BRAND | Some Highlights

Drinking The Kool-Aid

Creating a lifestyle brand that has a powerful emotional sway is the dream of every marketer. It requires hard work and a fair amount of luck too.

How were we doing? One way was to listen to what people were saying–not just consumers. Terms like "brainswashed" or "drinking the Kool-Aid" are pejorative. Many of our competitors were telling us that Animal was a cult. Cult also has negative connotations. But there are two sides to every coin, and what you see depends on your perspective. To me, Animal being labeled a cult was a positive. We were doing something right. Just how powerful was this cult? I used one informal metric–word-of-mouth (WOM). Let's hear what others are saying about us and not just consumers.

Though I don't sport any tats, I know how powerful they are to those who get them. When you physically (and painfully) imprint something under your skin that will (theoretically) last forever, it better be important you. Tattoos are tribal. Many cultures rely on them, use them in rites of passage or to mark an individual as being within that tribe, not without. Though it's not as true today, in the past, tattoos were embraced by individuals on the fringe. So it comes as no surprise that many elite strength athletes are tatted up. The Cage was a good way for us to give back to our fans. From a marketing perspective, it was also a very effective method for creating new brand missionaries... And generating a lot of WOM. The photo above was taken inside The Cage one year. I had an inspired though crazy idea. Other companies were handing out temporary tattoos of their brands. Well, if we're Animal, if we push the limits, then why not go one step further?

So we looked in the Columbus area for licensed tattoo artists, and after interviewing several, we hired one to work in the booth all weekend. We carved out some space and made sure he had every resource he needed to meet all state regs. Early Friday morning, the artist showed up to set up his equipment. I remember we all stopped and looked at each other. What was wrong with us? Were we insane? Truth is, many back at the office thought this would be a big flop. With just an hour before the doors opened to the crowds, I had my doubts too.

The crowds rushed, as if a dam had burst. When people asked what we were doing we told them about the tattoos. We were giving away a real tattoo for anyone who wanted one, absolutely free. The only requirement was that it had to refer to the Animal brand (e.g., logo, artwork). Soon enough, we had a line forming...

Word got around the expo. Fast. Things were humming along–we had some 50-75 people in line for a tattoo–when the head expo coordinator paid us a visit. Someone had notified her about what we were doing–most likely one of our competitors. Long story short, she told us to shut things down. We showed her the paperwork indicating that everything was above board. It didn't matter though, she said. Needles send the wrong message at this sports festival. Ironic.

Not Just The Cage

Getting branded with an Animal tattoo wasn't just a Cage thing. In fact, we'd often get emails and snail mail from consumers with pictures of their own Animal tattoos. Yeah, I guess I understand why some thought Animal was a cult. I recently came across a national brand offering tattoos in exchange for various gifts–a lot of legalese.

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Coming To Life

Many who aren't familiar with branding or are just learning abut it often make the mistake of thinking that a company's logo is its "brand"–that the two are interchangeable. Of course, the two are not the same, though related. Here's a little exercise. Look at the photo below. What do you see? Ultimately, it comes down to your specific vantage point, perspective. As with stars, you might see dots where I see constellations.

Image: https://assets.dunked.com/assets/prod/145148/p1g958lh9uch41c9phtn735p573.jpg

If you are an old school powerlifter, you might see a basic pair of Chucks that many purists wear, eschewing expensive, technical weightlifting shoes.
If you are a fan of the brand, you might lock into the Animal logo embroidered on the outside part of the ankle.
If you are a veteran weightlifter who follows Animal, you'll see a highly coveted item.

We provided these customized Animal Chucks exclusively to the athletes in The Cage one year. It caused a stir. The Monday after the show, we started getting a lot of inquiries from consumers about them–whether or not they'd be available and, if so, when. But as I often say, just because you can, doesn't mean you should. In this case, we never sold the shoes on our website. We made them exclusive, limited edition. In the end, I don't know if these high tops were seen primarily as a shoe or as a logo. But I am convinced that there was tremendous demand for it because of what was intangible, and not the tangible. These Chucks represented a certain mentality–one closely aligned wth Animal. These Chucks elicited a real emotional connection, a bond between two–and so on, and so forth. And at the end of the day, expanding these connections is what my work is all about.