Black Rifle Coffee company, Blackbeard and Che Guevara

 The first time I heard an ad from Duluth Trading Company on the radio–it was the one where they were working out the name for Ballroom Jeans (as in, room for your balls)–I knew I had to buy something from them.  And I did.  Most days, both my pants and shirt are from Duluth.  I fit their demographic, but even if I didn’t, I would buy from them.  I just loved how they took a risk.

Nobody seems to want to take risks any more, do they?

Same with BRCC.  They were just fucking around, and I don’t think any of them ever thought anything would come of it, but that’s what I liked.

Here is the first point I would make: in a divided nation, there is actual advantage, from a marketing perspective, appealing to one side or the other.  And given how dominant the Cancelling side of the thing is, there is in my view HUGE money to be made by playing the other side.  Just look at Goya.  Don’t do it halfway: make it so that if you have their bumper sticker on your car, you can reasonably infer their politics.

I’ve tried a few of their coffees, and Blackbeard’s Delight is my favorite.  I like that logo, so I bought one for my ball cap I bought from GoRuck.

I pondered this for a minute.  One, that was not the actual logo, as far as anyone can tell.  Two, pirates usually killed everyone on board.  Blackbeard was a mass murderer.

But here is the thing: I am not endorsing a return to mass murder.  I AM expressing, implicitly, my ANGER at a lot of things going on, and at a lot of people, without actually cussing anyone out, or causing any actual violence.  Pirates are a part of our culture.  The Pittsburgh Pirates.  Tampa Bay Buccanneers.  It is a metaphor for no quarters given, and an all in to win mindset.

Che Guevara was also a mass murderer.  Here is my second point: the people wearing shirts with HIS face on them ARE advocating a return to mass murder, mass enslavement, and mass incarceration.  There is no other way to look at it.

In my personal view this is a sellers market for marketers who are willing to take risks.  Proctor and Gamble showing a biological woman who is taking steroids and thus has a need to shave: not truly risky.  We have all been indoctrinated to reflexively accept whatever the latest assault on historical cultural norms (and in the event, biological science) may be.  P&G suffered a bit for that, I think, but not in a major way.

No, I mean risks like what the Goya CEO took.  AT LEAST 60 million Americans will buy something they don’t even want or need, if the people running the company will say ordinary, traditional, historically garden variety patriotic things.