrupts Jonathan’s earnest evaluation with a facepalm. “There’s the quote,” he says. “‘Property Brothers: We repair issues within the bed room.’” Jonathan instantly provides another: “‘We accomplice with the most effective of the most effective for our product line and for ensuring that we’re staying with that dedication to high quality.’” He tops that off with a salesman’s smile.
All kidding apart, Lowe’s and different retailers have rolled out the crimson carpet in shops for Scott Residing merchandise. For Lowe’s, it’s “a model that clients know and belief,” says Invoice Boltz, the retailer’s government VP of merchandising. The bigger assortment of furnishings and fixtures additionally makes for a turnkey strategy for these looking for “cost-efficient methods to improve their rooms with no big-time dedication.” Jonathan’s aggressive streak comes out when he notes how exhausting it’s to make it in house furnishings, that are a much bigger funding than, say, a pair of denims or a T-shirt. “There are tons of celebrities who put out house furnishings traces and all these completely different merchandise,” he says. “I bear in mind one fella — and he’s in all probability one of many greatest celebrities on the planet — his house merchandise line failed. He couldn’t promote something. And I feel ours works as a result of folks invite us into their residing rooms each single day. Or no less than, for the 48 new episodes a yr that we do.”
THE STORY OF STARTING their first enterprise round age 7 looms massive within the Scott brothers’ mythology. Their father was a stuntman and an actor, whereas their mom labored as a paralegal for a regulation agency that gave the brothers good, and sometimes free, authorized recommendation of their early years. “We had been born that method — serial entrepreneurs,” Drew confesses. The primary Scott brothers contribution to British Columbia’s financial output grew out of a craft venture they each beloved. “We made these ornamental hangers,” Drew says. “We had been promoting them door to door, and we ended up discovering a lady with a sequence of American paraphernalia shops in Japan, and she or he began shopping for them by the hundreds.” For sure, scaling the operation was a difficulty for the grade-school CEOs. However they took necessary classes from the expertise and by no means appeared again at their stability sheet.
The expansion of Scott Brothers Leisure is a precedence for the pair within the coming yr. The 2 purpose to nurture expertise that, simply as they did, come into tv as enterprise homeowners with present firms that also want consideration. Drew and Jonathan struggled with balancing their TV work with different tasks early of their TV run — till they took the reins and tailored the manufacturing schedule to their wants. “Our aim is to make our manufacturing firm the most effective manufacturing firm anybody’s ever labored with,” Jonathan says. He is aware of nicely the grind of unscripted TV. Early on, he says, “there have been years I had solely six days off [from] filming all yr, and I began getting sick. And so we simply mentioned we need to be producing these reveals in a method that we predict is extra environment friendly, so we will maintain the standard excessive however we will additionally preserve our high quality of life.”
As soon as they took cost, “Property Brothers” and different reveals shifted to a block-shooting mannequin through which producers gather materials for numerous episodes at one time quite than ending off one episode at a time. That makes it trickier to piece collectively in post-production however has advantages for the ultimate product. “It doesn’t make any sense to shoot every episode in sequence; possibly it makes it a bit simpler for manufacturing, nevertheless it makes it 10 occasions tougher for development,” Jonathan says. “It truly caught on, and now virtually each producer [of home design shows] makes use of among the adjustments we carried out.”
One other enterprise tenet for the brothers is: Jerks needn’t apply. “You understand how some producers yell at their crews? You’ll by no means discover that on our reveals, as a result of there’s no want for it,” Jonathan says. “Everybody’s working their butts off to make one thing. We preserve our core values: high quality, respect, households.” Over the course of an extended dialog, each brothers make repeated references to these core rules inculcated by their mother and father, and each repeatedly point out their need to assist householders from all walks of life feather a snug nest. One expression of that’s by their work, since 2017, as ambassadors for Habitat for Humanity. The brothers assist serve “as a rallying voice for the assist we have to perform our mission,” says Jonathan Reckford, CEO of the Atlanta-based nonprofit that advocates for inexpensive housing. “They’ve volunteered on construct websites, supported our group as we sat earlier than Congress and took part in quite a few fundraising actions. We’re honored by their dedication and sit up for many extra years of partnership.”
Drew acknowledges the burden of their success as he displays on the place he desires to see Scott Brothers World occupy in one other 10 years. “For us, it’s not simply that we need to make an entire bunch of cash and be well-known. We love serving to households,” he says. When Drew is informed that he was noticed strolling into Selection’s photograph shoot carrying his personal stack of fits in dry cleansing luggage — the sort of chore that assistants normally grapple with — he grins sheepishly. Jonathan rolls his eyes and invokes their mother and father once more. “Mother and Dad would kick our butts if we acquired massive egos,” he says.
The brothers even have a robust viewpoint on their rising fame and learn how to maintain it from overwhelming the model and their lives. Jonathan is in a long-term relationship with actor Zooey Deschanel, making them a Hollywood energy couple regardless of how a lot he tries to downplay it. Drew and his spouse, Linda Phan, have a rising profile collectively within the way of life, parenting and wellness fields: The 2 host the podcast “At House With Linda & Drew Scott.”
The brothers are relying on their uncommon profession path to be good for his or her longevity within the eyes of customers. “We’re not celebrities, we’re personalities,” Jonathan says. “We’re personalities who won’t ever compromise on the integrity of our model and what we truly do. And at last, in spite of everything these years of working our enterprise, we’re at a degree the place, wow, we’ve truly constructed one thing that’s fairly unimaginable. And it offers us a platform to essentially develop.”
Better of Selection
Join Selection’s E-newsletter. For the newest information, comply with us on Fb, Twitter, and Instagram.
Click on right here to learn the total article.
