Stanley Cup Finals and the Maker of Champions by Kevin Dwinnell

The Breakfast of Champions is the well known slogan of Wheaties, or a Kurt Vonnegut novel, depending on the circles you swing in. Brand Thunder is laying its claim as “the Maker of Champions.” It’s an easy claim when you create your own moniker, and sounds better than reality – “the official new media, affinity marketing tool of the team that wins out.”

Last year, the Stanley Cup Finals pitted the toolbar offering Detroit Redwings with the browser theme supporting Pittsburgh Penguins — and the Penguins prevailed. One W for the browser theme contingent. This year, the technology drama has been left behind as both teams, the Chicago Blackhawks and Philadelphia Flyers, are Brand Thunder clients and their fans are avid users of each team’s interactive browser theme. For two consecutive years, Brand Thunder will be a proud partner of the Stanley Cup Champions.

Sure, you can point and say, “well, you’ve not won it all in every sport.” True, but I like our odds. Just look at the past year in sports. One hundred percent of our clients from BCS schools wound up in a BCS Bowl Game (things are looking up for the Duke football team this season!). Brand Thunder clients made it to the NBA finals last year (Orlando Magic) and are contending again this year (Magic and Phoenix Suns). The Superbowl featured a Brand Thunder client (Indianapolis Colts) and the Major League Soccer Champions (Real Salt Lake) are clients as well.

I love pointing out how well our clients are doing. I think it’s great that we’re in such good company. Do I think there’s truth to the claim a Brand Thunder browser theme can make a sports team perform better? To borrow from Bull Durham: “A player on a streak has to respect the streak. If you believe you’re playing well because you’re getting laid, or because you’re not getting laid, or because you wear women’s underwear, then you are!”

Help us respect the streak. If you want to see how Brand Thunder and an interactive browser theme can keep you at the top of your game, give us a shout.

Posted in Commentary, News | Tags: affinity marketing, Breakfast of Champions, browser theme, Chicago Blackhawks, List of Stanley Cup champions, New Media, orlando magic, Philadelphia Flyers, Phoenix Suns, Pittsburgh Penguins | 2 Comments »

Casting a Wider Net – Sales Discipline to Grow Your Start Up by Kevin Dwinnell

For a young company, early success can define you as much as it can ensure your immediate survival. The question is whether staying with that success is good, in the long run, for the company.

Brand Thunder has been fortunate selling its custom branded browsers early on to major teams in major sports leagues. It wasn’t a surprise as sports teams regularly encourage the connection between the team “brand” and the fan. What was a surprise is how slow certain verticals, like TV and Movies with equally avid fan bases, have been to get on board and how quickly the comment of “oh, you do that sports-browser thing” came up despite having strong clients like the Huffington Post, HowStuffWorks.com and Universal Music Group.

As a start up, anything that moves you toward profitability in a significant way is vital to pursue, but equally vital is continuing to do the hard work of building the full market potential of the product. It’s still early in our company’s life to predict its outcome, but it feels right to keep pushing toward the broader market. I credit our business-development lead, Ryan, for bringing sales discipline and structure to the company. We did the formal planning of which markets would be a priority and how we’d go about approaching them. It was painful at the time, as it felt like we should be selling – sending emails, making calls. Those came in time and we’re hopeful we’ve chosen the right priorities. While sports is among them, it’s not the only one and we’re making our in roads.

Check out our Gallery, there’s lots of progress. You’ll see the latest cool launches for the Chicago Blackhawks as well as a special-addition Playoff Boom! for the Canucks. You’ll also find lots of other new Booms! for brands like the leading pet community sites Dogster and Catster, Hard Music Magazine, How Stuff Works, FLW’s Fantasy Fishing game (good fun, btw). There’s even a few of our own offerings like our holiday spin for Mother’s Day and a Boom for fans of The Office.

And when we hear “oh, you do those cool Boom! browser things” we’ll know we’re really on our way.

Posted in Commentary | Tags: brand thunder, Branded Browser, browser boom, Catster, Chicago Blackhawks, custom browser, Dogster, HowStuffWorks, Huffington Post, Universal Music Group | No Comments »

NHL Teams More Than Double Their Chances of Making the Playoffs by Signing with Brand Thunder by Kevin Dwinnell

It’s true. Ninety percent of the NHL teams that have signed with Brand Thunder are heading to the playoffs. Only 35% of the other teams get to make that claim. Coincidence? I think not.

I think it’s the result of the immersive experience and the positive energy that the team/fan connection creates… OK, I realize that correlation does not imply causation. The playoffs are about winning. All the teams advancing had the effort, motivation and good fortune to advance into the post season. No single thing can guarantee achieving this. The best you can do is put as many factors in your favor as possible to give yourself or your team that chance to advance.

For companies, a Boom (branded browser) is one thing you can put in the “W” column for your business. We recognize that leveraging interactive media to connect with your user or fan base is not likely to be core to your business. That’s why we manage as much of the process as possible and limit your resource commitment to delivering a few assets from your existing web page, approval of the browser mock, a promotional link and download page (for which we also deliver assets). With a low level of effort, you enjoy a high return from increased web site visits and transactions from your fans. I wonder if any of the teams entering the playoffs had wins this easy.

In any case, congratulations and good luck to the Blackhawks, Blues, Canadiens, Canucks, Capitals, Flyers, Penguins and our home team, making their first playoff appearance, the Blue Jackets. If you’d like specifics as to how meaningful a Boom can be for your business, drop us a line.

Posted in Commentary | Tags: brand thunder, Brand Thunder Boom, Branded Browser, Chicago Blackhawks, Columbus Blue Jackets, custom browser, National Hockey League, Sports, Vancouver Canucks | 1 Comment »