UnCapped

from 72 HOURS Oct. 10, 2022

Arts

UNCAPPED A talk with ‘Brand Mysticism’ author Steven Grasse

In this episode of the UnCapped podcast, host Chris Sands talks with Steven Grasse about his new book, “Brand Mysticism,” released Nov. 8, as well as his new whiskey brand, Dunce Whiskey, and brands his company, Quaker City Mercantile, has created and worked with — among them, Hendrick’s Gin, Sailor Jerry, Guinness, Miller High Life, Puma and Tamworth Distillery. Here is an excerpt of their conversation. UnCapped: We could list a whole bunch of stuff when it comes to who you are: an author, which is why we’re talking now, marketer, entrepreneur, business man … is there anything else you want to add to that list? Steven Grasse: I don’t know. The list is endless. UnCapped: Provocateur? Grasse: Provocateur! UnCapped: The main reason we’re talking today is to discuss your new book, “Brand Mysticism,” which is the first book I’ve read in possibly a decade. Grasse: Well, jeez, you need to read more books, but thank you for choosing mine to read. UnCapped: If you count audio books as reading, then I read a lot. But this is the first physical book that I’ve held and read, cover to cover. Grasse: Well, good! You actually read it. I’m impressed. UnCapped: And I really enjoyed it. I love marketing and sales, and I often wish that is the path my life would’ve gone, because I enjoy it so much. Even though you say it’s not a marketing book, I do enjoy reading marketing books. Grasse: Great. I don’t. I don’t read business books at all. … I like to read biographies. You get the best information from those. UnCapped: Was “The Secret History of the World” worth reading? Grasse: Oh, absolutely. It’s hard reading, it’s confusing at times, but I think it’s an amazing book about … the secret history of the world. You learn things like the pyramids are not 5,000 years old; they’re probably 25,000 to 30,000 years old. I mean, it’s crazy stuff. Definitely worth reading. UnCapped: I do like books that debunk long-held beliefs about history. Grasse: Exactly. We don’t know anything. And we should walk through life assuming we know nothing. UnCapped: Maybe that’s why I have some successes, because I often say I’m a moron and don’t know anything. I do subscribe to that philosophy. What made you want to write this book? Grasse: “Brand Mysticism” was my COVID project. We have such a unique approach to marketing, I wanted to try to articulate it. I was interviewed by Aaron Goldfarb for an article titled “How Do You Make a Booze Brand Go Viral?” for Vine Pair, and me and Aaron got along really well, so I roped him into the project, and together we pitched it to our publisher, Running Press, and surprisingly, they bought it. We just dug in. Literally the entire length of COVID, we would do an interview once a week and then Aaron would write drafts and send them back and forth to me. UnCapped: One of the things you mentioned earlier is it’s not a marketing book, but I would argue that it’s definitely part memoir, part biography, part marketing manual. Grasse: When I say it’s not a marketing book, it’s not a how-to, but if you read the totality, it is a how-to, because I break down my process — which is not a linear process, and it’s not a standard process that you would learn in marketing school. The way I create is a very organic, cosmic mashup of esoteric, stream-of-consciousness, and I break down how I got to create that way and how I actually do it by giving a ton of examples of how to do it. Creativity is spirituality, and it’s my religion. I live to create. I don’t understand why else we’re here. I feel that the creative process is ongoing and constant. I make money because I love what I do. I don’t live to make money. The money is a tool to be more creative. So in that sense, it’s not a marketing book; it’s a life book. It’s a breakdown of my journey, and in reading it, you can be inspired by how to adopt certain aspects of it to your own creative journey. UnCapped: I do have some specific questions. During the Zipperhead serial killer campaign [where the Philadelphia punk shop Zipperhead advertised a “killer sale” with posters showing Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer], how much thought did you put into the risk of that campaign? Grasse: At that point, we didn’t have much to lose. We were young and dumb. I had a sense that in order to make it big, we had to get famous, and to get famous, we had to do something shocking or that got attention. So we went to this very famous punk rock store on South Street in Philly called Zipperhead and just said, “I want do some posters for you. Don’t pay me,” and they were like, “holy sh—.” They never ran, we just sent them out to the press, and the press went crazy. I’ve never seen anything like that. That was the first time I’d done something that went viral. If you think back to ’93, ’94, making something go viral was a very different thing than it is now because we didn’t have the internet. It was interesting because we did have existing clients in Philadelphia who were very established — like, we had Comcast at that time, which was not yet what they are now, and also Blue Cross Blue Shield — but when we did Zipperhead, they fired us. Then we got phone calls from Budweiser and Coca Cola and RJ Reynolds Tobacco. We started getting calls from big, national clients, which never would’ve happened. We lost the local and gained the international.

The other really interesting thing about the Zipperhead experience was we were all in our early 20s when we did this, and we had a hard time getting clients to take us seriously, because we were inexperienced. The Zipperhead thing turned us into the voice of Gen X. The New York Times, everybody wrote about [the Zipperhead ads] as Gen X. Suddenly, we were the poster children for Gen X, and it opened doors everywhere for us. So, it was a crazy, wild ride, but we learned how to do it again and again. We call it creative grenades — things we throw out into the culture. You can either do it with a new brand to launch it or with an existing brand to keep up the buzz and excitement. UnCapped: Another thing I thought about while reading … you had said that while working with Puma, they had offered to pay you in stock instead of cash. Did you ever calculate what you lost by not accepting the stock? Grasse: [Sighs.] To be clear, we couldn’t accept the stock. We were just starting out. We needed money. When we started working with Puma, they were a $30 million brand. They were selling sneakers in supermarkets in Germany. It was dead. When we left Puma, 10 or 11 years later, they sold the brand to Gucci for $7 billion. So, yeah, I didn’t lose the money, but I could’ve made a whole load of money if we’d been able to take stock.

This excerpt has been edited for space and clarity. Listen to the full podcast at fnppodcasts.com/uncapped. Got UnCapped news? Email csands@ newspost.com.