In what seems like another lifetime altogether, a couple of friends and I decided to make our late-night e-mail musings about the Bay Area and basketball a subject of public record. Thus, a little over a year ago, www.fearthebeard.org was born. I won't get too deep into the wine-addled logic that produced this URL, but the avatar of choice for the venture was (and is) a stylized rendering of Golden State Warriors point guard Baron Davis's head. And beard.
The blog quickly took on a life of its own. While it often functions as the "junk drawer" of my (and our) collective consciousness (thanks Misha), it has also developed a surprisingly ardent following and opened some interesting doors. I was interviewed for a French basketball magazine, Reverse. I was invited to play in a blogger all-star game at the Oracle Arena. And, at our urging people grew beards for the playoff push and sent in pictures from around the country. Finally, our DIY PaperBeard™ (for the less hirsute) was featured on Yahoo Sports and even more improbably in the pages of Fortune.
But all of that pales in comparison to the events of some two weeks ago. After a few phone calls, we managed to secure an interview with the man some call Boom Dizzle. The rub? We only had one-day's notice. To shoot. Video. Oh, and it turned out he was "open" to hearing ideas for doing something on the street. Out with the people. All viral like. Tomorrow.
Oh, and he's in the middle of trying to renegotiate a contract that's scheduled to pay him $17 million next year. So don't do anything stupid, Turman.
Anyway, the video is what we came up with over dinner and pitched to Baron immediately before strapping on the hastily rented microphones. He also did a long sit-down piece that we'll be releasing in installments over the next couple of weeks. But, best of all, it turns out that we chose our avatar far better than we realized. He was great to work with and is involved in some interesting technology-friendly projects outside of basketball. Moreover, apparently he also sees the value in empathy-based online marketing. He and his team recognize that our humble little blog has a laser target on his "influencer" fans. Props to BD for recognizing this and being open to a pretty big ask from a pretty small source.
Daniel Turman
PS. Thanks to Ali Grayeli for letting me skate for a couple of hours.
Strategists & Planners
Comments (1)
cool work guys. if only everyone posted such high quality clips on You Tube...
Posted by Gerry | June 14, 2008 3:37 PM
Posted on June 14, 2008 15:37