With the conspicuous rise of shock-value personalities in political culture – from President Donald J Trump to controversial Political Commentators such as Milo Yiannopoulos and Ben Shapiro – it is no wonder that today’s business leaders- such as social media tycoon Dan Bilzerian- are also intentionally shaping their brands around shock value.
Instead of taking a stage and galvanizing the emotions of college students, Bilzerian has taken the most alluring and inflammatory aspects of outrage culture and insightfully infused it into his business ventures.
For instance, TMZ regularly highlights his shocking new announcements with breaking news stories ranging from his plans to drop sex and debauchery (qualities he’s become synonymous with) and his pledge to run for president in 2024.
Joking or not, Bilzerian ignites mainstream American attention around his latest initiatives. Further, his incisive ability to fan the flames of his business ventures around such shock value has turned them into massive successes.
This can be clearly witnessed with the meteoric rise to prominence of his aptly named lifestyle brand Ignite International, consisting of full lines of CBD, THC and apparel products.
Launched with the intention of promoting the legal consumption of marijuana in any form and providing the unparalleled quality, Ignite International now sits at the top of the cannabis market and has already become a publicly-traded company within just 1 year of inception.
Beyond just recognizing the merits of shock value, Bilzerian is also very finely attuned to the consumption trends in American markets. For just as two-thirds of Americans finally support federal legalization of marijuana and a wider acceptance of CBD, Bilzerian and Ignite are perfectly positioned to capitalize.
Often it takes an entire media establishment and think-tank to recognize these dual phenomena (i.e, cultural trigger points and market trends) that Bilzerian has seamlessly recognized and harnessed in one fell swoop.
Thus while popular culture still may think of him merely as an extravagant playboy a la Hugh Heffner- who has rose to fame as a result of his antics, it is clear that there is real marketing genius behind the invention of his character and real awareness on how to effectively capitalize on it.
