I posted a few weeks ago about my love for the HBO show Entourage and the huge amount of traditional and non-traditional marketing that they did in the month leading up to the June 11 launch of season 3. While I was being reminded almost daily about the return of Ari, Vinny and the boys, I had only seen a handful of previews for “Dane Cook’s Tourgasm” - a reality show about 4 comedians on a 30 day tour that premiered the same night.

I taped it because of Dane Cook’s story. This is a comedian who didn’t wait for a big break, but propelled himself to mega stardom by creating relationships with his fans 1 at a time. Instead of leaving after shows, he sticks around and shakes hands and signs anything fans ask for. He shared is comedy bits on his website and posted fan-generated tributes sent to him. He kept a blog and emal list before it was the next big thing. His MySpace page boasts a shocking 1.2M friends. And the photos of his fans having his logo shaved into their hair or tattooed on does seem to indicate that all of this openness gives his fans ownership in the brand.

In the absence of the major HBO $$ push that Entourage was receiving, Dane leveraged his fan base to promote the show with a brand ambassador program. In keeping with the tone of his act and his fan base, if you join you are a Badassador. Recuiting for Badassadors started prior to the show launch to build the hype complete with a goodies site to download icons to show all your MySpace friends that you are part of the Dane Cook Badassador movement.

While the linked materials here may not personally resonate for you, they may help you start to think about what might be a true and authentic way to connect your customers in a common movement.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 19th, 2006 at 4:44 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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