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. With In The New York Times Magazine: TapouT
ULTIMATE BRANDING
This week in Consumed, a look at TapouT and other brands that “speak to the mixed-martial arts lifestyle.”
The vague term “lifestyle” is particularly vexing in this context. Perhaps clothing lines associated with surfing or hip-hop or Ralph Lauren suggest such a thing. But what “lifestyle” might we associate with one person kicking another in the face?
Read the column in the August 31, 2008, issue of The New York Times Magazine, or here.
–> Murketing readers will recall that I floated this subject here a few weeks ago and got some great comments that both convinced me this was worth pursuing as a column, and offered me a lot of excellent guidance in doing so. Thank you!
Consumed archive is here, and FAQ is here. The Times‘ Consumed RSS feed is here. Consumed Facebook page is here.
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Reader Comments
Enjoyed the Tapout piece, and linked to it where i write at, mmapayout.com, feel free to contact me if you need any help with mma stuff in the future…times reporter Ross Schneiderman has worked with us a few times for pieces….
I’m a fairly big MMA fan myself, having wrestled myself for 7 years, and it’s really not just people kicking one another in the face. It’s gets reallly technical when you face different fighting disciplines up against one another, although it can look just like two people rolling around on the ground if you don’t have a basic understanding of grappling. When the 1st UFC was held in the early 90’s, Hoyce Gracie, a small Brazilian guy, dominated everyone because of his expertise in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, a ground-fighting submission-based martial art his family developed to fend of gangs in the streets of Rio. (See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY6OYSbGRQQ) Everyone was shocked that this small guy could just destroy guys of any size. While the sport has advanced lifetimes since then, I still think promoting the knowledge of basic techniques is the key to getting the sport into the mainstream.
While there is the occasional bloodshed, even the dangers faced by fighters really are overstated. Only an average of about four punches connect per fight, compared to a number many times larger in boxing, and fights are immediately ended when submissions are locked.
That being said, there are a large number of fans who don’t know whats going on, who just like to get drunk and see people beat on each other. In my opinion, these are the people to whom brands like Tapout appeal. I don’t sport a Mohawk or dress like a Metal Head, nor do I want to “look tough”, but this is the demographic I think Tapout appeals to. They’re just a niche of the MMA fanbase.
Robert — Thanks for the note, and I did encounter and spend some time on your site while researching, you’re doing a great job.
Tom — I tried pretty hard to head off this kind of reaction by saying, directly, explicitly, that fans would object to that line, which I countered with as much detail as I could given the space limitations. I’m familiar with everything you’re referring to (I really do research these things before I write them), but I think you are more or less correct in your final paragraph (although I don’t know about “just a niche”) — hence the column. Remember that my job is not to be a publicist for mixed martial arts, or for anything else I write about. It’s to say something interesting about consumer culture.
I am not sure if TapouT does more business than Affliction, but the latter has enmeshed itself more deeply into the sport by promoting fights. Their recent card featuring four of the top ten heavyweight MMA athlets in the world was a modest success – even though it probably lost money.
Affliction holds more status among MMA fans I know, even though their stuff is priced pretty high.
I think it’s interesting how Affliction and TapouT, both clothing companies, have decided to throw themselves fully into the niche in which they developed instead of trying to reach for the “untapped markets”. To me, it reflects a smarter business strategy: solidify your base in unique and value-adding ways and let them do the evangelizing.
Affliction came up in the earlier Murketing thread, and I did report on them some, but ended up going with TapouT. I think you’re right about the status thing, but TapouT is more organically tied in to MMA — Affliction sort of came along later and attached itself to that crowd, and has certainly been very aggressive in the sponsorships etc. It’s an interesting story. But to me the TapouT story was more purely tied in to the point I was making, which is a brand springing from MMA, not a brand noticing MMA and deciding that was a good niche. Still, I almost focused more Affliction because they have a wider array of product.
On the other hand, the lower “status” of TapouT was balanced out by the scale of its sales and distribution — and by the fact that they have the sort of absurd Barnum-style founders with their own TV show.