You want to be sponsored. That’s what separates the professionals from the amateurs, whether you’re on the corporate team. And today brands are everything, musical acts come and go, but brands have a much longer lifespan. You align yourself with one and it takes a lot to shake you from it. Look at Elon Musk’s Boring Company promotion. Before Xmas he tweeted that he was selling a limited number of hats, they went like wildfire, and now owners get perks, like tours of the company. These people are not only wearing their hats but talking about the company non-stop, how do you achieve this?

Certainly by creating quality products.

But innovative marketing primes the pump, it gooses the adoption, it makes you win.

I was a Nike guy forever, but then they discontinued my model. I switched to New Balance, which famously doesn’t do this, only they do, the latest edition of my sneaker fit nothing like the previous iteration, of which I’d purchased three, I had to move on.

Research told me to go to Brooks.

I hadn’t owned a pair of Brooks since the turn of the decade, from the seventies to the eighties, when their Varus Wedge was the talk of running, when Jim Fixx was still alive and the Vantage won all the tests.

And now research told me the Brooks Addiction was the state of the art. Nobody buys blind anymore, everybody goes to Amazon and Google, usually the former first, they don’t want to take a risk, they want the best.

And the first pair I purchased were too small but I exchanged them for one half-size bigger, and voila! I had new sneakers.

But I still lamented the loss of my New Balances, I was just warming up to the brand, but it bugged me that they fell apart. And now the Brooks…DIDN’T!

But nobody I knew was wearing them, I didn’t come out of the closet until…

This story in “Bloomberg Businessweek”:

“Brooks Needs Runners Who Hate to Run”

If you get one magazine, and only one, it’s got to be “Bloomberg Businessweek,” I can’t say this enough, it’s one of the few magazines that’s gotten better since the advertising crash. Hell, you could possibly cancel your subscription to the “Wall Street Journal” and still end up ahead. The “Journal” has made its articles ever-shorter, and the right wing Op-Ed pages are laughable, come on, don’t you ever print the other viewpoint? Despite what the bloviators believe, the “New York Times” does. You’ll learn more about the Kalanick/Uber story in this week’s edition than you have in any newspaper. But it was this Brooks story that rang my bell.

Because I was wearing my shoes while I read it.

And it wasn’t a puff piece, it delineated the history of the company and innovation.

You see Brooks was niche. It was for runners only. The elite ones, who competed. But moving down the food chain, the usual suspects won, like Nike, which Brooks eclipsed at the Boston Marathon. You see Brooks was utilitarian, it wasn’t cool.

So they changed their designs.

And told their new audience they weren’t runners. That’s right, if you’re not insulting anybody, if you’re not drawing a line in the sand, you’ll have no adherents. One of the worst things marketers can do is try and appeal to everybody. Then you’ve got no edge, no loops to be hooked. Furthermore, people pay attention to you when you take a stand.

But what Brooks was actually saying was most people weren’t competitors, they were running, but casually, for fun, for exercise, and Brooks now wanted their business. And if you signed up, they’d send you a dollar and you’d be sponsored:

“Real track-and-field sponsorships are notoriously meager; a 2012 MarketWatch survey found that 80 percent of runners ranked in the top 10 for their events made less than $50,000 a year. Brooks’s sponsorship stunt is roughly equivalent to adding one professional runner to its roster.) More than 60,000 people have signed up and subsequently peppered social media with tongue-in-cheek posts about their sponsorship deals. They share their 4-mile runs and 9-minute miles. Sometimes they’ll use the #brooksendorsed or #brooksathlete hashtags on pictures of themselves wearing Brooks shoes (but often other companies’ clothing). The Levitate has been popping up with increasing frequency on these sponsorees. A few weeks ago a woman in London used them to run on a treadmill while watching Netflix. A man in Maine went for a walk in them. ‘They’re so light,’ gushed one new fan, Marisol Beck, 22, in Carlsbad, Calif., who took up running in 2016.”

Brooks created a social media juggernaut nearly instantly. Sure, they designed some hip shoes, but even more they designed a hip way to get their message out, to bond buyers to them.

I was once sponsored by Smith ski goggles, my first sponsorship ever. I use Smith to this day. So much of what I buy I stick with. It gives me something to believe in in a land where humans are sold out hacks groveling for dollars. One of the things that bonded me to Apple was Steve Jobs, who had no fear of insulting people, who thought he had it right, was in search of excellence as opposed to expediency, the end result was the most valuable company in the world.

Who wouldn’t admire that?

The naysayers.

But it’s when they show up that you know you’ve made it. No one made fun of my Apple hat in the eighties and nineties, no one blew back, no one cared, but now I hear complaints about Apple every damn day, which makes me believe I’m on the right track, like with Brooks.

“Elon Musk says he’s ‘capping’ production of Boring Company hats at 50,000 (that’s $1 million worth)”

“Musk’s Boring Co. invites 10 lucky hat buyers to tour LA tunnel and drive boring machine”

The Fall – Netflix

Men are afraid women are going to laugh at them.

Women are afraid men are going to kill them.

I’m in the middle of an IVIG treatment. Three days in a row, for five hours. They send a nurse to the home who injects you with a steroid first, and then the IVIG, and since you’ve taken a Benadryl pill before it all begins, you’re floating, unattached.

I forgot how much it wipes you out, fogs you out, yesterday I was useless. Today a bit better.

You see I went to the dermatologist last week and she told me I had a resistant strain of plasma. She did research after the blood test showed only a reduction of thirty antibodies. I can’t remember if it was 280 to 250 or 250 to 220, but they should go down to zero, and that hasn’t happened, ergo this next round of IVIG. She found some blisters along with new skin rips and said I’d need IVIG every month, but probably not a blood cleansing. Actually, the situation is a bit complicated, you see Anthem Blue Cross is cancelling my plan in California, because of Trump, he eviscerated the Affordable Care Act to the degree that Anthem got scared and decided not to take the risk, and if you question this, you’re probably one of those people who believe your independent spirit will keep you from getting ill. Good luck with that. I’ve connected with an agent who says he can cover me starting March 1st, when Anthem Blue Cross coverage ends, but it’s all pretty freaky, I’ve been paying my premiums in excess of twenty five years, four figures now, what did I do wrong?

You see we’re all just cogs in the system. And the system will get you. Did you see that Tom Petty had emphysema? You think that smoking won’t catch up with you, that you’re immune?

So they’re not absolutely sure what caused the pemphigus foliaceus, at this point they believe it’s the result of being an Ashkenazi Jew, but they had me stop all medications to be sure it wasn’t a drug interaction. And one of those was my Crestor. And without it I’ve got sky high cholesterol, it too is genetic, so my internist sent me to this specialized cardiologist. I’ll tell you one thing, there’s two tiers of medical care in America, the one you pay for and the one you don’t. As in so many of the great doctors don’t take insurance, and this one doesn’t. Oh, they’ll file, but you’ll only get back twenty or thirty cents on the dollar.

And she ran these tests from labs I’d never heard of. In Baltimore, elsewhere, and she dug down to see exactly what was causing my problem. And she gave me an hour of her time, twice.

And I got her life story.

She’s from Ireland. With an inattentive mother. She’s got more degrees and fellowships than anybody I’ve ever seen, and she recommended this TV show.

I’ve been to Belfast. It was the second most fascinating place I’ve gone to.

The first was Bogota. Because with your life at risk and so few chances for financial advancement, everybody was so alive.

Tied with Belfast was maybe Tallinn, Estonia. Where the Soviet-era buildings delineated a dreary life we’re unaccustomed to in America. And St. Petersburg. When you go to that church where they buried all the czars…you can feel history coursing through your veins.

And then Belfast.

We listen to U2, we hear all about Dublin. But it’s in Belfast that the Troubles occurred. The war between Catholics and Protestants, with the English meddling. And you may think it’s over, but when you drive past the walls separating the religions, you can’t believe stuff like this still exists.

I went to the Shankill.

They talk about the Shankill in this TV show.

You think the law will protect you. But Jimmy literally threatens the cops and they get scared and they leave. Kinda like rappers in America, but these guys are white. We think it’s about color, but it’s not.

And to tell you the truth, the first year of the series was imperfect. You might turn it off. But hang in there for the second, you’ll be wowed.

That’s television for you. They renew you and you double-down, you get better. In music it’s one and done, a single and that’s it, can you say LORDE? The fact that her completely stiff album was nominated for a Grammy tells me the committee was fearful it would be excoriated if a white woman wasn’t included. That’s how far we’ve come, excellence is irrelevant, Jay Z might win like Steely Dan, when we all know Kendrick deserves it.

And the war between the sexes is in evidence in this show.

You see it’s all about Gillian Anderson’s character. I had to look her up, why was she in this Irish show?

Turns out she grew up partly in the U.K.

And I’ve never watched the “X-Files,” I know nothing about her. But now I get it. In “The Fall” she plays a femme fatale. Someone competent and brilliant and she drives the men wild. Furthermore, the only one who’s got a fix on her is the serial killer.

That’s right, this is a genre show.

But it’s got more truth than most movies.

Movies are passe, they’re too short. Isn’t it funny that in music it’s all about the single yet in television it’s all about the series. But TV realizes you must have a theme and expand it, and not go on too long, at least if you’re foreign. In America they milk it for bucks, overseas they just take as many episodes as it does to say what they have to, and then they’re done, oftentimes leaving you wanting more.

To tell you the truth, I haven’t watched the third season of six episodes yet. But we just finished the second, and I’m stunned.

Guys, you know these girls. The ones who are open, who wrap you around their finger, who let you in and then don’t want to know you, they torture you. The police bigwig screwed her once, years ago, and can’t get over it, it’s messed up his marriage, never mind him. And Stella, Anderson’s character, picks up men and women on sight and beds them, gives them a night of bliss, but that’s all.

But she’s screwed up from the core, she idolized her dad.

Is it them or us? You feel the connection, and then you can’t get anymore and then you wonder what you did wrong, but maybe it’s them?

This is exactly what the couples therapist told us, that I’m afraid of being laughed at.

It’s worse than being put down by guys. You think you’re making headway and then they turn on you. Or maybe you don’t even start. Men are weak, except when they fake it and force you. And Stella’s got their number too, you get caught up in your reverie and can’t take no for an answer. Whew! There’s a lot to unpack here, and that’s why I’m writing about it.

Why is it the foreign shows are so much more real?

First and foremost they shoot higher. They want to get it right. Sure, some cable shows do this, but very little television that’s not on HBO or its pay relatives, Showtime and Starz. When you see life on screen, when you can relate to it, that’s when you’re titillated, that’s when you’re hooked.

But everybody in America plays it safe, bunts instead of taking a risk.

They cast beautiful people with beautiful lifestyles and you can watch but you can’t relate.

Yet Stella/Gillian is the only movie star here. Everybody else looks normal, everybody else has got a regular job, it’s her beauty that plays into the script. How do we deal with the more attractive? It generates the desire and action of the serial killer and…the truth is we men have no idea who these women truly are, we’re living in a land of two-dimensional fantasies. And “The Fall” nails this.

We are living in a golden age of television because of distribution. The multiple options, the desire to win in the end. Distributors fund shows and give creative people leeway because they want to triumph in an online world where only one entity does. TV distribution continues to believe in a multi-channel universe, but that’s not the way it’s gonna work out. We’re gonna have behemoth winners, and maybe some small players, that’s it. It’s gonna look just like the Big Four, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google, just you wait.

And then maybe the distributors will tighten their wallets, meddle with production, that’s what happened with movies. The talent is no longer in control. The studios play it safe and almost no one goes, ticket prices went up and attendance went down, what’s wrong with this picture?

A bad distribution model at an overinflated price.

Sure, you lose something watching at home, but you gain so much more. Not only a vast variety at a low price, but the absence of talking, texting and interruptions, and the ability to watch what you want when you want. We’re going to day and date with film releases online, just like it took us over a decade to get to streaming/Spotify, you can’t hold back the future, you can’t hold back the public’s desire.

And the funny thing is none of these shows are built on hype, advertising doesn’t make them, it’s all word of mouth. They’re lying in wait on Netflix and maybe six months or a year or two later people insist you watch them and then you are a member of the club, it’s like buying albums back in the sixties, you felt special, you felt included, there was a bond between you and the purveyors, they weren’t playing to everybody, but just you.

Why won’t people play to me. Music, the news, they’re all appealing to a theoretical everyman, all in it for the money, there’s never enough, even though they bitch all along. If only they’d drill down and release their humanity, focus inward instead of outward, they too would create work that percolated in the marketplace and ultimately triumphed.

But for now we’ve got television.

For now we’ve got “The Fall.”

P.S. Just one more thing. Stella calls the wife of the killer stupid and incurious. How many relationships look good on the surface but are not. How many relationships lack deep dives into not only activities, but character. How many relationships are smooth sailing until they aren’t, because one person isn’t revealing their truth. Marriage is only the beginning. It’s a long journey. Unless you apply yourself you’re going to find out that you might reside under the same roof, but are living on different planets. People, so hard to know, but we can’t live without them.

Huh?

Weren’t we supposed to live in a word of mouth economy, where the cream rose to the top?

NO!

Actually, never forget that distribution is king. Did you read that NBC tied in with Netflix for the Olympics, with a two hour special? Millennials are cord-cutters, they don’t even see NBC, but they all have Netflix accounts, even if they’re courtesy of mommy and daddy, you’ve got to go where the eyeballs are.

But there’s this illusion that content is king. A canard creators use to pat themselves on the back, to make themselves feel better, after Silicon Valley stole their thunder. Once you hear an artist say he’s not getting paid enough, know that he or she does not have good representatives, or is not good enough period. Like that kerfuffle with Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams and the payment for reshoots on that movie. Mark just had a better agent, he used his leverage. Michelle’s, not so much. Never mind that both agents were working at the same company, what are they calling it this week, “Endeavor”? They take one of the best brands of all time, the ESSENCE of agenting, i.e. “William Morris,” and eradicate it. And we think Ari is gonna triumph with such a blind spot? What hubris!

So in the last decade, when everybody got broadband and the internet burgeoned, the landscape was still comprehensible, we could still find things, we could still notice. Now we’re all overwhelmed. We stay in our own silos. And reaching us is damn near impossible. There are no more viral videos, whether they be of musicians or animals, we’ve seen that paradigm. And legends put out new music and it goes straight into the dumper. U2? Did they really put out an album? I know Jann Wenner put Bono on the cover of “Rolling Stone,” who’s next, Frankie Valli? No wonder the magazine crumpled, unlike MTV it never realized you mustn’t age with your audience, but reinvent yourself and be hip, otherwise you’re toast.

So today you make the product and nobody cares.

Which is why first and foremost you must know who your audience is. It’s all about the data folks, you think your fans know you’re playing in town, you think they know you’ve got new music, BUT THEY DON’T! They’re too busy leading their own lives, they’re overbooked. You post it on your website and issue a press release and think you’ve conquered, but the truth is you haven’t done a thing. Which is why now, more than ever, you must be your own marketer.

Yes, you must know who your fans are and continue to seed them. Knowing the hard core will spread the word if you do something great. Or if you’re over the hill and not doing something noteworthy at least they’ll keep you alive. But if you’ve got something that will spread, that people will like if they experience it, then you must market it, you must sell it.

It was easy in the last century, all you had to do was get it on the radio or MTV! But at least with MTV there was only one station. You either won the derby or you were lost in the wilderness.

Now there’s no platform of choice and we’re all living in the forest.

Except for Tuma Basa with “Rap Caviar.” Why Spotify has not established legends with playlists in other categories I don’t know. They should be taking ads about John Marx, who they stole from SiriusXM, after he broke so many country records, some of them even unsigned. We don’t trust celebrities as tastemakers, that’s passe, they’re all whored out and living in holes, no we want nobodies we believe in, who we exalt, like the legendary deejays of old.

So the question is, HOW DO YOU GET THE WORD OUT?

Because believe me, if you build it they will not come.

This was proven by Steven Soderbergh’s last movie, which he released independently with half the marketing spend and then went straight to the dumper.

If you’re big enough, you buy advertising. But it’s best if the platform you’re on hypes you. Which is why you want to be on Netflix instead of HBO, because people visit more frequently. Which is why you don’t want to make an exclusive music streaming deal, so all services will feature you.

But the truth is no one is listening. Not anymore. This is what the media does not know and does not want to face. Whether it be mainstream or miniscule. They want to believe they’re important, that they have impact and make a difference. But they don’t.

The “New York Times” doesn’t reach the Fox audience and there’s nothing wrong with getting screen time, but it’s just an element of your marketing, not the whole kahuna. Appear on late night TV and no one will know.

You’ve got to have traction. Starting from zero it’s hard to become a hero. If people are not reacting to what you’re doing, give up, really, or change direction. That’s what they do in Silicon Valley, PIVOT, why can’t you?

And then you must seed your hard core fans, who can never get enough, and then take every bite and explore every nook and cranny to try and get noticed. If we see your name here and there, multiple places, we’re intrigued. As long as it’s not the same damn story. When I read the same press release in multiple publications I laugh. And as long as you’ve got something worth selling. And now, more than ever, we want personal. If you’re not willing to lay it on the line, shut up.

As for pissing off the naysayers…FUHGETTABOUTIT!

When everybody has a voice, they use it. They get angry that you’re not paying attention. They’re haters. It’s deafening, all the responses, assuming you’re getting any at all, but he or she who blinks is left out. They hate you until they love you. Or they love you until they hate you.

So concentrate on your product. In a world where Amazon reviews mean everything, if you ain’t got ’em, you’re toast. I won’t read a book with a three star review, life’s too short. You need at least a four to reach me. Sorry!

But once your product is set in stone… Then the challenge begins.

Which is why publishers are up in arms over Facebook’s changes. That’s where they do their marketing, turns out people don’t want to go directly to the news site, they want it all put together.

Meanwhile, Apple’s got one of the best news apps extant and no one knows or cares, because they’re too busy apologizing for the revolutionary iPhone. Now naysayers say it must be hobbled, it’s hastening the end of society. WRONG! It’s your obligation to put this fantastic device down, not for them to cripple it. What next, cars with less horsepower that can only go 25 miles an hour? While we’re at it, why don’t we put a Pentium in your computer and get rid of browsers and multitasking!

All this is featured in the “New York Times” day after day, a reaction to the future. BUT YOU LIVE IN THE FUTURE! WE ALL DO! ACCEPT IT!

When you hear people railing against Spotify payments, ignore them, they’ve got too much time on their hands, they’re probably not making any money anyway, or like Michelle Williams they have a bad representative and a bad deal.

We live in an era of winners and losers. If you’re satiated with your niche, more power to you, if you’re not…

No amount of bitching is gonna help you. You must sit and contemplate how to get the word out. Ten years ago it was Starbucks. Just recently it was Facebook. This is where the innovation comes in. Who can get their message heard?

That’s your challenge.

“NBC is Using Netflix to advertise the 2018 Winter Olympics”

Skateboarding experienced a revolution in the seventies and then died. And then a renaissance. Then another death. Tony’s sponsor went out of business. He bought a house with his earnings and had to sell it, eating ramen just to stay alive. And when his partners in Birdhouse told him that he was best skating instead of sitting behind a desk, he went out and competed and became the Tony Hawk you know today. Quite possibly the most famous athlete in the world. Musicians come and go through the TuneIn studio, but the staff needed Tony’s autograph, they grew up playing his videogames!

And we hear that story here. Along with how Tony went from suburbanite to icon.

Not that he acts that way. But after having a stylist and doing awards shows he decided to be himself 24/7 and is much more comfortable, and still skating.

You see skateboarding is a culture. Jan & Dean popularized it in the sixties, but it wasn’t until the midseventies that an equipment revolution blew the sport up.

And then came the injuries and the noise and the attitude and the closing of pools, curbs and parks, but the ethos could never be buried. Because skating is about being free. In a world where everybody’s conforming. You don’t think you are, but…

Now Tony’s not an outlaw who went to jail. He comes from a middle class family, but he did fly to Japan to appear on TV in his teens. He did make more money than his teachers in high school and figured there was no point in going to college, since he already had a career. And Tony is SMART!

Funny how people get mic fright. Funny how people can’t tell their story. Funny how inarticulate so many are. But not Tony! It’s so weird talking to him, because he’s just like you, only different. Someone you can relate to yet is world famous. Someone intrigued by the toys who can laugh at himself yet is devoted to raising his kids.

Tony made it work. Not that it was all laid out in front of him, it’s just that he stayed the path and rode the wave, or in this case the street.

And he gives back.

And if you can find someone to say a bad word about Tony Hawk I haven’t heard it.

So in this podcast we get his story. From an upbringing with two older siblings to his parents taking him to competitions to the X Games to the videogames. Hell, I think you’ll be fascinated even if you’ve never ridden the wild asphalt!

So, once again, you can listen here:

TuneIn

Apple Podcasts

Google Play

Stitcher

Soundcloud

Overcast