Christina Hall pitches a branding strategy for the viral Olympic pole vault athlete: launch a men's athletic equipment brand with athletic cups as the hero product, partner with a comedic collaborator in the Yeezy style, and shift from Joker-Hero to pure Hero positioning.
Chapters
I know it's been weeks, but I cannot stop thinking about the Olympic pole vault fail guy. You're not familiar. This Olympian was about to win a medal but something got in the way. As a brand designer and strategist, I just can't stop thinking about how I really feel like he should capitalize on this misfortune, this fame, this virality. This is what I think you should do. I want him to use the pain, humor, virality, etc to create a men's athletic equipment brand. Obviously the first Hero product should be athletic cups. I think he should partner with someone Yeezy style, a brand that's willing to be comedic and help him with production and brand power. Once he has his proof of concept with the cup, he can branch out and create more equipment and be a full fledged athletic equipment line. I think his brand values should be support, quality and innovation. He should create different types of cups that work for different sports, different package sizes and different levels of protection. I think his brand archetype should start out as a blend between the Joker and the Hero and then slowly drop the Joker role as the bit kind of gets tired and then lean more heavily into the hero.