Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The Tracks Nobody Sees, But Every Marketer Should Hear.
This podcast celebrates the hidden gems of marketing insight found across all professions—both within and beyond traditional marketing roles. Just as B-sides on a single contain brilliant tracks that are treasured by true fans, every profession contains marketing wisdom that isn't obvious at first glance but is incredibly valuable when discovered.
Tom Hootman (00:05)
Hello, listeners and viewers, viewers too. Shit. I hope you're viewing this because I'm wearing a badass Notre Dame hoodie today. Our Lady of Victory, pray for us. Welcome to another episode, edition, if you will, of the Marketing B-Sides. This is the the podcast where every single person on this beautiful planet is a marketer, and not a single one of us is allowed to pretend like we have anything figured out here.
and I don't know if you know this, but we're 10 days away from the official start of college football season. And you might be asking yourself, Tom, why do you give a shit about college football season? isn't this like a podcast where you talk to marketers and kind of get up like startups and people's professional careers? Yeah, it is prescient, my friends. because today's guest is none other than Connor Hitchcock, the CEO and co founder.
Along with his wife, Krista, of Homefield Apparel. I love Homefield Apparel. Not only is Homefield Apparel an amazing brand, if you haven't heard about them, get out from the rock you're living under and crack a tailgating beer and go check them out. What I love about this is a grassroots story. So Connor went to Indiana University on the heels of the 9WINDIANA campaign, where
Indiana football was so bad, there was actually like we were t-shirts in campaign that he kind of helped push out there about could we win nine games? Could they win nine games? I know I'm a Notre Dame fan, but hey, team of regional affiliation. and he started building this home field brand in 2017. Like he was packing orders for apparel, spending hours connecting with like niche sports bloggers, shipping shit out himself, and just engaging with college football communities. And
If you do know about them, you know that they have some amazing folks who've name dropped them, worn their stuff on TV. And he's gone from chasing to being chased, in my opinion. It's a powerhouse brand. There's well over 150 schools. That's probably way off, Connor. I know there's probably even more than that. I'm sorry you're screaming at YouTube right now. and they're in retail stores everywhere. They've got a store here in Bloomington, more stores to come.
They're literally everywhere you turn, 'cause they do something really unique. They go to a university and they dig into the archives, the tomes, and they turn these forgotten logos, strange mascots, and all these forgotten lore of school history into really unique vintage apparel that fans genuinely want to wear, myself included. Go Irish. don't worry, there's some IU gear too.
I love this conversation. And it's also really topical because as I mentioned, 10 days until college football season. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that their 2026 can't miss kickoff collection actually dropped on Friday, the 14th, which was three days ago. so we're talking to Conner at exactly the right moment about college football, nostalgia, thoughtful design, AI, and how thoughtful design fight in back alleys. and
what I really reached out to him about, honestly, was the authentic community building. He found a way to work his ass off, where him and his wife, they worked their asses off to get in touch with people who had followings in the college football community. And through that, they were able to create the foundation that's turned into some incredible lasting brand equity. It's a wonderful story. it's a great conversation.
I am still kind of blown away that Connor took time to talk to me. Thank you, Connor, very much. because this was just a little while ago and college football season is about to kick off, and I bet he's busy as hell right now. and it it means a lot. I hope you enjoy this show. if you enjoy it half as much as I enjoyed it, you enjoyed a whole hell of a lot. And I look forward to hopefully having Connor back on the show in the future. So don't forget, can't miss kickoff collection dropped on Friday. Go to Homefield
Buy some stuff, preferably Indiana or Notre Dame. Sorry, everyone else. And more than anything, enjoy the conversation. Thanks as always for listening. Like, subscribe. Don't like, don't subscribe. Hate mail is appreciated. Whatever you gotta do, do it. And enjoy. Thanks.
Tom Hootman (03:57)
One of my closest friends is is we're all IU football fans. he is like the world's biggest IU football fan, and the heartbreak of all that, which is the impetus for how you got started, really.
Kick is good. but IU football, Homefield, we're kind of both built on these like homegrown identities of like underdogs. Now, IU is a national champion and you're a nationally known brand in a ton of stores. What happens to you the identity once the underdog wins and you're like you go from chasing to maybe being chased?
Connor Hitchcock (04:23)
Yeah, that's a great question because as a brand, we gained footing and notoriety and credibility that part of the brand voice was that we were Indiana football fans. So part of it it's kind of a joke in many senses. It wasn't a joke, but actually was a really big Indiana football fan, but
Connor Hitchcock (04:43)
leaning into being the football first. And so actually what ended up happening was having a lot of fans being like, Homefield gets my experience. You know, they understand that there's meaning in a college football season when you go four and eight as long as you beat your rival or getting to eight wins
is impressive for some schools and that's like a big deal to just win a bowl game. So it in many senses it bought us credibility across the college sports fan spectrum that we were Indiana football fans. And it was endearing and people would buy 9WINDIANA shirts if they weren't Indiana fans because they thought it was like kind of funny that we were holding up winning nine games as the ultimate achievement. And then, you know, this year along the way
as Indiana kept just beating everybody mercilessly. People were supporting us because they were happy for us, as these long suffering Indiana fans, but it started to get not cute anymore. And so for us it's become now
we're not changing the brand identity. Like it's always gonna matter that we're Indiana football fans. But we can't be as loud about it anymore as we used to because it's obnoxious when the victor just won't shut up. Right. They dominated everyone, right? It's obnoxious, you know, five years ago when we were really growing as a brand,
It wouldn't have worked if we were Ohio State or Michigan fans yelling online about our team. Everybody's like, who cares? You're Ohio State or Michigan, you know? But now Indiana's
Tom Hootman (06:10)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (06:11)
entering that conversation. And so
Tom Hootman (06:13)
Yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (06:14)
we've had to shift our focus a bit on creating Indiana specific outlets for our socials. So we're not alienating ninety five percent of our audience when we talk about Indiana.
Tom Hootman (06:23)
Smart.
Connor Hitchcock (06:24)
And we still talk about Indiana a lot because that will always be a huge part of our story.
But yeah, it's shifted a bit. it's not it's not as cute anymore to be the Indiana football fans.
Tom Hootman (06:34)
Yeah, I mean the college football subreddit's a great place because it's like everyone embraced IU the last two years. Indiana's a bit like universally loved. Even when teams get beat, they're like, Hey, we were next, I guess. And like they kind of embrace the mission. And then you kind of started to see it a bit. I started to see it at least like on Twitter, for example, on like once the bowl game started and the and growing up in South Bend, but living in Bloomington longer, I am very much the reversible jacket fan of both. I've been here longer than I was in South Bend.
And I was like, I'm gonna be so thrilled as long as they don't play each other in the first playoff. And what the hell happens? They play each other in the first playoff. We actually split
Connor Hitchcock (07:10)
Tough game.
Tom Hootman (07:10)
our friend group split into two halves and didn't watch the game together because of it, right? Because it was
Connor Hitchcock (07:15)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (07:16)
like we we loved each other so much. But you started
Connor Hitchcock (07:18)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (07:18)
to see a bit of the chirping starting to happen. It's
Connor Hitchcock (07:20)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (07:21)
like, yeah, now they're starting to be like embrace the villain and people started to chirp back a bit. And like you start
Connor Hitchcock (07:25)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (07:26)
to see some of that. And you probably experienced some of that in like in your business is is woven into that.
smart to
Connor Hitchcock (07:30)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (07:31)
try to be like, hey, we also just don't want to you don't necessarily just wanna be an Indiana brand. You're so much more than that. I mean, you've got
Connor Hitchcock (07:36)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (07:37)
an insane amount of schools, you're in an insane amount of stores, like you're much larger than that. But I like the fact that you still cling fairly tightly to the roots. Can never lose the roots, right?
Connor Hitchcock (07:44)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It's it's core to the brand. And again, like I said, it bought us a ton of credibility and now, you know, this go around, look, I think they're probably they're gonna be barring some crazy injuries, I think they're gonna be in the playoff again. And they have a good shot of playing in the Big Ten title game again this year. And but we're changing our content strategy for sure. You know. We get one last gasp at like, hey, you know.
They're the Kings. You know, when we start college football season we'll do one big Indiana thing. But then from there we have to make sure our our brand details is being is thoughtful collegiate apparel. And so last year any brand would have tagged on to Indiana. We just happen to be the Indiana brand. And now, you know, second go around if they make the playoff, even if they win it again, we're not gonna be nearly as loud. You know, we have to maybe from the Indiana specific channels we will as we cater to a very specific
dialed in demographic, but yeah, that we we talk about that a lot internally to how do we not alienate everybody with all the Indiana stuff.
Tom Hootman (08:39)
Yeah. And I think that, you know, along those same lines, I think what people have really gravitated to with Homefield is the design component, right? Like sending a team into a university and finding kind of like the story. One of the the Notre Dame apparel pieces of apparel that they found in a middle of a hockey program or something, right? Like this random ass version of the leprechaun. so along those same lines, you and I talked earlier about the late 90s oval
Indiana football logo and how you said it's objectively ugly, but you love it, which I think a lot of people here agree with. But
Connor Hitchcock (09:07)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (09:09)
so between that and finding these unique brands, like what's the difference between like good design and design people love? Like, do you ever worry that
Connor Hitchcock (09:17)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (09:17)
you're gonna find something that's brilliant, but it's just not gonna click?
Connor Hitchcock (09:21)
Yeah. So what I was saying earlier is the word thoughtful, right? That's what we really hang our hat on more than anything. And in college sports because it's tied into a community, more so than a pro team is, a community of students, community of the school or just the local town around it, right? South Bend and Bloomington being two great examples. A lot of people cheer for ND who were just from the region or from South Bend area and a lot of folks in Indiana who grew up
loving Indiana sports, maybe didn't go there, right? So for us what that means, you know, the oval is ugly, but I love it because I'm thirty one, my first go around of IU football was Antoine Randall. Right. And so it's associated with this feeling
Tom Hootman (10:03)
Synonymous. Mm-hmm.
Connor Hitchcock (10:05)
of really my first taste of college football and this electric player.
And, you know, there's nothing about that specific mark. Like it's literally a rip off of the 49ers logo. Cam Cameron said he wanted to have the 49ers logo, basically, for Indiana. He's trying to professionalize Indiana. so there's nothing thoughtful in that mark, but it is thoughtful for us to put it on apparel because it is associated with this great player, you could argue before recently, the greatest player in program history.
I think back to a different logo, you know, that we thought looked great. And I'm glad we do our research. There was a Colorado logo. There was like some light blue involved in it. I think it was in the seventies. It was years ago we were gonna use it. I should have looked up the years, but it I thought it looked great. And I thought it'd work really well on apparel. People love light blue, the buffalo look great on it, and we
talked to a few Colorado fans in our orbit, and we're like, hey, what do you guys think of this logo? And everyone's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, don't do it. Like it was like the worst stretch in program history. Wasn't any memorable players. Like, nobody likes it. Like, we know it looks cool, but nobody likes it because of that. And so that for us is at the end of the day what drives it. Sometimes something that looks really ugly is meaningful. And vice versa, something that looks wonderful actually would have the opposite effect.
Tom Hootman (11:23)
It's interesting because you mentioned the light blue and I immediately thought I said it had to be late seventies 'cause like everyone was adding like light blue to their color scheme program back then because Notre Dame even had some light blue years in
Connor Hitchcock (11:34)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (11:34)
like the early Jerry Faust years. And it's very polarizing.
People like I don't ever want to be reminded of those years. And then other people
Connor Hitchcock (11:40)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (11:41)
like me, I love that color. Anything that color that's unique, it's different. So positive or constructive.
Connor Hitchcock (11:47)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (11:47)
There's always like a way to a balance you have to take into consideration.
Connor Hitchcock (11:52)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (11:52)
Is there a release that you were most wrong about in either direction that maybe your team was like, we've gotta do this? You said fine, I'll green light it, or you thought it was gonna be amazing and it just never took off, or you thought it was gonna be a dud and it just keeps selling out.
Connor Hitchcock (12:04)
That's a great question. we had a recent one. I didn't think it was gonna be a dud but it surprised me. I'm always always in the most recent one, right? we just dropped these golf hats and they look cool. They're great. I didn't necessarily think it was super on brand for us, and what we typically do. And so we only rolled it out for a select number of schools and it was the best hat drop we've done all year. You know, so in that
Tom Hootman (12:26)
Yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (12:27)
sense, you think you know your customer super well, but
our business is really based on launches, right? And launches are lottery tickets. I mean, you're gonna hit on a minority of them, even if they're great, you have good process. And so the golf hat one recently, it was just a different material, it more moisture wicking, didn't feel necessarily what we typically are, and it was it's the best hat drop we had of the year so far. I was trying to think of other ones.
There's sometimes it's like you can't always let sales be the determinative factor. You have to have conviction in a brand story. But at the same there was a lot of repeat purchases and so clearly we were hitting on something with our people. But yeah,
Tom Hootman (13:01)
Yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (13:01)
that that's probably the most recent one that I can think of.
Tom Hootman (13:05)
I mentioned earlier the story about your team like you research and look for unique throwback, different versions of brands. I think that's part of like why people love Homefield is because it's not no offense to the to the big distributors, but like it's not the same kind of cookie cutter.
Connor Hitchcock (13:20)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (13:20)
If I go look for a hoodie and it shows me the same hoodie for every single school. It feels like
Connor Hitchcock (13:25)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (13:25)
it's a little less unique because it is.
Is there a particular school's history where like you went in and started doing research and it sent you down this totally random rabbit hole that you weren't expecting?
Connor Hitchcock (13:35)
Hm.
Tom Hootman (13:36)
Or even one where there was so much good shit that you're like,
Connor Hitchcock (13:39)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (13:39)
we've gotta like we've gotta parse this down? Or does that happen every time?
Connor Hitchcock (13:42)
Mm hmm.
I would say every university has it if you spend enough time. you know, Indiana, there was a mascot for four years and we have one again. But we just kept digging and digging and digging that we just keep uncovering stories because people were a lot riskier.
with design choices or just tried a lot more stuff before brand guidelines became formalized. And you know, in some senses it's good to have a consistent vision in terms of colors and like thickness of a serif. Like if you look at the IU oval logo, there are two different versions of that logo over four years. Different serif thicknesses, different drop shadow, like
the orientation of the drop shadow on it. Like you go and look at like football that year, you could see they were wearing oval helmets, but and sometimes the goal posts had the drop shadow IU logo in it, right? So it's stuff like that that if you just keep digging, you keep finding stuff like that.
Tom Hootman (14:35)
I used to watch a blog called UniWatch that I would read religiously. Paul Paul Lucas,
Connor Hitchcock (14:38)
yeah. Paul Lucas. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (14:39)
love Paul Lucas. And in a group text last night asking them if anything I should ask you that they want to know about IU football like logo
Connor Hitchcock (14:46)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (14:46)
history. Because I'd say thirty percent of our conversations with Kloss and Clay circle back to a team dropping a new uniform and Clay talking yet
Connor Hitchcock (14:55)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (14:55)
again about how
Penn State uniform's the cleanest there is, right? Like
Connor Hitchcock (14:58)
Yeah, yeah.
Tom Hootman (14:59)
it's a soap opera. It's something to follow when they're not playing. So I think that it's fascinating to me.
Connor Hitchcock (15:01)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
It communicates a lot and I would say kind of in a weird loop right now with jerseys, I'd say. Our Director of Apparel Design, Kevin, and I talk about this all the time. It's our big soapbox. The thing we can't stand right now. We love throwbacks, we love vintage marks, obviously. We don't like
where they take the jersey from the nineties, alter it twenty percent, and then make that the city edition uniform for the year, so that you are now confusing identities across different decades, and you're not building any new equity It's just like this is a shadow of the old jersey that Paulo Banquero is wearing
it's seventy percent as good version of the penny hardaway jersey from, you know, the nineties, right? So like
Tom Hootman (15:49)
Yeah. Why do you think they do that?
Connor Hitchcock (15:53)
I tend to default to just laziness. Honestly.
Tom Hootman (15:56)
Ha ha.
Connor Hitchcock (15:56)
And like there was just a lot more free reign given in design. I could get into the technical parts of uniform design and apparel design and you know, there's probably cost saving measures in there or what's easier
Tom Hootman (16:08)
Yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (16:08)
to replicate or how you make a replica jersey versus authentic
I think there's also something to more of a drive for efficiency now. Where I fight this as the head of our company all the time. There are certain amount of products we need to put out.
And if I gave our design team more time, it would be ten percent better, potentially twenty percent better, you know, you're probably never done with a design or something. On the flip side, you don't have enough volume to support a business if you're only launching one thing a quarter, you know?
The NBA actually had a creative director in the nineties, that's why the jerseys looked so uniform. Even when they were big and loud and
teals and purples and giant mascots, like there was creative direction behind that and there was time put toward
these uniforms and creativity where now it just how many jerseys can we get in a year that drives more revenue?
Tom Hootman (16:59)
Layered in with
AI slop, right?
Connor Hitchcock (17:02)
I've already seen a
couple of brands. It's it's devastating. Like individuals may not be able to tell if they don't work in design or marketing. You can tell by how you feel though and what it makes you feel. And you cannot replace the human element of design that like if you showed my father in law two photos, he wouldn't be able to tell, right? but like
one would move you more than the other, right?
Tom Hootman (17:24)
Yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (17:24)
Move you to do something. So yeah, I think a lot of it for the uniform design is that there's not enough time given to be really great. 'Cause there
Tom Hootman (17:29)
Not enough time.
Connor Hitchcock (17:30)
are a ton of phenomenal designers out there.
Tom Hootman (17:32)
Yeah.
Well you you mentioned it earlier too, like the creative freedom is the first thing to go with brand guides. And
Connor Hitchcock (17:38)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (17:38)
now with a brand guide there's less creative freedom and then you take away some of the time within that, you start to gradually the island starts to shrink under good design
Connor Hitchcock (17:47)
Mm-hmm. I think also social media doesn't help. A feedback loop like that is not great. And I think people are afraid of it. And so if you put out something entirely new that is risky and creative, I mean you see this all the time. Any new logo that is ever debuted, no one's ever like, that's amazing. Do I think most of them are good these days? No. The new ones. However, no one's gonna see a new logo and think
that's amazing because there's zero equity behind it at the moment. The reason you love a certain logo is there's equity behind it. The Chicago Bulls logo, great design, is one of the ones that's never changed. At the same time, that means a lot more that Michael Jordan won six championships with that logo. Right? Like you have to allow time to feed into that brand equity too.
Tom Hootman (18:33)
Yeah.
I saw something on online that that like a few weeks ago that the sh the Bulls logo is like I think the only logo that hasn't changed. It's just crazy.
Connor Hitchcock (18:40)
Since 1966, yeah, when they first debuted it, yeah. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (18:44)
What I love about it from a marketing, agency perspective when you really look at it, it has a very, very Peter Drucker kind of like late sixties
Connor Hitchcock (18:51)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (18:52)
Eames chair type look. It is very
mid-century modern logo for what it actually is.
Connor Hitchcock (18:56)
Yeah.
Mm hmm. Yeah. It's a phenomenal logo. It works well 'cause it's symmetrical,
but I mean I'm not a designer,
Yeah, I think I know what people want to buy and why it matters, right? But I can't do anything in Illustrator. I'm terrible. just absolutely terrible.
Tom Hootman (19:09)
Yeah. Well,
I mean, you mentioned the creative teams earlier having a lot more freedom and all the different logos and everyone kind of goes back to the bison, which is back at Indiana.
Connor Hitchcock (19:19)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (19:19)
I know Homefield was kind of instrumental in that. I think you had bison gear very early.
Connor Hitchcock (19:23)
Yeah, we were the first brand to have it back.
Tom Hootman (19:25)
Do you take full credit, one hundred percent credit for the bison eventually coming back as you should?
Connor Hitchcock (19:29)
I do not. I think we played a small role in popularizing it again. There were many, many pushing for it. Jeremy Gray led the charge for many years inside the athletic department. Now, did I get photos of a binder titled like Project Bison years before it came out? Yes. Was I sending him sales data to support that? Yes. But no, before Homefield was even Homefield in 2017.
When we first got the Indiana license, the first design was the IU Bison over my shoulder there. with the idea. And nobody knew what it was in 2017. They were like, why would you put a bull on an Indiana shirt or they'd be like, Well,
Tom Hootman (20:00)
It's
Connor Hitchcock (20:02)
well that's the like the Knicks logo kind of, right? You know? Yeah. But the reason
Tom Hootman (20:04)
The Knicks logo is what everyone said. Yeah. Is that the Knicks logo?
Connor Hitchcock (20:08)
that that was the Knicks logo was because, of course, in the late 60s they had a bison mascot for a few years roaming the sidelines. Nobody can even get the exact years right.
The official stance is four years, but nobody really knows.
Tom Hootman (20:19)
it's a lore. It's been
Connor Hitchcock (20:20)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (20:21)
passed along in spoken word, like like ancient texts.
Connor Hitchcock (20:23)
Mm-hmm.
I mean. it's on the state seal and the IU coat of arms. And it should have gained more popularity because it was associated with only Rose Bowl team prior to this past year. So there was some equity there, but I mean the costumed mascot was a little terrifying.
Tom Hootman (20:40)
The mascot is a little scary.
Connor Hitchcock (20:42)
Uh-huh.
Tom Hootman (20:43)
so I think for me, because I'm a customer, I've followed the brand. It's hard not to when you live in Bloomington. And I had this moment, honestly, where I was like, Holy shit, they're blowing up. For me, it was Spencer Hall is a journalist, hilarious
Connor Hitchcock (20:56)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (20:57)
journalist has a podcast. Every day should be Saturday. You partnered with him, or he was a sponsor and he was
Connor Hitchcock (21:02)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (21:02)
talking a lot about your brand.
And weaving it into his podcast. And for me, this guy with hundreds of thousands of followers and this huge podcast I was like, holy shit, It was almost like I didn't even know you. I was proud for you. Like, this is happening. Holy shit. I'm curious, with such a fun brand that is easy to interact with and it's easy for people to embrace. Was it an inherent advantage you felt? Like, was it easy for those partnerships and those relationships?
with personalities like that to actually come across organically or happen organically? Or did you have to like like a B2B SaaS brand sit down with like an an outreach, ABM accounts based marketing strategy, or did it just kinda happen?
Connor Hitchcock (21:37)
It's more natural, the approach we initially took to finding customers, like we've been fortunate that our team, we are the target market for the product, right? I am an Indiana sports freak, right? I love anything related to IU athletics. And I felt the pain points of
being a huge IU fan and I didn't really like my options, I could buy gear for. and so, you know, I knew there was a problem. I mean, problems are relative, but a problem to fix. But then I was like, so how am I gonna go find these people? And so then I reverse engineered and I like, where do I like like fish in a barrel of marketing here would be anybody who
likes Indiana Hoosiers athletics in particular. For it was athletics, not just like, you're a grad, but like you have to be a fan of the sports teams 'cause that was our angle with the apparel. If you like IU sports, where are you going to consume your information about IU sports? And this is back in 2017, 2018. So at the time, Twitter, when it was still Twitter and much more vibrant, podcasts were really starting to take off.
sports podcasts. Like niche ones though, you know, sub five
Tom Hootman (22:39)
Yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (22:40)
thousand listeners. And blogs were still a thing. Now they were at their tail end. But like back in the day, Crimson Quarry was really popping for IU and all the SB Nation blogs at the time. So I would go for every launch and I would spend this is because at this time it's just me and Krista, my wife and co founder, five hours per school. I would find like thirty Twitter accounts.
that I felt like were niche enough. You know, it's not like some news page about IU. It's like you are some person, real person commenting
Tom Hootman (23:06)
Someone's actually yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (23:07)
about IU and your followers have a parasocial relationship to you. Like you are ahead of a community. And that person typically either wrote for the SB Nation blog or had a podcast about the team. And so when we'd have a drop, I would DM 30 of them. I'd say, hey we're Homefield. we make thoughtful collegiate apparel.
I would love to send you some stuff ahead of our launch and see what you think. Never once ask for any post. Just built relationships that way. And so that is how
Tom Hootman (23:34)
Love that.
Connor Hitchcock (23:34)
we did it for IU and Purdue. And I mean there are accounts I did for Western Michigan. There is an ecosystem, small one, online about Western Michigan Broncos fans, right? And so I just repeatedly did that and did that and did that and built very grassroots. I mean, we just had
spreadsheets. There's no CRM. You just had to do it the old fashioned way and honestly the CRM by the time it wasn't even worth it, right? I mean thousands of
Tom Hootman (23:55)
Yep.
Connor Hitchcock (23:56)
names we've sent product to. For free. And, you know, it grew on its own, right? And funny enough, I consumed a lot of the E D S B S content and one day, in 2018, you know, we were small enough that I would see every order that'd come in back in the day.
'Cause we were fulfilling it. I was customer service too. One day I saw Ryan Nanny's name pop up. I shot him an email and I was like, Hey man, big fan. Thanks for the order. He ordered a North Dakota State shirt. And I sent him if you recall, the Outback Bowl, he had this whole online campaign to be the frying onion.
Tom Hootman (24:28)
Yep.
Connor Hitchcock (24:29)
So I sent him a shirt of him as the frying onion at the Outback Bowl.
And we started just going back and forth on email and I was like, I would love to sponsor your podcast. 'cause I figured like, you know, we were on team by team basis, but shut down full cast was like a next level up on like, this has reached to a bunch of different fan bases who are really dialed into college football. So that's how that relationship began because Ryan was a customer and it worked out well. Relationships like that, where you know, there's tens of thousands of listeners, I would rather have
that podcast where every single listener is not only like relevant in terms of interest, but like engaged with the podcast. I would rather that than like get a mention on an ESPN show. Like truly.
Tom Hootman (25:07)
Yeah. Yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (25:09)
I was always looking for like the first thousand like true believers in a Homefield out there. Cause then I was like, they'll tell their friends and they'll be word of mouth. And so that was our approach. And that's how we ended up with Ryan and Spencer, Holly, Jason, and then now it's just funny 'cause like Ryan's just like a friend that I
text about random stuff and whatever. But
Tom Hootman (25:24)
Yeah. That's fantastic.
Connor Hitchcock (25:26)
yeah. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (25:27)
I think that too, I mean, you've seen that shift from my POV for influencer management and influence clients who leverage us for influencer we worked with before. When influencers first started to be a marketing channel, it became like all the big brands did it and you went you had to have someone with like two million followers, sponsored post, and it was just garbage, right? Like
literally like the bare minimum they could do to fulfill their obligation to get paid or whatever. And it was expensive.
Connor Hitchcock (25:52)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (25:52)
And I'm delightful because it's transitioned to that same approach. We're now micro influencers and mid tier influencers, they're they're they lead communities who are connected and fervent followers.
Connor Hitchcock (26:02)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (26:04)
And at the same time, we would do campaigns for like shoe carnival. We would do like a shop with me with families in different locations. And they were genuine
families. Like nothing was like here's a
Connor Hitchcock (26:14)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (26:15)
sponsored post and it's very clearly fake. This Kardashian doesn't give a shit about whatever they're holding up, right? Like it's
Connor Hitchcock (26:20)
Yeah, right.
Tom Hootman (26:21)
genuine, it's authentic. I saw or heard something, was it it's yesterday or the day before about AI, so much of AI is fake, but out of it being fake, it's created this boomerang or bounce back of like appreciation for authenticity that
Connor Hitchcock (26:35)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (26:36)
it's buried in that approach as well. Like
getting mentioned on ESPN is great. Someone's on Sports Center wearing a a hoodie from you. That's awesome. But there isn't the same connection. I always say that's always like it's the type of media exposure that's playing in the background in a sports bar. So like it's noticed
Connor Hitchcock (26:50)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (26:50)
but it's not noticed.
Connor Hitchcock (26:52)
Yeah. Yeah. It's like one impression there is really worth like a one hundredth of an impression. You know, there's not it's not
Tom Hootman (26:58)
Yep.
Connor Hitchcock (26:58)
engaged. And I mean that's where we have we've just leaned into being more human and we're gonna continue to do that because at the end of the day, like college sports, the reason people love it or for those human elements. You know, I could go on a whole monologue about it of
tailgates and the best four years of your life, your best friends. Maybe you met your partner there. You know, my folks met at Bloomington. I'm not here unless it's IU. My dad was a bouncer at Hooligans and my mom like they met at they met at Hooligans, right? And there's just so much more tied into that. And so for us like well, okay, what are we selling? College sports. So that means being on campus. That means being in
person. That means community more than anything. We don't watch college football because it is the best display of football out there. In fact, it is horribly imbalanced most of the time and takes four and a half hours. And you watch it for the communal aspect of it. And so AI goes against all of that. it's slop and it's soulless and sure you can use it to
help reduce menial tasks and whatever, but for creative purposes, like to create emotion, like it's not human. And so for us, we opened our store in Kirkwood last year. There are more stores coming. We do events all over the country creating community. we will never use AI in any of our designs, right? Like it is all human. 'cause it has to hit on that core 'cause that's at the end of the day, that's like core to what we do.
Tom Hootman (28:23)
Yeah. I was gonna ask you what you refuse to standardize when you kind of just answered that question. So like I'll tweak it a bit. Like is there a trend not necessarily AI, but like a trend in apparel or a trend that you've considered following that you deliberately in the end chose not to chase?
Connor Hitchcock (28:37)
The upside down hat thing, man. I can't stand it. I can't stand it. I think it's so dumb. it became so popular the last 24 months. it's just like, okay, it's upside down. Great. What does that mean?
Tom Hootman (28:48)
Cool.
Connor Hitchcock (28:49)
you know? Like there are a lot of trends. and sometimes you want to create a timeless brand. I'm trying to capture
every decade of a college experience because, you know, my college experience was the Kevin Wilson years. Right? How do we capture that team? There were trends going on then. Like so many of the things people love right now are like very nineties, early aughts oriented. Okay, well, we capture those trends. But it has to have some form of meaning or have deeper tie than just like I don't know. I I think the upside down everybody made a hat with upside down
Hoosier's or Irish or whatever on it and I just thought it was a dumb trend. So y we're always playing this game of like there's gotta be a reason why we're doing something it looks cool is not a good enough reason.
Tom Hootman (29:29)
Because I'm a marketer. I'm like in the platforms. I don't know why when I hear that you mentioned that trend, the first thing I think I sigh and I think fucking TikTok, right? Like it immediately
Connor Hitchcock (29:36)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (29:37)
like I kind of like assign it blame for like the some of those trends that come out. And I don't even know
Connor Hitchcock (29:40)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (29:42)
that that's true. I'm just being a dick to TikTok for no apparent reason. But
Connor Hitchcock (29:44)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (29:45)
it it screams 'cause it 'cause with TikTok things just move so much faster and
Connor Hitchcock (29:49)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (29:50)
the user base is so huge and their algorithm is so freaking good that these things just blow up unlike any other platform.
Connor Hitchcock (29:57)
Yeah. Yeah. TikTok. We we need to invest more in the platform 'cause that's where college kids are. Now our core demographic is actually targeted towards grads 'cause, you know, we sell a hundred sixty dollar bomber jackets. Not that current college students can't buy them, but fewer. Grads typically have more disposable income than the current students. But from a brand like being on campus, like it's really important that we have that Kirkwood store to build that brand affinity and
and awareness and hopefully some purchases.
Tom Hootman (30:23)
one last uniform question that I need you to weigh in on and then I got two more questions and we'll get you out of here. You talked about uniform trends. What is your opinion formally on the blackout uniforms?
So like a school, for instance, there's an urban legend and it's been and people say that when Notre Dame and Indiana played in the very first college football playoff game, that there was an
all black or black jersey option
Connor Hitchcock (30:42)
Notre Dame.
Tom Hootman (30:43)
for Notre Dame, and the captains voted it down for very good reason.
Connor Hitchcock (30:46)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (30:49)
Schools like that rolling out a black uniform or black jersey just
Connor Hitchcock (30:51)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (30:52)
because the kids think it's cool. Like I
I feel like an old head when I'm like, everyone's done it.
Connor Hitchcock (30:56)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. yeah, I think it's overdone. I do think black any like it's hard to look bad in black, I think, as well. I think that's why they do it. And like kids like it, right? So it works really well at some schools where like if you get everybody to buy in and it's a night game and you can create this like intimidating environment, I think it's cool if it plays into that reason. And like Notre Dame is so tradition oriented that like
Tom Hootman (31:21)
You're not gonna get those old heads and anything black.
Connor Hitchcock (31:22)
You know. No, you're not gonna
get them all to wear black. I I do think at a playoff game in the first home playoff game where it was snowing and so cold. Like I was there, it was cold. That could have been cool if it wasn't Notre Dame, you know?
Tom Hootman (31:36)
Yeah. Yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (31:38)
When schools who don't have like a hundred fifty years of history are just like trying stuff. I love that. Like
Tom Hootman (31:43)
Whatever. Yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (31:45)
Coastal Carolina
They're awesome. Like, I think they're they try stuff all the time. their field's teal. Their jerseys are teal. They had free food this past year in the stadium. And I actually talked to the AD about it. He goes, Notice how we gave away a lot of salty snacks, but we didn't make beer free. You know? But they're just trying stuff,
Tom Hootman (32:01)
Because it's it's a
Connor Hitchcock (32:04)
right? But I think there is something like, Okay, recognize who your core audience is if you're Notre Dame. You could argue your core audience with blackout jerseys are the recruits at the end of the day. And if you're
Tom Hootman (32:13)
hundred percent. Yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (32:14)
the the fans are happy, right? So
like I'm not a huge fan of it for teams that don't have black in their color palette, but the same time, like if it helps IU get a another recruit and we have to wear a black basketball
Tom Hootman (32:24)
Another five star?
Connor Hitchcock (32:25)
one one time a year, I'm not gonna freak out about it. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (32:28)
I'm all for it. Yeah. Or actually,
and you Penn State and the White Out. I went to the Notre Dame Penn State, the Orange Bowl in Miami, and
Connor Hitchcock (32:34)
cool. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (32:35)
the fans all rock the White Out. And I'm telling you, like, it's a great way to exhibit right out of the gates that you're outnumbered 60 40 immediately.
Connor Hitchcock (32:42)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (32:43)
Cause you're like, wow, they travel, we travel well and they travel better. It's when everyone buys in. That's the key.
Connor Hitchcock (32:48)
Yes.
Yeah, everybody's gonna buy in. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Tom Hootman (32:51)
you've been doing this for a while now, right? And you've grown like crazy. You've had multiple shifts and changes, multiple I mean you the brand has existed in different iterations. What a belief you may have held earlier in your career when you were very first starting out that you now are starting to maybe think your perspective has changed or you're like, what was I thinking that was bullshit?
Connor Hitchcock (33:08)
Hmm, yeah.
There are a couple of things. So this was more specific to what I actually do. so I came from a paid media background. Working at a reading glasses company. And I just thought yeah, one click. Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (33:19)
yeah, I know. We one click, yeah, Randy.
Connor Hitchcock (33:21)
No, I'm boys with Pat. Yeah, come on now.
Tom Hootman (33:23)
Mm-hmm.
Connor Hitchcock (33:24)
Pat I just saw I was emailing Pat yesterday.
Tom Hootman (33:27)
Tell him I hi.
Connor Hitchcock (33:28)
I will, I will. but
that I wasn't thinking contextually to Homefield. I like, I'll just set up all these great campaigns and, you know, I'll just set this nice ROAS target and we'll be good here. And one, I wasn't thinking contextually this industry where you have royalties. So twenty percent are off the top, so you don't have sixty percent gross margin to play with like you do in most consumer brands and then therefore you can set your
ROAS targets to sub two if you really want to. But I didn't prioritize as much as I should have like the marketing as describing to you. That was iteration two of the Homefield marketing plan. I thought, I'm just gonna put good product out there and if I just get it in front of people on meta, then boom, people will buy it. And that's just not the case. I mean look, we spend a lot on paid media still but it's not the growth driver for us. It's hey, if we're
at or above this cact or at or below this cac target, let's clean up what's there. I would be silly to not put the dollar in the vending machine if I don't get four back, right? But its place in our growth. Where most consumer brands, I mean you know from working most consumer brands are just like all they do when you talk marketing is literally just like we spun up three hundred new creatives for meta this month.
There's a reason people put
money into it. But for me in
Tom Hootman (34:33)
Yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (34:34)
in Homefield it just that was not gonna be the core growth driver and I thought it was.
Tom Hootman (34:37)
Yeah. It's interesting because it's fifteen years I've been doing this now and and discovery calls and it's like maybe over a thousand times that when when we ask about goals and budgets and timelines, it's always like, Well, if I'm giving you a dollar, if we're spending a dollar and I'm getting four back, then the budget is uncapped and we can spend a cajillion billion dollars. And you're like, Great, yeah, if I ran a four, four forty and could hit a curved ball, I wouldn't be right. Like you're
Connor Hitchcock (34:56)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (34:57)
like, it's if my grandma had wheels, she'd be a bicycle. It's like
Connor Hitchcock (35:01)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (35:01)
completely
crazy talk sometimes. So, and it's interesting
Connor Hitchcock (35:04)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (35:05)
though, because that also new brands or brands that want to grow with paid media in particular, it can be a growth engine for early traction, but it's also a drug that you can get addicted to and
Connor Hitchcock (35:15)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (35:16)
you can never get that next high. And you you smash through the the ceiling of diminishing returns. And
Connor Hitchcock (35:24)
Yes.
Tom Hootman (35:24)
then it's very quickly The revenue's great, but how much did we lose? You lost everything.
Connor Hitchcock (35:28)
what
was the marginal ROAS? What was your last dollar in really doing? Because you're looking at a weighted but yeah, I mean, I remember so Steve Hall, who is the one of the tinker Yeah. He had my job
Tom Hootman (35:37)
Steve that's a callback. Yeah. I know Steve.
Connor Hitchcock (35:41)
before me. His ROAS goals at one click were like I mean, he had it in the early 2010's right? So he was like five, six X ROAS on Google. By the end of my tenure, I was shooting for a one nine, you know? And it's just like
The price of the brick kept going up and that was another thing I was just aware of, like, one, this isn't gonna be a Homefield, it's gonna grow. I realized that very early too. I was like, if the price if CPM's increase that much in that little time
It's only gonna go up from here. And if I can't make it work right now in this regard, it's only gonna get more expensive. And so I was fortunate to recognize that early. So that was a big thing I learned. I think another thing I learned too was like you can't fight human behaviors. Like you can't really alter it. So what I mean by that
You can run a Black Friday sale early Black Friday sale two weeks before Black Friday. Guess what? Black Friday's still gonna be your best day by like three X, even when you start the sale, right? Or we first came onto the scene as a brand because we do these great product drops in the summer for schools we had never launched before. Well, we're like, Okay, great. eventually we ran out of new schools of drops. We're like, we'll just do refreshes in the summer. Well, the operative term and what we did was new. It went in big new Saturday.
And we were like, Why are these doing as well? Like I thought I'd do more, you know, we have more customers. You're just doing that math, well, if X repeat and you get and you just can't nobody wants to buy college apparel in July.
And so I've learned to really ride the wave of you can do some things like our golf drop, like I just said, it served a purpose of golf in the summer. But
Tom Hootman (37:05)
Yeah, performance wicking
and like different types of clothing during different times of year.
Connor Hitchcock (37:09)
But at the end of the
day, you can't force human behavior to be different. Black Friday will be your biggest day no matter what, even if you do ten percent more two weeks beforehand. Like people are going to just shop on Black Friday 'cause that's what humans do. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (37:21)
Human nature. It's 100%. And it's the when you did the the drops with new schools, you I this is a such a master stroke where you then share the data
Connor Hitchcock (37:31)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (37:31)
on like the success. Because what you've done is you've recreated what they do like at the College World Series, where like if you buy a shot
Connor Hitchcock (37:38)
Jello shots.
Tom Hootman (37:39)
the jello shots, you basically took that and recreated that
Connor Hitchcock (37:42)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (37:43)
and pitted teams against each other for like the drops. And like they would come out and be like,
Connor Hitchcock (37:45)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (37:48)
We've gotta catch Michigan, we've gotta catch Notre Dame.
Connor Hitchcock (37:50)
And eventually that got a little old than also like 'cause what we would do is we'd have like a set series of drops, like fifteen new schools over fifteen weeks, and we'd have a leaderboard. We never put the number out there, but we just show relative to where the other schools were. And it became a point of pride. It was a lot of fun. People got really competitive. It's actually what Spencer Hall and Co. do for their charity bowl every year. They actually release the numbers 'cause it's charitable giving. And that's how
Tom Hootman (38:11)
Yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (38:14)
you beat your rival and you donate in a number that
signifies like the national championship season or whatever or what the score was when you beat your rival.
Tom Hootman (38:19)
Yep. Mm-hmm.
Or someone who hates Michigan donates in a number that is the score for the Appalachian Appalachia State game, right? Like exactly.
Connor Hitchcock (38:28)
Exactly. Exactly.
And so we it worked really well for us sales wise, 'cause people like, man, we gotta beat, you know, A&M or whatever. Eventually though, when you're a brand and you're and you're selling people things, we wanted to not get close enough to the edge where they're like, Is this brand just bragging about how much money they're taking from us? You know, how much money they're making off of us.
Like so that's we stopped it early. We were like, that was fun and it worked really well and we gamified it. But
it ran its course.
Tom Hootman (38:55)
Last question I'll let you go. because this is not associated with the agency, but Mixtape Digital is my agency and I love music. I worked at a Sam Goody in University Park Mall in Mishawaka growing up. Shout out Mishawaka.
Connor Hitchcock (39:07)
There we go.
Tom Hootman (39:08)
if your career had a two to three song playlist, what songs would you choose and why?
Connor Hitchcock (39:12)
Well, I feel like it'd have to first of all involve Indiana Our Indiana. not that I'm sitting around listening to the fight song all day. I'm not one of those people.
Tom Hootman (39:21)
That's a little that's a little insane if you are, yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (39:24)
Yeah, no, I'm not. but I feel like that would have to be that's a good question of like what songs would define it. I think a lot of the time, I always I still like I know that I'm really
into this still like I can actually enjoy the product of what like of college football and it's not just work from like being at the national championship game. And when Miami was driving on that and looked like Indiana might lose, my brain was not in like how much money is Homefield gonna lose off this. It was like, man, this will just suck. You know? So I was like I'm still locked in on football. I still have to say, like we're we're coming up here on
our big college football launch in a couple of weeks and as like I'm
Tom Hootman (40:00)
Mm-hmm.
Connor Hitchcock (40:01)
driving into work I find myself like I haven't been playing yet, but like in my head I've got like the explosions in the sky theme from the beginning of Friday Night Lights playing, you know? Like 'cause I'm thinking about football coming
Tom Hootman (40:11)
Mm-hmm, yeah. Yeah.
Connor Hitchcock (40:13)
around the corner. So I think that would probably all that would have to be the next one 'cause college football just drives everything and there's just like so much emotion tied into still personally, college football for me and Friday Night Lights is about high school football, but like similar ethos, like very
localized, like just like I don't know, that that rush of emotion when kickoff comes around. Like I think I think the explosions in the I always forget what the name of the track is, but the explosions in the Sky song, it starts off Friday Night Lights. I I get a lot of similar vibes with what we do.
Tom Hootman (40:43)
We are just a few weeks away from the first crisp Saturday, and you know, having a coffee, switching to beer, and then the
Connor Hitchcock (40:50)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (40:50)
all the the pregame shows wrap up and then we have kickoff of some worthless
Connor Hitchcock (40:53)
Yes.
Tom Hootman (40:54)
middling game at noon
Connor Hitchcock (40:56)
That's right.
Tom Hootman (40:56)
and the and there's twelve more hours of football left. So it's right around the corner. It's a beautiful thing. When's the big drop? In a couple of weeks, you said? Like you
Connor Hitchcock (40:59)
Yes, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. Yeah. August fourteenth.
Can't miss kick off is the name of our big college football drop every year. So yeah, I got some really exciting for seventy seven schools. Really exciting stuff coming out. So
Tom Hootman (41:12)
It's awesome.
Bank accounts across the United States just shuddered and they don't know why. Like they felt a disturbance in the force. But keep doing what you're doing, man. It's awesome.
Connor Hitchcock (41:22)
Right, it starts that season, baby. Thank you.
Tom Hootman (41:25)
really appreciate you making time for me. It was a wonderful conversation.
Connor Hitchcock (41:27)
Yeah, of course.
Tom Hootman (41:29)
have a great season. I hope IU goes as far as they can go, unless they play Notre Dame. So thanks,