Posts by Josh:
Make Coffee With Your iPhone
April 18th, 2012This may be the coolest thing I’ve seen in a while.
Now I’m a bit of a coffee nut and also a serious fan of design and technology, so this one pushes all the right buttons for me personally. Plus, you can make coffee with your iPhone!
But even if you’re not into those things, you’ll understand that this is some serious innovation in a category that needs it badly. Search Amazon for Espresso Machine, and you get over 1,200 results, most of which are basically the same. Sure they have different logos on the front; some are silver while others are black, and you have a handful of different options for feature sets. But the last real innovation the category saw was the K-Cup, introduced nearly a decade ago and knocked off by everyone in the business, including retailers like The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.
It’s not that any of those machines are bad, but none of the competitors really distinguishes itself from the others. By contrast, the Scanomat TopBrewer is elegant, functional, convenient, and above all, interesting.
Think about this: What can you do to make your brand or product all of the above?
Then think about this: Buy me a TopBrewer and I’ll make you coffee anytime you want to come over.
Madria Sangria Fruit Stand
March 27th, 2012
We got a little love recently from Event Marketer magazine on our program for Madria Sangria.
Throughout the summer, you can find the Madria Fruit Stand popping up at beer festivals, bridal shows, arts fairs and other lifestyle events. Brand Ambassadors will be on-hand, having conversations, cutting up fresh fruit, and serving sangria samples.
If you have an event and want the Madria Sangria Fruit Stand there, hit us up here.
We Do Weird Marketing
February 16th, 2012In this interview with Seth Godin, in promotion of his 300th book We Are All Weird, Seth does a great job of explaining why Rebel Industries exists (thanks, Seth!).
Weird means people who are embracing individuality instead of working hard to fit in.
He goes on to say that the world is splitting into two groups: one that wants everyone to stay the same, and another that encourages individuality, tribal behavior, and weirdness.
Clearly, the tides of change favor the latter group, and this is the group that Rebel serves. We market to the gamers, music fiends, tuners, foodies, art enthusiasts, social media mavens, and others who define themselves by the things that make them “weird.” We understand what makes these people special, and what makes them tick. And we know what it means to brands who make products and deliver experiences that these people want.
What about you? What makes you weird? What tribes do you belong to? And what brands are doing a good job of appealing to your weirdness?
Don’t Stop the Party Rock
February 11th, 2012How sick is this video?
I’m a little biased. I’ve known Red Foo for 20 years. Been to his mom’s house. Gave him career advice (which he probably didn’t need and certainly didn’t follow), when he was a teenager sleeping on the floor of a studio off of Crenshaw Blvd. He produced a track for my first record deal — a demo deal with (then Columbia Records a&r) Randy Jackson for a girl group I managed. Okay, I know a demo deal isn’t a real record deal; that’s not the point.
The point is I want this guy to win, and he is. Big. People all over the world are unable to keep themselves from dancing to this track. Even the Kia Soul hamsters are in on the fun. So what’s the problem?
I don’t get Kia. It’s obvious that want to be cool so bad. And they’re close. The first round of Soul commercials (sock monkey, robot) weren’t bad. The hamsters are brilliant. Then they have some half-assed experiential programming — you know, hire the usual guys to do the usual parties, get coverage on the usual blogs. Who cares? They’re like Scion-lite with better TV spots.
What if they facilitated these Party Rock flash mobs? Set-up shuffle contests and impromptu dances everywhere? Capture it all on camera and really take that movement to the fullest? Make Kia Soul synonymous with dancing your ass off. Start with the shuffle and move on to other kinds of dances, done in public for fun and profit. That’s a brand that sounds like fun.
New Amsterdam Shave Lounge
January 25th, 2012
Rebel Industries kicked off a 12-event series for New Amsterdam Vodka last week at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, UT.
Guests at the Slamdance opening night party were the first to experience the New Amsterdam Shave Lounge, an early 1900s-style barbershop / bar setup that offered free straight-razor shaves, shoe shines, and of course cocktails.
You can read Event Marketer’s coverage of the program here
The New Amsterdam Shave Lounge will be seen 11 more times this year at key special events around the country. Hit us up to find out where, or to suggest an event that you’d like us to sponsor.
Wasting Time
November 12th, 2011
Found this on the Touchstone site. The average person wastes 150 hours a year.
Don’t be one of those people!
Think about where you are wasting time that you can get back, for yourself. That time you could be sleeping, working out, practicing your art, traveling, or putting to good use to make more money for yourself and help Rebel Industries build a better company. You could be learning, exploring, growing. Or just having more fun.
How many meetings are you in that you don’t need to be in? Or that don’t need to happen at all? How much time are you spending commuting to an office you don’t really need?
How many conversations are you having more than once with the same people? How many times do you have to repeat yourself because other people aren’t communicating?
How much time is spent because someone was out of the loop? Because expectations were not clearly communicated? Because what was said was not understood?
It’s amazing to think about what we might be able to accomplish if we could just get out of our own way.
How Playing Limit Holdem Poker Will Help You Build Your Business
November 5th, 2011
Here’s what I learned listening to a talk by David Freidberg, part of Stanford’s brilliant Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series.
“When you say ‘I got lucky.’ you got lucky because you didn’t know what was going to happen. So the corollary is if you know what’s going to happen, there’s no risk, there’s no luck, and there’s no uncertainty in whatever it is you’re doing. Therefore, shouldn’t your objective to be to know what is going to happen? Your pursuit should always be to remove the unknown from the equation.”
Of course, he points out there you can never know everything, and any pursuit carries some risk. That means your job is to “identify the unknown, mitigate the unknown, and then you are enabling certain outcomes.”
Battle Cry for The Rebel
October 31st, 2011
Have you ever read a book and felt it was written just for you? I was first attracted to Rebel Buddha by the title alone, which combines two concepts that are central to my own nature. I have devoted much of my life to rebellion in many forms, and Buddha has been an important teacher and guide in my life. Basically, there was no way I was not going to read it.
I’m so glad I did. Rebel Buddha takes traditional Buddhist thought into a contemporary context, easily relating concepts like dharma and emptiness to the peculiarities of modern life. I find myself wrestling with these concepts from time to time, and the author’s voice spoke to me in a way that was deeply personal, and at the same time universal. As I read, it occurred to me that in some ways I have been attempting to build a company around these same principles.
In fact, I was prompted to adapt a portion from Chapter 1 as a sort of battle cry for myself, for Rebel Industries, and for those who would join our cause:
You could say we all live with a rebel within.
When we think of rebels, historical or contemporary, well-known or forgotten, people who fight the status quo, we think of them as heroes. From Abraham Lincoln to Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Bob Marley, Bono, and Eazy-E.
We stand in awe of their courage, compassion and remarkable achievements. However, such idealists and reformers are always regarded as troublemakers by those they challenge. Their ideas and intentions may seem threatening, and are not always welcome. They’re hard to push aside. They keep coming back with questions no one else will ask. They won’t settle for partial truths or uncertain answers. They refuse to follow conventional wisdom simply because it’s convenient.
Their path to victory runs through some rough territory, but their rebel character is not easily discouraged. Commitment to a cause, a greater vision of what might be, is the rebel’s lifeblood. This rebel is the voice of your own awakened mind. It is the sharp, clear intelligence that resists the status quo of confusion and waste. What is this rebel like? A troublemaker of heroic proportions. Rebel is the renegade that gets you to switch your allegiance from sleep to the awakened state. This means you have the power to wake up yourself. You are the champion of your own freedom. Ultimately, the mission of the Rebel is to instigate a revolution of your mind.
– Adapted with the author’s permission from Rebel Buddha, by Dzogchen Ponlop http://www.rebelbuddha.com/. I strongly encourage you to pick up a copy for yourself.
Have you read Rebel Buddha? Leave a comment here and tell us what you think. Or share your thoughts on who inspires you to wake up. Who are the rebels that instigate you?
Euro Street Culture
October 26th, 2011
The Convenient Truth
October 22nd, 2011
This month, Rebel produced the Street King booth at the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) Show. NACS brings buyers from the nation’s 100,000+ convenience stores and gas stations to see the latest and greatest products that are cheap, small, and easy to consume.
What a crazy show! I’m no stranger to trade shows: I’ve attended and exhibited at MAGIC close to a dozen times, walked the never-ending halls at CES, been overstimulated at E3, ogled the custom cars at SEMA, and sat through more auto show press days than I care to remember. All things considered, I’d never seen anything quite like NACS.
The first thing I noticed was all the cigarettes. Given that I spend most of my time on the Westside of LA (Wessiide!) in airplanes or other major metropolitan areas, it seemed to me that America had basically given up smoking. Judging from the ridiculous number of tobacco brands on exhibit, I was wrong. Apparently, I’m also very late on a technology called electronic cigarettes, which eliminate the need for lighters. Several of the booths offered attendees the opportunity to light-up inside the hall, so lets hope they give off less second-hand smoke effects too!
Unlike most trade shows, which you have to leave in order to get a bite to eat, NACS provides the world’s largest buffet. All you can eat, as long as you only want to eat chips, cookies, energy bars, slushies, pre-packaged pies, muffins, and the like. Fortunately, the good people at Gallo and Miller Coors, provided open bars in their booths to help us wash down all of the junk food. By 1PM, the Miller booth was completely packed with delegates enjoying free beers and watching football. I wonder how much work they got done that afternoon…
All of this fascinates me, especially since I’ve pretty much ruled out convenience from my life. In fact, I think the only thing I would actually use from a convenience store (except for gas) is water. Don’t let me fool you though. Judging from the vibrancy of the show and numerous trade publications on display, the convenience store sector is hot! It makes sense: We are increasingly dependent on our cars, and our speedy lifestyles are well served by mini-mart clerks who can give us something unhealthy to snack on while we sit in traffic and gulp down a supplement to keep us awake for the ride.
On the other hand, the activation at NACS is definitely not keeping pace with industry growth. Most of the booths featured little more than basic displays. Heavy hitters like Coca-Cola and Procter and Gamble had nice looking booths, but nothing interactive for the viewers. A few booths offered the chance to meet celebrities or Mascots. Detour had a champion bodybuilder (not sure why anyone wanted to meet him), and one booth had a UFC fighter. Miller provided photo opps with the delivery guy from its commercials, and Trident gum had the lady in the trench coat.
Of course, we brought 50 Cent (co-founder and spokesperson for Street King) to take pictures with possibly the biggest crowd of the weekend. We may have had the only bona fide celebrity, unless you count Snookie, who made an appearance at the Ebi-Brown booth for no apparent reason.
Other standouts included the Monster booth, where girls in bikinis went sliding into a swimming pool. Trashy? Maybe, but it was an impressive production nonetheless. Matador had a mechanical bull. I didn’t ride. Red Bull showcased “the brand behind the can” with a media-driven experience that featured its bar-raising lifestyle content.
Besides that, it seems like most of the would-be convenience store powerhouses need to step their game up.
