Vollebak Founder: Being Bold Is About Designing Clothes For Mars
01 Mar, 2024
Steve Tidball, CEO and Co-Founder of the bold, high end clothes brand Vollebak, tells MAD//Insight why they design clothes for the Apocalypse, why he drives a Volvo, and why making a brand feel human is an underrated marketing superpower.
2024 is the year of?
Humanity moving even further down the ladder of intelligence…below squirrels, crows, dolphins and AI.
Who is your hero from the marketing and advertising world? Why?
I’m going to cheat and have 2. Walter Campbell and Peter Souter. They started off as big scary bosses. Before becoming mildly intimidating friends. They’d both changed advertising a couple of times before I’d even written my first ad.
What was the last ad your saw that made you buy something?
A friend who flies air ambulances said that when he’s called to a crash he always hopes they were driving a Volvo. So I drive a Volvo.
Volvos are built like tanks.
What's your all time favourite advert campaign and why?
We put a billboard outside Elon’s office to let him know we’d finished our Mars clothing and to ask how his rocket was going.
Fortune favours the bold - how is your brand being bold and cutting through the noise?
We build clothing for the Apocalypse, and clothing for life on Mars... which is slightly unusual.
What keeps you awake at night?
Foxes having sex in my garden.
Given the advances in Al, do you have a job in 5 years time?
Only if AI decides it needs servants.
Which established brand continues to inspire you?
Tesla. It’s silly, magical, uncompromising and visionary.
Vollebak's mission statement is bold and their clothes can be worn on a mission to Mars!
Which challenger/game changing brand should we all have our eyes on?
When SpaceX puts humans on Mars it will really put the halftime ads at the Super Bowl in their place.
What's the biggest opportunity in marketing and advertising right now?
Getting inside the brain of the algorithms, at the same time as getting inside the brain of the consumer.
What is the most underrated superpower in marketing?
Making a brand feel genuinely human. Given every business in the world was started by at least one human human and is run by humans you’d imagine it would be easy. But it isn’t.
Which (emerging) trend or innovation of 2024 will have the greatest impact on the industry in 2024?
Learning to use AI like Tom Cruise used the pre-cogs in Minority Report. It’ll be all about who can ask the best questions to see furthest into the future.
What would you most like to change about the ad industry?
I’d invent a neural implant to go into all clients’ brains to turn off the amygdala which is where we all experience fear.
Steve Tidball, CEO and Co-Founder, Vollebak, will be speaking at MAD//Fest this July. Book your ticket now!