Blu Maya Digital Marketing Agency

As a vehicle for showing allegiance, sponsorship, support, or even dismay or disdain, the T-shirt remains a powerful medium of expression.

It’s not uncommon to see startups and established companies giveaway swag to their users and fans, it’s a way to create community and spread the word. But how about holding a contest where your fans design what they think your brand conveys?

I was intrigued by Businessweek’s recent t-shirt design contest, it asked it’s readers to come up with a design that would convey the spirit of notable CEO’s. As you can see from the designs some are very funny and other’s are well not so funny for the CEO.

Would your let your fans do this? What do think they would come up with?

This is a telling example of the times we live in, brands have less control over the message. It requires a great deal of confidence to ask your users to design a t-shirt with what they think your brand conveys but it also gives you an opportunity for a gut check!

This brings shivers down the spine of any brand marketer, but give it a try and see what happens. You might be surprised but also rewarded with a humbling experience.

Key takeaway: Times change and brands change, perception is everything and how your brand acts on a daily basis sends signals to your fans of what they can expect. It’s your job to shape the expectations!

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How do you stand out in the crowd?

While there’s no secret formula, a great way is to start ‘becoming know for something’. Standing out is really a result of what your brand  does than what it looks  like, here then is a list of people who are known for doing something in particular that enabled them to stand out:

• Scott the name tag guy is know for going out in public with a nametag. Who else does that?
• Michael Jackson is known for always wearing the same shoes, glove in the left hand and having the best dance moves ever. Who else can pull that off?
• Michael Jordan was known for showing the tongue, baggy shorts and shaving his head not to mention standing for excellence.
• Hammer (formerly MC Hammer) was know for bringing choreography to hip hop among other things.
• Einstein is best known for creating the theories of General Relativity and Special Relativity. He also created e=mc2.
• Bob Marley is the most widely known and revered performer of reggae music, and is credited for helping spread both Jamaican music and the Rastafari movement to a worldwide audience.
• Babe Ruth is best known as the Bambino, on his to becoming one of the greatest baseball players ever he helped baseball evolve from a low-scoring, speed-dominated game to a high-scoring power game.
• Richard Pryor was known for his unflinching examinations of racism and customs in modern life, and was renowned for his frequent use of colorful, vulgar, and profane language and racial epithets.
• Barack Obama is best known for becoming the first ever African-American president of the United States among other things.
• Vincent Van Gogh is best known for painting the world’s most revered, recognizable and expensive works of art and for having sold one painting during his brief career.

We could go on and on with this list, the point is these people stand out because they did something dramatically different than others.

Notice how I excluded the well known consumer brands from the list, it was on purpose. Brands are not limited to companies, people are brands too and you can learn a lot more from them than from companies.

When you figure out what you want to be known for you’ll have a frenzy of fans screaming your name and spreading your gospel for you (picture above). Wishful thinking, I don’t think so!

On a next post I’ll go into how you can start becoming known for something but in the meantime for a list of everyday people who are known for doing something that stands out, checkout Valeria Maltoni’s excellent list of people who know how to create buzz.

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