Singer’s Emails Show: SPI Knew It Lacked Any Legitimate Basis for a Lawsuit

To “attack” FIGS, former SPI CEO Mike Singer tried hard to find anything that FIGS was doing that it could possibly manufacture a lawsuit over. But his team came up empty.

In order to attack FIGS, Strategic Partners, Inc. CEO Mike Singer repeatedly asked his team to find something . . . anything . . . that FIGS was doing wrong so that it could manufacture a lawsuit against us. But much to Singer’s chagrin, his team came up empty.

First, in 2017, Singer asked his Director of Research to look at the health care claims being made by two competitors, FIGS and LifeThreads, to try to find something they were doing wrong. However, his Director of Research responded to him that “FIGS is actually pretty good, they only make one claim,” and that “it is buried on their site.” Even though she reported to Singer that LifeThreads is “much more of a problem,” Singer remained laser-focused on FIGS because of the competitive challenges presented we created.

Undeterred, in 2018, Singer again asked other SPI executives “to study FIGS’ marketing and advertising” because it is “growing and connecting better with our audience.” He asked his team to tell him “what is making them so effective” and “what they are doing well and what you see that is wrong or misleading about their marketing.” Once again, in response, his team had only glowing things to say about FIGS and found nothing wrong or misleading in its marketing:

“This is a company that is young, has a great corporate image, good product, and is mobile. They have excellent social, especially on Instagram and Pinterest, where engagement is high. The target audience is a high end niche market, but they have the best fully integrated and multi-platform marketing content in the industry, and will most likely capture the attention of up and coming young nurses because of it. Perhaps most importantly, their DTC e-commerce strategy gives them a huge advantage over retail-oriented manufacturers.”