Page 99 - Midas Touch

Rippers was cool, unique, distinctive, and spoke to young surfers, the kind
of people I knew and loved. Surfers were people like me, so I could relate.

Rippers never evolved into a brand. It was the name of my business, a
product line, and a trademark but it never evolved into a brand. And
maybe that’s the point. We didn’t do anything to make it a brand.

That’s not to say we didn’t market it. My partners and I traveled to surfing
trade shows, sporting goods shows, and young-apparel shows, selling our
new and unique Ripper products. We were doing our best to get our
products into stores all over the world. The problem was that we were
burning through money faster than money was coming in. It was a tough
time. It was a test of our character. All we could handle was managing the
business. Who had time to manage the brand?

I was so screwed up and was being buried alive by my own incompetence.
Rippers never had a chance to develop into a brand. It had the makings of
a great brand name, but a great name without a great company behind the
brand is nothing.

Today, there are nylon-and-Velcro surfer wallets for sale all over the
world. The product we created was a success, but it failed to grow into a

brand. So today, it remains a commodity, a global product line without a
brand leader.

Saved by the Brand
The good news is that even though I could not build a brand out of
Rippers, I knew great brands when I saw them. Working to save Rippers, I
accidentally stumbled into the rock-and-roll industry, a place loaded with

amazing brands.

In 1981, the rock band Pink Floyd contacted my Rippers company to see if
we were interested in becoming a licensee of the Pink Floyd band (or I
should say, brand). Desperate for any business opportunity, I listened to
what the band’s agent was telling me. He did not know it, but he was
saving my business by selling me a brand, the brand of a world-famous
rock-and-roll band.

Not familiar with the rock-and-roll industry, I flew from Hawaii to San
Francisco to meet with Pink Floyd’s licensing agents. The meeting turned