“This… is… Sparta!”

A couple of years ago I was invited to a Halloween costume party and, being a somewhat creative type, I decided to go all out.

After googling endlessly for the right costume, I ran across the Spartan get-up from the movie “300,” which had just been released. If you’ve seen the movie you know there isn’t much costume to the costume.

Knowing I wasn’t in the least bit of shape to pull it off I went right on with my googling. But then an idea hit me. What better way to motivate myself to get into shape than to buy the Spartan costume?

So I set out on a thirteen week journey of eating right and working out and working out and eating right.

For thirteen weeks I became a living breathing Men’s Health magazine. It’s all I talked about, thought about and cared about. It was so bad, in fact, that I was given the nickname “Mr. 300” by some of my wife’s former co-workers.

Fast forward to present-day…

A few days ago my wife and I met her former co-workers for lunch. We haven’t really seen them much in the last two years, but guess what… I’m still “Mr. 300” to them. Yeah, I got all the same fiber and salad and whey protein stabs I got back then. Obviously the name is a big joke now, which taught me this:

The messages you put in your advertising—even in short run campaigns—can stick with you FOREVER.

Make calculated and well-thought out moves when it comes to your advertising (or branding!). It’s much easier to develop the correct message the first time than it is to correct the wrong message later.

-Brian, Emogen sales strategist