How a broke small town cobbler created a multi-billion dollar brand & industry
Published: Sun, 07/19/20
Back in 1974 a small-town Wisconsin cobbler huddling in his basement was working on an idea that, quite literally, changed the face of popular culture. And, he created the “template” and influence for everything from insanely popular computer games like Call of Duty & World of Warcraft… to ratings-dominating TV shows like “Game Of Thrones.”
I am talking about one Gary Gygax when he invented Dungeons & Dragons.
It’s impossible to do justice to just how much he changed the culture.
And, it’s also impossible to place a “value” on the many brands that sprung up as a result of his work.
Hundreds of billions?
I don’t know.
But, what I do know is, Mr. Gygax may be the most underrated business mind who ever lived — even if he was not the world’s best business man (he made a ton of bad business decisions, but that is a module to play another day…)
Anyway, here is why I bring this up:
There are many reasons why Gary’s creation is so influential & so big.
But, one of the main reasons is… Gary demonstrated how the average person, without needing to be a creative genius can, with just a little guidance… create not just a fun gaming experience, but create an entire unique WORLD.
World-building is a branding secret most people probably have not considered before.
But, I can tell you from experience, it’s one of the single most reliable, profitable, and fun ways to create a brand that transcends you, and takes a life of its own.
For example:
A few years ago, I founded what was — according to many of its members who haunted many business groups — one of the most rabidly engaged and addictive Facebook groups in my industry, called:
“elBenbo’s Lair.”
Not the biggest group, by any means.
But, I do believe it was one of the most engaged groups.
And, as members inside were made privy to:
It was all very much created by design.
By that I mean, I did not approach it as a mere “group” where people share value (sharing value got people banned) and virtual signal (another thing that got people banned) and try to one-up each other and beat their chests about how smart they are or whatever.
No, I approached it as a world of its own.
For example:
Each time I built a Thread-hole (a thread of comments and rabid back-and-forth interaction, debate, etc) I treated it like its own Dungeons & Dragons module — complete with unexpected twists, turns, and even character deaths. Like, for example, when someone would get so offended or fed up with my antics they’d leave elBenbo’s Lair or I’d blacklist them for breaking my No-Value rule. This was all planned and worked out over time. elBenbo’s Lair had its own language (we even had a Lexicon), culture, customs, borders, and trade with other groups (I often plugged other peoples’ groups — and vice versa). In that world, I picked fights to give people options for thinking differently. I rarely ever debated or argued, although I did if I saw injustice going on inside its borders — like any leader of society would. I had a cast of characters, A Grim Reaper who banned people, and some other carefully-chosen Minions who carried out my evil work…
as well as an “Inner Circle” (the only ones who were allowed to give value), a special weekly column by a woman that taught a sort of “Villains Book” version for women, and a HBIC (Head Bitch In Charge) who babysat my citizens threatening to pound them with the ban hammer for breaking rules. All satire and infotainment, of course. I also even had a “Scribe” who kept track of all the Thread-holes and summarized them each night.
And the list goes on.
It was ridiculously popular to its core members.
And, it didn’t take long for it to take a life of its own.
By life of its own, I mean I still, some 3 years after nuking that world and rendering it uninhabitable… have people telling me how much they miss it, how much fun it was, how it’s too bad I got sick of it and dropped it, how maybe I can do it again in some other form… and the list goes on.
It went way beyond “me.”
The world became a brand of its own.
And, if I wanted to ever resurrect it somehow, I could not only do it with a single email, but I suspect it would populate quite quickly, bring in the green stuff to my squealing piggy-bank quickly, and grow into another monstrosity of its own quickly.
Such is the branding power of world-building.
It’s also something I give some guidance on how to do in a marketing context - not specifically for Facebook groups, let me clear about that for the Facebook junkies, but some tips in general - in my book:
“Brand Barbarian”
It’s been on sale all weekend.
And, the deadline to get it at 30% off is tonight (7/19) at midnight EDT.
My branding ideology goes way beyond image, fashion, design, style, etc.
These are some of the same kind of principles and methods that were used by everyone from business giants like Walt Disney and William Randolph Hearst… to world-famous marketing and copywriting teachers like Gary Halbert and Dan Kennedy… to universally loved pop culture celebrities like Stan Lee and Johnny Carson… to infamously reviled politicians like Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, as well as historical “household names” like Jesus Christ, Napoleon Bonaparte, Martin Luther King Jr., and even Mother Theresa. All of whose brands are known far and wide, attract(ed) enormous sums of money and people to their cause(s), and who people either love or hate, but are rarely indifferent to. And if you look at the root of what makes brands like theirs “tick”, you will see something quite different than what appears on the surface. Something brutally simple. Something ferociously effective. And, yes, something blatantly barbaric in application.
One of which is world-building.
But, there are many others, too.
And you can read about them here:
https://www.EmailPlayers.com/brand
Use this code at the cart: AXE
And make sure you see the price change before entering your info.
Ben Settle
P.S. If you are interested in buying this, please read the sales letter very carefully before pulling the trigger. Especially the P.S. about the "overlapping" info.
Don’t just click, add to cart, and purchase blindly on impulse.
Especially since, more than any other product I sell, this book is not intended for most — or even very many — people in my Horde, for reasons that will be obvious when you finish reading the sales letter.