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Jun
29
Count Dante
Filed Under Uncategorized
Among other things, I’m trying to learn about marketing. Since I have a couple of businesses, it’s always nice to have customers—marketing helps with that. I’ve read a lot of business books lately and my favorite author right now in the marketing world is Seth Godin; he’s a little different, but I like his ideas and writing style.
I’m always interested in how people market themselves and their businesses, especially in the martial arts. I found this 1960’s ad on the internet and although it has a huge “Cheese” factor, I like it. Count Dante “The Deadliest Man Alive” and founder of the Black Dragon Fighting Society–what kid wouldn’t be intrigued by that? These ads were on the back of thousands of comic books in the 60’s and 70’s.
Seth Godin talks about telling stories in your marketing, something people want to believe, and Count Dante definitely does that in his ad. It makes you think this dude is a bad ass, at least by 1970 standards and that it might be pretty cool to be a “deadly” guy too.
I did some research on Count Dante. He’s dead now—died at thirty-six—bleeding ulcer. His real name was John Keehan, and was a black belt in some form of karate. The interesting thing about Keehan is that he was involved in the “Dojo Wars” in 1970. Basically what happened was years earlier Keehan was arrested for trying to burn down a rival’s school and five years later he and a bunch of his students stormed the Green Dragon Society’s Black Cobra Hall (a rival school). In the melee, a rival school member grabbed a sword off the wall and killed John Keehan’s best friend. It’s thought that because of that incident Keehan turned to drugs and alcohol.
“The Deadliest Man Alive” is a great story. John Keehan’s real story is really kind of sad. I’m all for telling people a story with marketing. I like Keehan’s style of marketing, although it is a little exaggerated, but it sounds like he really believed he was the “Deadliest Man Alive” and it cost him in the end.
My story for Tap or Die will be born from the truth, and if it gets a little exaggerated so be it.
I was all ready to abandon Westside in favor of Black Dragon Fighting Society until you put he died. RIP Count Dante.