Building A Brand – Base Training Centre

At the end of 2018, MMA Fighter Damien Brown came to Emperor with a dream of building his own gym. In March of 2019, this dream became a reality as he opened Base Training Centre for business. Behind the scenes in the months prior to launch, Emperor helped Damien turn Base into the brand it is today.

Branding:

A logo is the forefront of your business and brand. For graphic designers, creating a good logo requires the logo to be memorable and striking whilst also professional and easily portrayed across all platforms. The Base Training Centre logo ticks all the boxes. It’s used in the signage, the website and social media just to name a few, but it never looks out of place. Before we landed on the final design, we produced a few different variations for Damien, then followed a process of discussion and compromise to come to a final design everyone loved. 

The logo is consistent across all avenues of the brand. For example, it transferred perfectly to the new Engage bags installed at the gym, as well as merchandise like T-shirts, rash guards and gi’s. 

The logo is the forefront of a brand, but there’s much more to a brand than just a good logo. A good brand feels consistent across all avenues of contact with a potential customer, this means all images, text and even colours used need to convey the brands message.

When Emperor developed Base Training Centre’s brand guide, we wanted the brand to inspire feelings of health, fitness and community. All photos taken by Emperor for use on Base’s social media aim to produce at least one of these feelings in the viewer.

For example; this photo of Damien Brown demonstrating a technique to his class invokes feelings of community and fitness.

Traditionally, martial arts gyms have used a very similar brand style over the years, promoting themselves as grungy and rugged. This style is dated and in fact could potentially discourage people who are new to the sport from coming into the gym.

We decided to move away from tradition and build Base’s brand with modern design in mind. This style of branding still portrays the gym in a serious and tough light, but is much more inviting and professional than traditional martial art gyms. Combat is a confronting thing for regular people so our job was to make it as normalised as possible, to increase the amount of people trying out the great sport of MMA.

Digital Marketing/SEO:

After a good brand is formed, people need to see it, otherwise it’s wasted. Emperor created the Base Training Centre website as well as Facebook and Instagram pages as avenues to get this awesome new gym out to the wider world. The website build falls in line with the brand guide, using the chosen fonts and consistent imagery and copy throughout. 

To compliment the new Base Training Centre website Emperor implemented SEO and Google Ads to help drive traffic to the website to ensure anybody looking for an MMA gym in the general area were aware of Base Training Centre.

Accompanying the launch of the social media and website was photo and video content, including the “Opening Soon” video which reached nearly 60,000 people. Photos were also professionally taken by our team, covering the Base Training Centre open day and first classes, giving Damien plenty of content to post in the future for social media.

Damien was a pleasure to work with, he allowed us to do what we do best as well as helping us create something he was proud of by inputting his ideas.

Emperor was great. They helped out wherever possible and went above and beyond to help me create the brand behind my dream gym.

Emperor offers services in branding, marketing, photography and much more,  this allows business owners like Damien Brown to focus on being the face of his business without stressing about the technical side of things. Emperor can help you build your dream business too, contact us today.

Writing a Sponsorship Proposal

For full-time athletes, sponsorships are a crucial part of the job. They provide the equipment, apparel and money required for an athlete to continue to do what they do best, perform. Therefore it is critical that sponsorship opportunities are not missed, and are seized with professionalism and integrity. With that said, here are our top tips for writing a sponsorship proposal.

The Forethought: Is This The Right Sponsor For You?

It is very important you choose sponsors who you are proud to represent. You need to evaluate what you as a person stand for. You also need to research your potential sponsor. Do they share your views? For example if you care passionately about the environment, does your sponsor use ethically sourced materials? A sponsorship is an extension of your own brand as a fighter and therefore must reflect who you are, do not compromise your brands integrity for a pay check from a company you do not agree with. Make sure the products are good and you would personally recommend the company regardless of sponsorship.

The Reminder: Who Are You?

After you’ve picked the right sponsor, you’ll need to remind them who you are. Even the biggest fighters should still do this as a courtesy to the sponsor. Detail your experience, fight record, prizes and anything else that might be relevant. It’s unfortunate, but brands tend to pick fighters who have had more experience, more fights and a bigger following. It’s just better business. Write out your experience, include things like your fight record, Jiu Jitsu competition gold medals and your social media following. Only include relevant details in this section, make it short and easy to read, you’re just reminding the sponsor of who you are and how you got there.

The Sell: What Can You Offer A Brand?

Now that you’ve decided on a brand that you align with well and you’ve detailed who you are, now you have to tell the brand why you’re the best fit for them. Detail things like the benefit for the brand to sponsor you and how you perfectly portray their mission and fit with their style (this is why picking the right sponsor is important). Try to steer away from things such as doing single Instagram posts or shoutouts. Look towards the bigger picture of becoming an ambassador for the brand and helping them get their products out there.

The Close: How do you present this information?

The presentation of your proposal plays a large factor in how you come across. We create personalised, professionally designed, 4-5 page documents for our athletes to take to sponsorship meetings. This portrays the athlete as professional, organised and serious about the sponsorship. If you take the time and effort to go above and beyond to impress the potential sponsor, you set yourself apart from everybody else. As the old adage goes: “The harder you work, the luckier you get.”

These main points are always a part of every sponsorship proposal we write for our athlete team. From our experience if you are genuine and believe in the product you are promoting for your sponsor, then you will be successful and everybody will be winners.

Photos: Elliot Compton & Ben Nguyen

Behind the ART – Run The Red x Emperor x Ben “10” Nguyen

Mid December 2018, Emperor and Run The Red (RTR) in collaboration with Ben “Ben 10” Nguyen, former UFC fighter, set out on their most ambitious project yet. Commissioned by Art By Emperor (ABE!), the goal was to show the world what kind of production quality Emperor x RTR are capable of, as well as promote and showcase Ben. The film seeked to highlight what kind of dedication and intense training fighters must endure to prepare themselves for the uphill battle that is stepping into a cage.

Director Alex Greaves gave us a glimpse into the creative direction for the film, saying:

“Since the early days of Emperor, Huynh (Creative Director) and I had always talked about the importance of evoking emotion in the work that we did. When we set out to make this film, we knew we wanted to inspire the viewer. Because of this, we decided we wanted to really get in the head of the fighter on screen and show the viewer what real dedication looked like. In doing so, the piece took on this gritty, almost experimental feel to try and give a heightened sense that the audience were right there amongst the action, (hopefully) inspiring them in the process.”

But shooting a film of this quality did not come without challenges. Greaves references time constraints and lack of budget as obstacles that were faced by the RTR and Emperor crew during production. However the team soon turned these weaknesses into strengths.

“From the get go, we’d set out to make a high concept film with no budget, which meant we needed to work with what we already had. On paper, that’s a pretty daunting idea, but a lot of the time those limitations help you hone in on what you’re actually trying to make. We knew we had a sweet location and access to a world class fighter in Ben 10, so we worked the concept around those advantages, and I think it really paid off in the finished piece.” 

RTR and Emperor worked collaboratively to create the film, sharing ideas, creative direction and on set workload. Together, the two teams produced a cohesive film, Greaves had this to say about the collaboration and shooting process.

“Working with Emperor throughout the process was an absolute breeze. You could feel that the whole team were all working towards the same goal, which made all the difference in putting the project together. Films are made by solving one problem after another until you have a finished piece sitting in front of you, so the process is all the more enjoyable when you have a team that gels and can figure out their problems quickly and effectively together.”

The shoot lasted roughly 10 hours and went late into the night, however Ben showed resilience throughout and kept shooting without the slightest complaint. After the shoot he said:

“It wasn’t my first rodeo, I’ve done 14 hours all day in the sun shoots so this was a breeze. The shots were well planned out and I knew they were going to turn out well and it was better than I thought.”

Showing absolute professionalism throughout production, Ben returned praise to the Emperor and Run The Red crew for their style and work ethic.

“Really efficient, straight forward, and fun. Every shot was planned and scheduled and we pretty much hit every shot with the allotted time. Everyone knew how to be serious and when to let loose and have fun which goes by my motto of “Have fun while being the best””.

All in all, 2019 is shaping up to be a very exciting year, so stay tuned for more from ABE!, Run The Red, Emperor and Ben Nguyen’s new endeavour in RIZIN.

 

Follow Art By Emperor!:
Facebook – ABE!
Instagram – ABE!

Follow Run The Red:
Website – RTR
Instagram – RTR

Follow Ben “10” Nguyen:
Facebook – BenX
Instagram – BenX