The OffBeat Book Report: Bobby Hundreds, This is Not a T-Shirt
Bobby Hundreds focused on his go-to-community.
The OffBeat founder Allison Stadd’s taste in books is eclectic. After all, curiosity—the engine of creativity—is linked to exploration of the unknown. Almost every book she reads—whether business, history, biography, psychology, and more—leaves her with takeaways she applies to her creative career and work. “The best inspiration, no matter your line of work or the shape of your personal life, comes from surprising sources,” says Stadd, who is shaped by her experience as a jazz drummer and has led marketing teams for Shake Shack, AB InBev, and now Target’s delivery service Shipt.
Since her premise for The OffBeat mirrors The Creative Factor’s ethos of pulling ideas from anywhere and using them to shake up the status quo, Stadd graciously agreed to share a monthly guest column where she highlights one of the 2,359 books on her reading list (yes, you read that number correctly) and shares three unconventional lessons she will incorporate into her craft and career. This month, she dives into This Is Not a T-Shirt: A Brand, a Culture, a Community by Bobby Hundreds.
Allison Stadd applies learnings from books to her work. Image c/o Allison Stadd.
I first heard about the iconic streetwear brand The Hundreds while doing research on men’s fashion and culture at the boutique ad agency Quaker City Mercantile in 2013. I’m not the target customer so it sort of fell off my radar, but in the decade since, I’ve been vaguely aware of their increasing notoriety—especially with the Adam Bomb Squad NFT collection blazing onto the digital culture scene in 2021.
I recently read the 2020 memoir of co-founder Bobby Kim, a.k.a. Bobby Hundreds. As a creative marketer and a consumer of culture, I found his perspective and learnings engaging. I’ve been thinking a lot about “go-to-community” as an alternative to “go-to-market” in terms of marketing strategy. The Hundreds has been on that wavelength since its inception.
My three unexpected—offbeat—takeaways:
OffBeat Takeaway 1: When Bobby and his co-founder Ben opened their flagship store in NYC in 2010, in anticipation of backlash from the East Coast streetwear community against an entrenched West Coast brand’s invasion of their territory, they preempted the haters with a stealth wheatpasting and sticker campaign. They posted “Keep The Hundreds Out of NYC” stickers and posters, plus The Hundreds logo stickers designed to look clawed at and ruined, throughout the city.
There’s something genius about beating the haters at their own game. A less guerilla-marketing-style implication of this takeaway is anticipating whatever pushback might look like for a project you’re about to launch or decision you’re about to make, and preemptively addressing those objections empathetically, on the terms and in the tone of the objectors.
OffBeat Takeaway 2: There are a million solutions to every problem
In a chapter called “Dear Mom,” Bobby talks about how the wallpaper in his childhood bedroom had a funky pattern of pastel pink and blue zigzag stripes. His mom used to prompt him to come up with a different interpretation of what he saw in the pattern each night when she tucked him in. One night it was lightning bolts, another night earthquake charts, still another rocketships all launching at once. This wallpaper is where the brand’s signature “JAGS” pattern derives from.
As Bobby puts it, “The JAGS pattern is a reminder that I hold the pen and it’s up to me to tell the story.”
Every situation has infinite interpretations and potential solutions. You control the power to find, name, and action against the solve.
OffBeat Takeaway 3: Community first, everything else second
Find your people. Not your Instagram followers or your email subscribers. The humans that connect deeply to what you’re building, and to you.
The Hundreds is driven by the mantra “People Over Product.” It’s been embedded in every decision the brand has made since its inception in 2003.
It’s really challenging to truly, wholeheartedly place human-centricity above all other business priorities. But if you do, there’s a higher likelihood of your work resonating—even through tough times.
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