Football Star Zay Flowers Tackling New Role with UrbanStems

By Jill Brooke

When you are born with the last name of “Flowers,” blooming opportunities are in the future.

Of course, wide receiver Xavien “Zay” Flowers’ success is rooted in becoming a NFL player for the Baltimore Ravens.
Paying attention to his career, and his iconic last name, UrbanStems CEO Meenakshi Lala wisely thought that perhaps, like flowers do in nature, there could be a collaboration.

Imagine Lala’s delight when she also learned that the 24-year-old Zay Flowers was also a flower guy.

Now for Valentine’s Day, UrbanStems is anointing Zay Flowers their “first-ever Chief Floral Receiver.”

A clever play on words, what this means is that Flowers has endorsed and created a special bouquet for $72 that people can buy.

The Zay Bouquet ($72) includes what Zay says are “not your grocery store flowers” – a vibrant mix of blues, purples, and white stems featuring Zay’s favorites: roses and fragrant delphiniums. Each flower was carefully selected to embody Zay’s dynamic energy and unmatched style on the field.

Is this a way for guys not to “fumble” when giving a bouquet? Perhaps. But it is also a story to tell, where one can say, “I didn’t want to fumble,” “I wanted to have a touchdown with you so I bought these,” “Tackling getting you a gift is not easy so thought you would like these flowers.”

UrbanStems also benefits with this campaign as another way to seduce buyers to see other products, since as we’ve reported, the company is one of the best on-line services for fresh pretty flowers that enchant.  As partof the campaign, Flowers will be attached to other products – including bagels with H&M. Therefore, instead of bagels and lox it’s bagels and flowers? There’s also a collaboration with a feminine product and more in the pipeline.

Furthermore, it should not only be men buying flowers for women.

According to a behavioral study conducted by Rutgers University researcher Holly Hale and psychology professor Jeannette Haviland-Jones, men who receive flowers demonstrated increased eye contact in conversation, stood in closer proximity to the researchers and produced more positive smiles than men in the study group who didn’t receive flowers.

“When it comes to receiving flowers, men and women are on the same playing field,” wrote Haviland-Jones. “It seems that we all express extraordinary delight and an increase in our social behavior.”

But guess what? According to a study by Interflora, only 12% of men said they receive flowers in their lifetime. Another study from Society of America Florists found that 60% of men would like to receive flowers.

So ladies, get your guy one of these bouquets.

Turns out we all want to be “receivers” of flowers. Especially on Valentine’s Day.

 

Jill Brooke is a former CNN correspondent, Post columnist and editor-in-chief of Avenue and Travel Savvy magazine. She is an author and the editorial director of FPD and a contributor to Florists Review magazine. She also won the 2023 AIFD (American Institute of Floral Designers.) Merit Award for showing how flowers impact history, news and culture