Why Adam Plouff Views Battle Axe like a Band [Issue 42]
I was having a conversation with Adam Plouff the other day about how he brands Battle Axe as if it was a BAND 🤘 and thought I'd just share it here.
A conversation with Adam Plouff
Austin: I've been pondering what you said about thinking about Battle Axe as a band a lot since yesterday. Really such a cool concept.
I'm thinking about writing a newsletter about it... mind if I mention that I got the idea from you and that that's how you think about it?
Thinking something like this... I've always loved battle axe's branding/vibe/etc. So I asked Adam Plouff "will there ever be a battle axe graphic novel or short film?" He told me he's got some "fun things" up his sleeves... and "We're treating this like it's a band and just having fun with world building around this stuff... the music video supports the album that supports the tour etc."
I feel like there's a simple brilliance in that...
We're treating this like it's a band and just having fun with world building.
Adam: Absolutely! 👍🏼 I remember in the early 2000s actually being in a band and enjoying the process of building up a mystique and a “oh my gosh, I have to see this band”. I was just learning what graphic design was from GeoCities sites and remember reading the word branding. I didn’t have a strong interest to try doing that for other people, but I was really happy. There was a term for what I enjoyed doing with an art project.
Austin: Amazing!! And thanks. Any other words of branding/“doing what makes you happy” wisdom you wanna share with the people?
Adam: I only have positive experience in the branding of something I'm really stoked about –I couldn't do this for an insurance company. Design decisions sort of have a smile test. If something makes me smile it will probably do that for someone else, and that's about all I do with metrics. And that is pretty horrible business advice and does not scale.
The amalgamation of my own misreading of various business and marketing books would be:
A main goal of a business should be to make profit as quickly as possible (not some future payout)
Then you have the opportunity to use some of that profit to create things that you wished existed but no one was foolish enough to invest into something like that. The smile you get from these things should be an end unto themselves, and not about generating profit.
When you do this you are using the business to support the life you want to live, instead of draining your life to support your business.
My favorite modern example of this is https://play.date/. The company behind it is https://panic.com/. They are a software company who started using their infrastructure to publish a few video games they liked, and then they had the stupid idea to make a handheld gaming system for a small group of customers. That turned into a whole platform with a developer ecosystem and a cult following. There was no business reason for them to do this but it was an authentic expression of who they are as a company. Thats the most fascinating use of business to express creativity –rather than exploiting creativity to milk profits.
P.S. playdate is really fun. It isn't as good as a Switch, but it doesn't have to be. It's different and sometimes being different puts you in a class all your own. Best practices will only ever get you average results, because they are the tried and tested process that rarely fail. Sometimes it's fun to make reasonable irrational decisions.
Austin: Hot damn... this is amazing I feel like IV Studio is doing something similar. The studio supports the games and short films. I don't know what makes more money right now, but it seems like their deepest passion is the games side.
Adam: They are one of the few who are really pursuing things in an expensive way but their quality is super high.
I miss when the web was mysterious
Making games sounds like the ultimate expression of motion design brain and how it combines every artistic medium
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Two things stuck out to me the most:
This philosophy translates really well to "personal brands" which all of us freelancers have whether we think about it that way or not.
Adam understands the value of making profit to support the art. Without profit, it's difficult to have the time or money to make big, fun projects.
Another example of someone who is just having fun with their personal brand band is @truekylekru. Check out his Instagram!
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