December 30, 2009 49 Comments

Shaun White and Target are Clever

Shaun White Label My kid has some new clothes from Target that bear the Shaun White brand (thanks to his Mom. He’d be naked if I had to clothes shop for him). I’m fascinated by the tag. There’s so much to it.

First, Shaun has put himself into a brand expansion by dressing 4 year olds in skateboarder clothes. Second, the art of the label is great and whimsical, and gives equal love to Shaun and Target, telling us that Shaun is involved, but Target did the heavy lifting. Third, and this is the coolest part: It’s a sticker!

So, the kid gets a shirt (pretty cool flannel-ish skateboarder buttondown). Dad stole the sticker. I can put it on my laptop or whatever. I can put it anywhere. It’s a “share” tool built into something typical like a tag for a shirt.

Yes, I realize that this is very low tech, but I see many things in this move:

  • Brand expansion for Shaun.
  • Partnering by Target.
  • Sharing by Shaun/Target.

These are all things I think 2010 will see more of, and this little example poses a microcosm of them all summed up. If you packaged your own marketing efforts so cleverly, social media or otherwise, what would you get for results? I’m thinking you’ll get a bagful of awesome.

What say you?

Related posts:

  1. Target Marketing
  2. The Target is Not the Weapon
  3. A Dramatic Reading and a Clever Idea
  4. Questions- Or How to Stay on Target
  5. White Trash Moms of the World Unite

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  • hackmanj

    Very creative and interesting labelling.

  • carolyntaylor_walking_the_talk

    I'm impressed that you managed to persuade your son to let you have the sticker. Will you fill us in on your kid management strategies as well as your social media ones?

  • http://Tastelikecrazy.com Amy @ Taste Like Crazy

    LOL. I have that sticker…I mean…Ollie has one of those shirts.

    It's brilliant marketing. You feel like you've gotten a free gift even though what you're really doing is marketing the brand even further when you put the “free” sticker on something that is easily viewed by the public.

    What I'd like to know is how would someone apply that same principle to something like a blog.

    I don't have an ebook and I don't have anything to sell except myself [that sounds SO wrong] so how do I make my reader feel like they've gotten a “parting gift”?

  • http://twitter.com/abarcelos Anna Barcelos

    I know the brand you're talking about. My nephew is obssessed with Sean White and has a couple of those T-shirts from Target. Tony Hawk does similar fun things with his gear, whether it's a fob or other thingy that you keep. I think it was a skateboard with the URL on it. That's a perfect example of integrated marketing, and I'm so glad there are still marketers out there who leverage all their marketing efforts to form one consistent brand message.

  • http://www.responderx.com ChrisDonaldson

    I think it's all part of Target's continued push into 'fun'. They've really nailed it on many levels, and frankly its about the only store (Trader Joes, a good bookstore) I actually enjoy going into because they tend to get it: generally good buying experience coupled with well designed products (partnership with Robert Starck, example) and good marketing/advertising. Wal*Mart, eat your heart out.

    Frankly, I might buy the shirt just for the sticker.

  • http://www.onlineinvestingai.com/blog/ George

    Great idea. One thing about Target is that it has gone from a low-class store to a store that pretty much anyone can shop at. That is the outstanding result of marketing, like the partnership with Shaun White. Another is with Mossimo, which used to be a very exclusive and cool brand. Now it's available at Target.

    Thanks for sharing. It's fun to find great marketing ideas in random places!

  • http://ldcs.wordpress.com/ Nate

    Dirty secret: I used to steal the stickers off vans shoe tags when I was a little wee lad. All kids love stickers – therefore all kids products should come with stickers. Its free distribution of your brand.

  • http://mydarabell.com/ darabell

    Inspiration can come from anywhere, best part it still comes. I think the best or catchest are the simplest like N1 songs are hardly ever works of symphony. they have the hook Shawns a hook, a bespoke hook.

    Its being going on the British highstreet for a few years where you get designers making stuff the rest of us can afford. I think the Etsy are taking bespoking to the extreme, some people offer tailered made you to differentiate some more.

  • http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

    I stole it. He didn't see me. : )

  • http://listentoleon.net ListenToLeon

    Nice. I'm actually working on a humorous sticker design as a new promotional piece for my comedy blog. I did a small run of promo cards a couple of years ago with my face on the cover of a cheesy Fabio romance novel, as well as the photoshopped on the front of Michael Jackson's “Thriller” album. Like you said, it's a low-tech way of making the message clear and memorable. In my case, that message is silly fun/laughs!

  • doug

    Like Nate mentioned. Stickers as tags have been a part of the skating, snowboarding, surfing, urban, underground culture going back to probably well before I was born. I remember getting tons of Volcom (Shaun's former sponsor) stickers all the time with purchases – or just hanging out at the park or in the shop.

    TBH, I think this sticker isn't as appealing as one from any other skate/snow/surf clothing brand – because it lacks the abstruse that those other companies' logos have that make it so appealing to kids. Logos that are only recognizable to a select few “in the know” are part of a secret language their parents and older generations don't understand. The more enigmatic the image, the more appealing it becomes. Kids don't want recognizable brands, they want to shroud themselves with mystery.

    Shaun has great designs, but this sticker is a rare miss IMO. It lacks all the appeal that gets kids to place the stickers on ramps, chair lifts, folders, lockers – any place they'd like to slap a logo down on to claim as theirs and mark with their tribe.

    And personally I think Shaun's jump to Target hurt his image, lucky for him he is a talented 2 (almost 3 from what I hear) sport athlete who is charming, charismatic, and is able to lift himself and any brand he is associated with above all preconceived notions.

  • http://twitter.com/incitrio Angela Hill

    Tagging at its finest – a natural extension of the skater legacy.

  • http://twitter.com/alex_hager Alex Hager

    But the real interesting thing is, you go through life with your eyes wide open. So you can see such things and learn from them. A really rare talent! Great!

  • kat brogan

    there were also three of them.
    i just let chris feel tricky.

  • http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

    So here's a question: it kinda dings him with the skater crowd, but what about the old fat man crowd (me) who knew of him, but didn't have any kind of real relationship. Now, through this shirt, I get to know more about him. I clad my kid in his shit. I start my kid down a path. Maybe he grows into the culture, etc. COULD happen (not sure).

    What do you think of Shaun the business man?

  • dennismurray

    Under Armour is huge on this. I photographed a ton of youth football players who added UA stickers to their helmets and even a few baseball players too.

  • http://www.wakeupcloud.com/ Henri J

    So what you're saying is that I need to get some sticker-action going on around the globe…

  • naomimarr

    Ah! Good to hear I'm not the only one fascinated by this new take on old school bumper sticker marketing. I wrote a post on this last month — and Rachel Happe and Amber Naslund both commented (Rachel even posted a photo of the cover of her notebook and one of her stickers was very creative like the one you reference.) I really think more companies should use them in 2010 – they're cheap, creative, promote brand impressions and people dig 'em right now. The link to the post is: http://naomimarr.com/2009/12/what-is-the-one-it…

  • http://www.michaelbertoldi.net Michael Bertoldi

    I love this. It's amazing how so many companies will get great ideas like this but refuse to do it because it costs a little extra money. News flash people, something simply “neat” and “cool” can go a long way for your brand… drop a few extra dollars on creative branding – from out of the box business cards to tags like this one.

    Good catch Chris. Now give your kid back his sticker!

  • marryroy01

    You feel like you've gotten a free gift even though what you're really doing is marketing the brand even further when you put the “free” sticker on something that is easily viewed by the public.

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  • http://gainfullyunemployed.net/ Chris

    As a kid, I always was attracted to items with interesting tags on them–especially if the tags were stickers. Brands like Airwalk and Vans used these “sharing tools.”

    In fact, I just stuck a Vans sticker off a new pair I got for Christmas on a notebook. It took me back. I agree that this is an interesting move for Target and Shaun White.

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  • http://www.kherize5.com Suzanne Vara

    Chris

    Another brilliant marketing move. Best Buy Emenim CD being the other. I like this as Target has become a source for clothing for smaller children as well as young boys and really the entire skateboarding age crew. It is what families can afford these days.

    As far as the line for the smaller kids – fabulous. Speaking for pure experience here,son will be 5 in the early part of the year. He is now on his 2nd scooter as he outgrew the lil kid one and now is supporting the Razor. We go the skateboard park 5-7x a week so he can ride and go up and down the smaller ramps. There are quite a few older kids there skateboarding. If he ever saw a logo or something for a skateboarding pro and then saw it on clothes in target when we are doing on weekly run, he would be begging and begging me to get it, for the sticker alone.

    Little kids are impressionable and will do anything to be like a big kid. Son thinks he can hang with the 8 and 9 yr olds (also teenagers) when we are at the park. He watches them and would rather me pretend to be his sister than his mother.

    This is a great move by Shaun White as he is connecting with his target market where they need to shop and going after the younger kids who are riding scooters. We know that parents are shopping at Target as walk into a day care, preschool, kindergarten on any day and count the number of kids who have the same shirts.

    Thanks for letting me know which section to AVOID at Target this weekend!

  • http://johnhaydon.com John Haydon

    Uh, you stole the sticker, Chris? We need to send you back to dad school. ;-)

  • http://johnhaydon.com John Haydon

    You go, Kat!

  • bencurnett

    I think Shaun is on it in the business world.

    Look at his sponsors: target, burton, hp. That's as solid as it comes, from a corporate standpoint. And that's what doug is saying is the sticking point- the corporate image.

    Which I get. I was going to post the same thing doug did -this has been a longtime marketing method for outdoor sports brands. So the trick with the whole “underground” thing is to be real *and be successful. Like most of his other tricks, Shaun has styled it.

    There was a great article in outside magazine about Shaun's brand… let me find it… here it is http://snip.li/6ed224 … he's patterned himself after tony hawk. That's a pretty good template to work with.

    Tony Hawk has always had to hack the sellout tag from skaters. But has it hurt his brand? Not a bit. There's just a certain amount of antagonism in that industry toward… what… materialism? success? A bit of it is justified. Look at all the terrible uses of the word “extreme”.

    But has Shaun ignored that while being smart about his brand? Yup.

  • http://www.ryanhanley.com/about Ryan Hanley

    I'm interested in anything that gets me a “bagful of awesome!”

    In 2010 I'm looking for low-tech ways to drive people to my high-tech advertising (aka my website http://www.ryanhanley.com). Very few insurance agents have personal branding websites and even fewer actually have dipped a toe into “Social Media”, (I know we're supposed to just call it the Internet in 2010).

    So I do things like had out fliers, stickers, magnets, and have an ink stamp that I stamp on the back of my business cards with my web address on it.

    Have a Great New Year Chris!

    Ryan H.

  • doug

    Shaun the business man is quite savvy. Great article in Fast Company from the beginning of the year. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/132/shaun-w…

    He just is one of those people who elevates every thing he touches. Even snowboarding in the Olympics used to be looked down upon – part of that was the AAU not allowing sponsored athletes to compete – but until Shawn lit up the halfpipe in Torino in 2006, the Olympic snowboarding events were seen as a watered down amateurs only competition in the sport.

    I bet Shaun was the one who brought to idea of having stickers as the tag to Target. He is the market expert on skating, snowboarding, surfing, and youth culture after all. I he ever decides to hang up the sport(s), he'll be a well sought after consultant in addition to what ever else he has going.

    And Chris, was that a typo – you clad your kid in his “shirt” – right?

  • http://www.TraceDesign.com markwjohnson

    I was wondering why my son kept his. I didn't realize it was a sticker, but I did see it on our kitchen counter and thought it was pretty cool. Funny how these things spread around and get talked about.

  • Dave Marr

    I don't quite understand. I have been part of the snowboarding community for years and kids have been craving stickers for as long as I remember. Apparel and hard goods have always included stickers, asking for you to adhere them to helmets, decks, laptops and even street signs for visibility.
    Granted, Target has has a much wider reach than your average skateshop, but I fail to see how this strategy differs from what was already common practice.

  • Dave Marr

    If Target affected Shaun White's credibility, Red Bull handed it right back to him with this: http://bit.ly/3jqY50

  • greeblemonkey

    Seeing as our kids are similar ages (I think) – of COURSE, I totally noticed this too!

  • doug

    I wouldn't say it is his credibility that is at issue with Target. (BTW – I was looking at some great photos of that halfpipe the other day on ESPN. Its where he came up with the double corkscrew.) I just think that for a guy who makes so many right moves, that monster image that appears on the clothes and tags was an uncharacteristic misstep. Although, by calling the line “Shaun White 4 Target” it does offer separation between the flying tomato and the big red store. That monster definitely makes it more of a Target brand than a Shaun White brand.

    I guess what is unique about the situation is that Target has co-opted the appeal of action sports along with some its marketing techniques – something that is on the outskirts of mainstream America – and packaged it into a cartoonish, family friendly, easily accessible brand.

    MMA fans, look for a Randy Couture Target line to debut around 2012. J/K (or am I?)

  • http://www.ericinparkcity.com Eric_Hoffman

    Shaun is a sponsored rider by the ski resort that I work at (disclaimer alert), and while I don't cross paths with him, I have always been very impressed by how he personally makes sure that the brands he works with are brands that he himself is passionate about. There was a great article about how Shaun puts himself into the equation with his sponsors in Fast Company that I highly recommend: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/132/shaun-w…

  • TGAPGeorge

    Hey! My first Chris Brogan blog post as read through the new iPhone app! Very cool, Chris, congrats!

    Leaving a comment on this psuedo-page is a little hinky, but it might be just my phone.

    Will there be a newsletter tab? An ebook tab? A “buy and read my books here tab”?

    Regardless, this is very cool and very vanguard type stuff! Great pic too. (now I want an iPhone app with my face on it too! Hahaha)

    George

  • TGAPGeorge

    Exactly because it's with Target. For those of us NOT in the skateboarding community–tried to do a big jump, fail, mom banished skateboards forever–it sets Mr White and his brand apart from regular kids clothes.

    I hope this becomes a bigger trend! Specifically, I hope books start including a little flash card with the eBook version.

    …and maybe a sticker too!

    George

  • http://wordsdonewrite.blogspot.com/ Amber Avines

    I love this. What a fun way to market and increase exposure for the brand. Thumbs up!

  • http://htp://www.jamiesanford.com JamieSanford

    I am a 30-year-old woman who wants the cool sticker for my laptop (but I have no kids).

    I wonder if the stickers vary among different clothing items or if there will be a new sticker every season?

    I think Target does the best job of collaborating with celebrities/designers/etc to bring new products to their customer. The fashion collaborations have been massively successful, and I expect that the Shaun White collection will be equally so.

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  • idontbelievethehype

    SW the sellout.

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    I don't quite understand. I have been part of the snowboarding community for years and kids have been craving stickers for as long as I remember. Apparel and hard goods have always included stickers, asking for you to adhere them to helmets, decks, laptops and even street signs for visibility.

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