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December 27, 2004

turning the hughtrain into a global microbrand

4 Comments

Though I’ve been mostly silent on it, these last weeks I’ve been wor­king on a really inte­res­ting pro­ject:
“Tur­ning The Hugh­train into a glo­bal mic­ro­brand.“
Been loo­king at ways to com­mer­cially extend The Hugh­train into mar­kets in Lon­don, Europe, Asia, the US West Coast and the US East Coast.
Suc­cess­ful? Depends who you ask. Right now it’s sprea­ding me pretty thin. I’m doing it for ZERO money. Hell, I wouldn’t even call it “Shoes­tring”. “Second-hand Den­tal Floss” would be more accu­rate.
But it’s WORKING.
There are 3 con­ver­sa­tions in the US. There are 3 con­ver­sa­tions in Europe, and there is 1 or 2 con­ver­sa­tions in Asia. Add to that, there’s about 6 con­ver­sa­tions to do with the whole cartoon-merch-publishing thing. Besi­des that, there’s a whole sea of B-List con­ver­sa­tions hap­pe­ning as well. My fin­gers are numb from wri­ting so many e-mails.
You can divide the B-List into two dis­tict cate­go­ries:

1. Here’s how we can help you.
2. Call us when you’ve got lots of money and we’ll be plea­sed to take great chunks of it away from you in exchange for doing bugger-all.

Guess which one works best for me?
As always, it’s about deli­ve­ra­bles.
The stan­dard Ad Agency biz model doesn’t work for this. Nor does the stan­dard Know­ledge Mana­ge­ment model. And yes, the “Blogs are really cool, please can we build you one and you pay us” model is pretty bloody awful, as well. Methinks the action is elsewhere.
What I’m seeing is a mas­sive dis­con­nect bet­ween the cul­tu­ral and tech­no­lo­gi­cal, bet­ween the inter­nal and the exter­nal mar­kets.
Very few peo­ple outside the blo­gosphere know what the hell I’m tal­king about. They get it in theory, but inva­riably they’ve been wor­king for too long in spe­cia­li­sed indus­tries that acti­vely dis­cou­rage seeing the big pic­ture. Too busy guar­ding their own patch to be anything other than sec­retly hos­tile.
Right now I’m using a blog and some dra­wings to impose my ideas upon the world. Soon I hope to be upgra­ding to much hea­vier arti­llery.
Much hea­vier.
(Email me: hugh at gaping­void etc.)

4 Responses to “turning the hughtrain into a global microbrand”

1. Will Simpson says:

   December 27, 2004 at 2:24 PM

   Nothing short of WORLD DOMINATION will do!
   You go brother!
2. Richard Banfield says:

   January 11, 2005 at 6:38 PM

   Terri­fic stuff Hugh. I love the dra­wings.
   In sup­port of your microbrand/world domi­na­tion play I’ll tell all the stuf­fed shirts that read my blog to down­load the mani­festo.
   Richard
3. Like It Matters says:

   April 15, 2005 at 3:25 AM

   A Tai­lor & An Adman Walk Into A Bar…

   The full story on the growth of a glo­bal mic­ro­brand, English­Cut. An English tai­lor who makes a very cer­tain type of expen­sive suit befriends a Gilliam-esque adman who has a PR pal who con­ve­niently loses his job at just the…
4. Like It Matters says:

   April 28, 2005 at 9:14 PM

   Everything You Need to Know About Mar­ke­ting You Could Learn From Uglesich’s

   Will peo­ple rant & lament when you stop doing what you do? Will they publi­cily fret over the fact that you might not offer your pro­duct or ser­vice years before you actually hang it up? Will they notice you’re gone?…