Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

So you’re a sports clothing manufacturer that primarily targets fans of mixed martial arts, boxing, etc. In order to appeal to consumers, what do you do? Take out advertising or sponsor fighters perhaps? Or you could take a leaf out of the book of Affliction Clothing, who decided to become a mixed martial arts promoter and capture the attention of consumers by offering them dream bouts.

This weekend, the company puts on its first event - Affliction: Banned - and has attracted some of the top fighters in the world, in the process offering a credible alternative to the UFC, the leading organisation in the mixed martial arts world. Some may question whether the event is a stretch too far for Affliction, but the approach taken by the organisation in not tying its fighters to exclusive contracts has given the UFC something to worry about. Its star champion, Randy Couture, is even in dispute with the organisation as he attempts to engineer a move to Affliction.

So what has this got to do with brands in general? Personally I think it offers a tangible example of how a brand can tap into a community and build a platform to create ongoing positive engagement with its target audience. It flips the traditional sponsorship model on its head by building its own property from the ground up. The promotion is effectively a giant outlet for its clothing range.

In his book, the ‘New Marketing Manifesto‘, John Grant offers advice to brands as to how they can engrain themselves into the lives of their target audience:

In the past, this drive [the pack instinct] found expression in the real communities people were part of – the extended family and village or neighbourhood or the firm which gave you a job for life. Now people are more uprooted. Social, geographical and work mobility are a central of most people’s lives. Sociologists say that in this sense we are all homeless because we have no fixed point as our emotional origin. This creates a hunger for communities we can belong to.

If Nike as a brand was grounded in local community sports clubs and activities people would have had to give up exercise and friends to leave it behind, rather than just giving up on a badge. Communities of interest make brands less disposable. The old marketing relied on identifying passive target audiences whose only connection with the brand and each other was purchasing. New marketing aims to form a much more active and bonded community of interest.

Affliction Clothing’s move to become a mixed martials arts promoter has enabled it to form this bonded community of interest with its consumers. It has moved passed the old sponsorship model of simply slapping your brand name on the content and hoping the public remembers it. Instead, to paraphrase Jeff Hicks, CEO, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, it has created “content so valuable and useful that [consumers] wouldn’t want to live without it.“