Welcome to 🔥” The Slap” 🔥, the official newsletter of The MisFits. Each week, we dive into what it takes to build a brand that slaps—covering everything from category design to creative bravery. We're not just about tips and tricks; we're about reshaping the market and making you a category of one. For more: Visit our website | Listen to our mixtapes | Schedule a call |
Dog Whistle Branding is now "The Slap," the official newsletter of The MisFits, where we teach you how to build a brand that slaps.
Sometimes you have to get funky and change things up a bit. Since transitioning IRONBOUND Media over to The MisFits back in March, we’ve been gradually rebranding everything while simultaneously working on serving our clients. This led us to rethink our existing content, including the DWB podcasts and newsletter.
As a team that prides itself on building tight brand identities, we realized we needed to come full circle with The MisFits and close out DWB. We had a good run, but now it’s on to bigger and better things.
Why The Slap?
About four months ago, I took an online marketing course by Allen Dib, author of The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand Out From The Crowd, which stressed the importance of brands owning assets. Beyond using our email lists for thought leadership and client nurturing, we decided to turn our newsletter into another asset we own on our balance sheet. With this in mind, I envisioned it more as a magazine/online publication with a little Misfit flair.
For the last few years, I’ve prioritized podcasting and video content to share my thoughts, but I’m excited to lean into the written word.
Writing forces me to think and articulate my thoughts more clearly. Although it’s more time-consuming, I’m looking forward to the challenge. Current marketing tactics often feel like a race to the bottom, with everyone running the same playbook and posting on social media a billion times a day to stay relevant. Drew and I see ourselves more as craftsmen, with our internal motto, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” This newsletter will force us to hone our craft even more.
I’m already a badass brand builder, but I’m not naive enough to think I don’t have a lot to learn.
After years of consuming content, I’m now focused on creating my own. Now, with this newsletter, I get to prioritize it. It’s my own form of accountability.
Where’d the name come from?
If you’ve ever been inside a U.S. airport and walked by a Starbucks location, you’ve probably seen anxious travelers cramming in line for their fix, despite countless other coffee options available.
The purpose of this newsletter is to uncover the best practices for building a slapping brand, like Starbucks, regardless of the industry.
You don’t have to be a tech-bro or gal or have aspirations of building a trillion-dollar company. You can be like us, running a dope-ass design agency, launching your own cigar brand, or even opening your own brewery. It doesn’t matter to us. We aren't elitist about what makes someone an entrepreneur. As long as you’re willing to throw caution to the wind, put skin in the game, and get to building.
We believe there’s nothing more exciting than building something from scratch and making people give a damn about it.
The problem is that it’s often easier said than done. There’s more competition online than ever, and you can’t afford to show up to the market raggedy. We build brands all day, every day, and know what it takes to differentiate yourself from the competition.
We have a bias for category design—the process of deliberately creating the market for your product or service, and establishing yourself as a category of one.
We also focus on determining your level of creative bravery, a framework we use to gauge your tolerance for breaking the norm, which allows us to give your brand personality. By being a subscriber to our newsletter, you’ll get a first-hand view of our thought processes. Sometimes this may come in the form of long-form written pieces of epic content. Other times it may be free-flowing thoughts, similar to a tweet. We’re also working on a podcast, but we’re leaning into our written content first.
Next Steps
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Get Plugged In With The Misfits
Visit our website: www.wearethemisfits.com
Listen to our mixtapes: https://www.wearethemisfits.com/mixtapes
If you're looking for personalized help to launch or unfuck your brand so you can nail that first impression, review our “Welcome Deck” and then schedule some time to chat with us below.
Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression, and if you’re not ready to invest in your brand, in the words of Logan Roy…
Misfits don’t get into flow, we cook. That means you're locked in, head down, and in the zone. To help you get there, we stream the dopest mixtapes this side of the East Coast, thanks to our DJ friends at bunkr. Visit our website to stream them.