Monday, September 17, 2007

Mark Ecko is a genius


For those of you who haven't heard the news yet the buyer of Barry Bonds' 756th home run ball was Mark Ecko. The same guy behind the Ecko clothing line. I'm not a big fan of his clothes but he has done a great job of spreading his name and making himself a big player in the urban clothing market. Well his marketing excellence is on display once again.

He paid over $750,000 for the ball and now he is going to give it away. That is not the beauty of his plan though. He is making it an online vote as to what he does with the ball. With 2 of the choices the ball will end up in the hall of fame, one as is and the other with a asterisk on the ball. The third option would send it into space, otherwise known as just getting rid of it.

So why would a man spend that much money just to give it away? Well one he can afford it. Secondly, he is going to get a lot more value out of it. The second you vote you can go to his website and the fact that his company is named after him means he get all kinds of free publicity. This is all positive publicity and it's all free for him. As long as he plays his cards right he will have 3 peak days of publicity and lots more in between. The timing has to be right for everything. This is the first day, the second day will be when the winning choice is announced, and the 3rd will be when he donates it to Cooperstown. I'm positive he will make sure there are lots of cameras around for his delivery. There are a lot of people that could learn from his example. Congrats to Mark Ecko for being an amazing businessman.

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