Building the Brand — Part 1: Forget about saving the world

Michael Birkeland
Sep 4, 2018 · 3 min read

I’m just about to start my next adventure as Manger of E-Commerce and Digital Marketing for the Scandinavian Fashion brand, Greater Than A, founded and fronted by Olympic gold medalist Aksel Lund Svindal 🥇. With his team, he set out to create the most sustainable fashion brand possible, and with a small but highly qualified team of professionals we’re going to see if we can make something really great in this space (no pun intended).

This is the first post in my new Building The Brand series. I want to share my experiences and ideas as we try to build Greater Than A and launch it into an international market.


Forget about saving the world!

So.. we have a mission, which is: “Save humanity from itself!” -ish.

Ok, so it’s not a very original mission. Lots of people want to save the planet. Take a number and have a seat, as they say.

However, while the mission itself isn’t super original, we think we’re a little more unique in the way we want to go about doing it.

You could argue that if we really wanted to do something good for the planet, we wouldn’t produce anything at all. Which makes sense in a very shallow kind of way. True; less stuff would be made in the short term, but in the long term other companies, perhaps less driven by a desire to save the world, would have no incentive to change their ways; and ultimately, the vicious wheel of destruction would continue on its merry way, wreaking havoc on the environment.

Our approach is as follows, and pay attention ’cause we think this is some kind of genius right here: we want to make really high quality clothes that you’d want to buy and wear regardless of our mission. You could care less about the environment, and still you should want to buy our clothes. We want to take this whole ‘sustainable’ business right out of the equation for you. When you buy one of our products we really just want you to think about the tender love and care with which this garment was made. You shouldn’t need to think about buying from brands that are sustainable, we’re doing that job for you (as we should). We want our products to make you feel awesome, and to be really comfortable (we know; lot’s of italics). And you know, if we do our jobs properly, then you should be able to keep the clothes you buy for many years, and not have to worry about whether or not it’s sustainable. And hopefully you won’t have to buy lots of new clothes every too often.

And when you start to look at it this way, an interesting thing happens; The more products we sell, the less products our sustainably challenged competitors sell; This is true for the short term, but also for the long term. Which, needless to say, is a win/win situation; except for our competitors who need to have a long hard think about what particular kind of villains they want to be (at least Darth Vader redeems himself in the end. So.. be like Darth we say. Also, he’d look sensational in one of our black Taper Hoodies. Just sayin’)

The net effect is that less stuff is sold overall, and the stuff that is sold, is made in a sustainable fashion. Which means that it will easily break down and fit into a circular economy.

To sum it up, in case we lost you somewhere up there in all the italics and nonsensical Star Wars metaphors; The more stuff we sell, the happier the planet. We’re not asking our customers to buy from us because they want save the planet (unless you really feel like it, in that case: good on ‘ya!). Making sure our clothes are sustainable, earth-saving products is our job! No, we think you should buy our products because they are really high quality, and good looking. We really try not to brag, but just this once we’re gonna let loose (it’s for a good cause).


Coming up in future articles is: how I set up the marketing rigg with a limited budget and staff, In Depth Facebook ads for e-comm, Adwords and the Google platform, Shopify vs. Amazon, Maintaining Instagram, setting up a content plan for 365 days, and hopefully much more 😍 Stay tuned

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