MS-Digital Innovation in Marketing

Fox School of Business

Fox School of Business

Innovate Now: Dude with a Sign and a plethora of Influencer Deals

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If you’re an active Instagram user, then you have probably come across Seth Phillips’ account “@dudewithasign.” All of his posts are mock protests of simple but meaningful inconveniences or major trends dominating social media for that week or month. Recently, Seth has been able to expand his reliable and consistent brand image from comedic expression to being sponsored and partnering with major brands.

According to an article by Forbes, in October 2019, Seth Phillips who’s a content creator for the board game What Do You Meme? and Elliot Tebele, creator of the board game; created their first cardboard protest sign, “Stop replying-all to company-wide emails.” The picture was originally just for Tebele’s personal Instagram account, but after posting their second protest sign saying, “Seinfeld is way better than Friends” in front of a Friends billboard, they gained a growing online following and within four months, the account grew to have more than 4 million followers.

   

If you blinked too long, you may have missed it but Philips has been spotted in a lot of cool places lately; the Super Bowl, the Batman movie premiere, and the White House with president Biden. Phillips’ approach to comedy and influencing follow directly with the five steps of how to create a brand activation that fosters engagement that was discussed in one of our readings for this week:

1. Decide what action you want your consumers to take: The mock protests inspire followers to take a stance on whatever is the focus of the sign.

2. Determine how you will know your audiences actually care: By highlighting situations or phrases that are universal experiences, you capture everyone’s attention. 

3. When you’ve determined your objectives, formulate your idea for activation: The idea is a protest or firm stance on a relevant topic.

4. Identify ways to leverage your activation for promotional opportunities: Simplistic and concise imaging, there is nothing over the top or gaudy about the signs. If you look at Phillips’ instagram, the only way to tell the ads a part from his regular posts, is to see the partnership label in the post background. There is a uniform look to the Instagram page, ads don’t feel like ads.

5. Determine ways to extend the brand activation year-round and find ways to generate additional customer touchpoints.: Most recently achieved by Phillips appearance on camera at the Super Bowl post-halftime show.

Do you think Phillips’ brand activation plan is successful? Why or why not?

What opportunities for brand image growth are available for Phillips? 

With redundancy there is room for fatigue, do you foresee Phillips and his growingly copied brand dying out?

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