Behind The Brand

The Weekly Business of THG

Welcome back to behind the brand!

I know this is typically not sent out on a Wednesday but since our THG site is live I figured this would be a great time to share some updates.

Over the past couple of months, the guys have been working behind the scenes on planning and creating a new and separate brand from THG called “Nobad.” What we are trying to do with Nobad is build a brand out of it and create it to be accessible to more people than the current THG store. What I mean by that is there are a limited number of people who want to buy and wear something that says “The Hockey Guys” which leads to 2 issues.

1. We have a limited number of people we can spread our merch to.

2. The merch will always be tied to who “The Hockey Guys” are. aka if we ever stop being creators our entire business of merch also stops.

This is why we are taking Nobad and creating a separate brand out of it, and YES this is different than if we were to even put the word Nobad on a shirt and sell it on our website.

The difference between Merch and a Brand is that merch is simply putting a logo or design on something and selling it to people who support us and like the design or slogan we have created on it. A brand is much deeper than that because a brand has a mission, ethos, and personality that can cause a customer to want to support it and it’s not strictly based on who creates it. That’s super important to us because that means people can support a brand and what it stands for vs. strictly supporting it because of who created it.

We feel like this is a step in the right direction because we want to spread our message to more people than just THG fans, and we want this brand to not depend on us in the next 3-5 years. A comparison to this would be Emma Chamberlin & Chamberlin Coffee, Kim Kardashian and Skims, Logan Paul and Prime (is what I explained to the guys haha)

So with that all said the goal of Nobad is to step away from the traditional creator merch we have been offering in the past and build something much bigger.

Meet Nobad

The brand's name, what it stands for, and the designs are all in line with what is close and meaningful to us. The key differences to Nobad and previous merch to highlight are that the designs will be different, it will be on a Nobad website instead of THG, and the quality and care will be much better. BONUS We will be packing a lot of the orders too, so whether you buy it in support of us and because we created it or you buy it because you just like the Nobad brand, I think both are great!!

I wanted to share all the behind-the-scenes insight into this brand, starting with the name. The name Nobad comes from the shortened version of no bad days. We view Nobad as creating a new word in the dictionary. It’s a single word that is synonymous with “fun, looking on the bright side, no bad days, positivity, and friendship.”

We wanted the branding overall to feel “Fun” and simple.

This logo will be used for the core of the brand but everything about the designs will change depending on the collections we do.

We are treating Nobad similarly to creating a new team and viewing the players on the team as the people wearing Nobad clothing which also ties into the logo.

The logomark: we will be using this custom-shaped X as the logomark which indicates nobad. X means no as well as X telling a player or member of a team (X’s & O’x in sports). So anyone wearing the clothing is represented as a player that makes up the Nobad team.

Nobad Community

The community of Nobad is going to be one of the best parts and a main focus. We truly want to be more than just a clothing brand. The Skate Clubs, Run Clubs, giveaways, events, and more are on the agenda to

1. connect with people through the sport

2. encourage them to get a taste of something new.

The goal here is that we want to build community through these clubs, events, etc. to put emphasis on the meaning behind our brand and make everyone feel like they have a place with Nobad.

Another BONUS: If you come to a Nobad Skate Club we will have club-only hockey lace wristbands that we will be giving out as well.

Fun Inspo

SIGN UP FOR NOBAD NEWS

https://beacons.ai/nobad/landingpage

There are endless possibilities to do this, but what we have noticed is that this is a sport that anyone can enjoy, from many angles and it is not a bad thing to not be a hardcore fan. Over the past few years we have attended many NHL games together, and to be honest, we hardly watch any of the games, but we still have a great time. The best games we go to are the ones where we meet new people, have meet and greets, and get to do something crazy on the jumbo tron and the fact that we get to go together. To us what’s fun about hockey is going to games with friends, meeting new people, having drinks at the game, making content, and getting to spread it to more people.

To finalize this for the time being, this merch drop for The Hockey Guys will be the last of THG merch for a while BUT if you do support us, then you could also view NOBAD as THG merch (minus a “The Hockey Guys” design).

We are super excited about it, we are going to be making everything more detailed, as well as we will be able to do the packing of your orders!

I hope that makes sense and you guys are as excited about it as we are because we will be able to do much more with Nobad and your support will allow us to keep elevating the brand.

If you have time, please give some product feedback so we can get a better understanding while building products.

1. What clothing products are your favorite to wear and style (ex., Heavyweight hoodie, or Cotton oversized shirts) please be as specific as you can or give examples from brands you like. Not only is the design important to us, but the quality is too. We want this brand to be something you want to wear day-to-day.

2. What type of designs do you like to wear the most (simple, fun, trendy, unique) List all that apply

SIMPLE

UNIQUE

TRENDY

SIGN UP FOR NOBAD NEWS

https://beacons.ai/nobad/landingpage