Why People Get Tattoos of Brands

My Entire Team Sucks

“Go! Go! Go!” my dad encouraged Fitz and me as we leapt out of his Audi and onto the Whitestone Expressway. We dogged a few cars and shuffled our way to the shoulder off the interstate and raced to Shea Stadium past the other Mets fans stuck in traffic.

“This is the year!” Fitz said breathlessly as we got our tickets scanned and entered the rotunda.

“Fuck yeah!” I answered back.

We began to chant, “LETS! GO! METS!” in unison as we hurled ourselves up the concrete steps and out onto the green stadium seating.

First pitch was schedule for 1:10 with Tom Glavine on the mound. The Mets had a great lineup and the crowd was buzzing. We weren’t the only ones who believed in our chances at a championship. Ya gotta believe!!

This was our year and we were hungry for a World Series Ring.

“Believe” was ours long before it was Ted Lasso’s

Not only do I have a shirt from that day, but 5 months later the Mets clinched 1st place in their division and went on to the playoffs for the first time since 2000. That game was a Monday night and my dad looked at me and said, “We could be at Shea and watch the Mets clinch in 45 minutes…”

I smiled and said, “Lets go!”

We were out the door and celebrating 4 hours later. I also have a shirt signifying this day too.

Ultimately the Mets went on to lose to the Cardinals before making it to the world series leaving Fitz, my dad, myself and millions of other fans remembering what M-E-T-S stands for.

My.

Entire.

Team.

Sucks.

If there is one thing you can count on, it’s the Mets letting you down.

So why, year after year, do us fans keep showing up?

Be their favorite, not the best

It makes no sense to choose to love a team with historically bad management and ownership that inevitably leads to a losing season time and time again.

I am a Mets fan because my dad is a Mets fan. He always had the am radio tuned to 660, the Mets home station.

I am a Mets fan because my dad would treat me to a hot dog and large coke as we sat under the lights at Shea Stadium to learn from the pros.

I am a Mets fan because my brother and I would round the bases in our backyard pretending we just hit a walkoff homerun for the Mets.

I am a Mets fan because my brother and I would paint our faces orange and blue in the Saxe Middle School bathroom before my parents picked us up early from school for opening day.

I am a Mets fan because Fitz and I also skipped school that early spring morning to run down I-678 so we could make that first pitch of the 2006 season.

I can’t just chose to not be a Mets fan anymore.

To abandoned the Mets would be to abandoned the memories that has made life so precious.

I’m not a Mets fan because we win all the time. I’m a Mets fan because when I hear a “Lets Go Mets” chant I am taken back to the best times in my life.

Or when I hear the “Meet the Mets” theme song on the radio, I am taken right back to the back seat of my dad’s Audi and can smell the distinct note of newspaper that tinted my dads car as we drive home from baseball practice.

And even when life gets busy I can always count on our “LFGM” (Lets Fucking Go Mets) group chat—with my dad, brother and 3 high school fiends—to get me smiling.

The Mets are not the best team, but they are my favorite.

Why do we fall in love with things?

It’s clear to see how the love of a sports team can get so baked into someone’s identity. People will fight to uphold their identity and maintain their sense of self.

If I’m not a Mets fan and a guy who loves baseball, then who am I?

It’s scary to not know who you are and how you fit into the world.

But what about as we evolve and discover new things?

Imagine you find—oh I don’t know—a new creator on Instagram. What will get you raving about this person a year from now the same way people stay loyal to a terrible sports team year after year?

Tattoos are a great place to look to when we think about what turns people into raving fans.

Bare Performance Nutrition

Nick Bare is the founder of BPN, a supplement company. His tagline is, “Go One More.”

Why would someone get a tagline of a supplement company on their arm?

This photo is from their Instagram, “Tattoo of the week” indicating every week they post someone’s tattoo that says, “Go One More”

Of course, this tagline is not about supplements. It’s Nick’s ethos on life. Whether that be one more rep in the gym, one more step in a marathon race, one more video on YouTube, or one more day building his business even when it feels like he’s never going to turn a profit.

You see, Nick Bare isn’t really selling supplements.

I’ve spoken to two good friends of mine really well informed in the fitness and nutrition space. They agree that BPN’s supplements aren’t the best. They know that and they still buy them.

Why?

Because if someone who also loves Nick Bare sees you pouring BPN protein into your shaker bottle at the gym, you two are now bonded around your views on life. You don’t need to say more than, “Yoooo! BPN!!” and then you dap up. You become bonding over a mutual understanding about the type of person you are and your beliefs around the world without having to say a word!

And who created those beliefs?

Nick Bare did.

Harley-Davidson & Ironman

Imagine someone with a Harley tattoo.

Now imagine someone with an Ironman tattoo.

You’re not picturing the same person.

(For fun, can you imagine someone who has both tattoos. I’d love to hear their story)

When you see someone with a Harley tattoo, you build up a story and identity around who that person is. It won’t be the same story and identity you create about the person with the Ironman tattoo.

That’s the point. We make choices that build upon our current identity.

If you ask someone about their Harley tattoo, are they going to tell you how Harley’s are the best motorcycle in the world? Or do you think there’s a deeper story there?

If you ask someone about their Ironman tattoo, are they going to tell you about this fantastic organization who run these insane races where you swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 and run 26.2?

Of course not. The tattoo is not about the organization. It’s about what training for and completing a grueling race like that means to them.

And it becomes no different when you fall in love with a person.

Your partner is not the best person in the world. It’s beautiful to believe that, but you can’t actually know if they are the best human in the world.

We fall in love with people because they like a lot of the things we like and they see the world in a similar way as we do. They aren’t really the best, but they are our favorite and we’ll rave about the people we love.

People aren’t actually getting a tattoo of a logo. They are getting a tattoo of a brand and a brand is not a logo, font or a color. As Marty Neumeier states, “a brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization.”

Understand that people aren’t raving about your work when they talk about you. They fall in love with who you are and what you stand for because they also stand for that. Your brand gives them a space to belong to and when they follow you or buy from you, they are saying, “this is who I am and this is what I believe in,” and that gives them the joy and excitement to rave about the work.

Build a brand people rave about

Two things to understand about your marketing on social media.

1. Nobody actually wants what your selling, they want what it gets them.

Nobody is sitting around begging for more therapy, or breathwork, or corrective exercises, or even storytelling. They want what it will get them and there are many solutions to one problem.

People will end up buying your solution because they trust that you can deliver. Trust is a firm belief in the reliability of someone or something. Belief is a gut feeling.

When there are more than thousands of other people who sell what you sell, why should they trust you? You don’t want to rely on being the best because even if you can prove you are (which hopefully as you have seen, you can’t), it doesn’t matter. We don’t make logical decisions.

2. The beautiful thing about social media is that you have control over your audiences’s gut feeling about you.

You can get them to fall in love with you, but not the way you’re probably doing it now.

Talking about your solution all the time. We must go deeper than that.

• Nick Bare isn’t trying to convince you his supplements are the best. He’s showing you how he goes one more.
• Harely isn’t trying to convince you they make the best bikes. They embody freedom from the rules of society.
• Ironman isn’t trying to convince you to swim, bike and run. They are proof that #anythingispossible

They all take a stand for what they believe and they build trust by showing their audience that’s exactly who they are.

What do you stand for?

You can keep trying to convince people how much you can help them… or you can learn how to tell stories that Build Raving Fans.

With love,

Matt