What The Jersey Shore’s Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino Can Teach You About Branding

January 25, 2010 • 11:55 am • POSTED BY brendan quinn

Branding can be a vague, nebulous concept to folks, particularly clients. We often try to teach them the value of building a strong brand by citing great ones that already exist. Unfortunately, we tend to fall back on a small list of great brand case studies, such as Apple, Nike, Harley Davidson, and a few others.

I hereby submit Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino for entry into this pantheon.

Unless you’ve been living under a Pet Rock, you know that MTV’s The Jersey Shore has fist-pumped its way into water cooler discussions across this great land. Many of the show’s cast members have distinguished themselves in one form or another and could be great marketing case studies themselves. For instance, overly aggressive Ronnie’s innovative “Ron-Ron Juice” screams out to be a product extension line (potential tagline: “It’ll help you shatter strangers’ orbital bones.”). The stealthy philosophical Pauly D could get his own version of Taxi Driver Wisdom with profound lines like “I don’t even understand that religion or what it is, I just wanna get to the business.” And Jenny “JWoww” Farley clearly understands branding and marketing, as she has her own design company, Jenny Farley Designs Inc, which seems to offer conceptual solutions to anyone whose marketing issues are best served by including half-naked women on chrome-heavy motorcycles (i.e., everyone).

But truly, the show’s towering branding presence is The Situation, and that is because he understands the core principles of branding:

1. Develop a Unique Selling Proposition: Though I don’t have access to his creative brief, my guess is The Situation’s USP is something like this: “The Situation is an unrepentant yet oddly compelling creep, whose single-minded focus is to chase girls of all shapes, sizes, and colors (though mostly spray-tan orange).”

1A. What supports this USP? Abs, mostly.

2. Your brand name is your brand: I actually had to look up his real name for the title of this post. But The Situation? That’s been wedged in the American zeitgeist since early December. Not since Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski has a nickname made such brilliant use of a definite article. Note: this is likely the first time that the phrase brilliant has been used in conjunction with Mr. Sorrentino.

3. Stay on message: The Situation only has about 14 or 15 phrases that he says. Some may say this is due to a limited vocabulary; I see it as him having a tightly crafted message–a hallmark of any great brand. His phrases are then simply cobbled together with various parts of speech to form (mostly) complete sentences. Among the The Situation’s phrase bank:

• Speaking about The Situation, with phrases like “I mean this situation is gonna be indescribable, you can’t even describe the situation that you’re about to get into the situation.” Granted, what he said there is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in his rambling, incoherent response was he even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone is now dumber for having listened to it. That said, it’s awesome.
• “To be honest with you” prefaces 75% of his sentences. Seriously, listen for it. The irony is that it’s almost always followed by a lie.
• “<Name> loves The Situation” (the most spectacular example of this was the transcendent “Everybody loves me, babies, dogs, ya know, hot girls, cougars. I just have unbelievable mass appeal.”)
• An analogy connecting getting girls to warfare (i.e., “grenade”, “bulletproof vest”, “When we’re out on the battlefield, I’m like the first strike. It’s sorta like they send me out, first, like the Navy SEALs.”)
• Culinary terms (The Situation is a surprisingly accomplished chef, particularly in the sausage-n-peppers category)
• “Game”
• “Hook it up”
• “Creep” and/or “Creepin”
• Description of his physique (see also: John Rambo)

4. Stick to a process: At 160over90, we have an in-depth process that ensures our work remains at a certain standard. The Situation’s own personal process? G.T.L. (Gym. Tan. Laundry.)

5. Maintain a consistent look: When assembling an outfit, The Situation’s standards raise even more, as he has been known to change his shirt four times a night (apparently, Ed Hardy patterns vary greatly to the well-trained eye).

6. Single-minded focus: Great brands don’t try to be all things to all people. They know what they do well and stick to it. Mike knows his brand: “The only thing we care about is gettin’ girls & going to the gym.” Indeed, Mike. Indeed.

7. Get your message out there: We all have Twitter and Facebook as our tools of social networking; Mike has the duck phone. Mediums change, but persistence is timeless. Again, in his own words: “There is definitely a numbers game when it comes to girls. Let’s just say, ya know, ten girls have slipped you their number within that particular week. There is a possibility that, like, five or six may not answer. Somebody may pick up but they’re busy, but probably on three or four they’re probably coming over and I’m going to have to make a decision on which group of girls I want to come over for me and my boy Pauly.” Don’t give up on your audience easily.

8. Don’t be a douchebag to your audience: Technically, Mike fails this longstanding branding rule, but seven out of eight ain’t bad.