Eugen Sandow's “Modem” Marketing Strategies, 1887-1925

Branding Iron: Eugen Sandow's “Modem” Marketing Strategies, 1887-1925 D o m i n i c G . M o r a i s + Department o f Kinesiology and Health Education University o f Texas at Austin Eugen Sandow was a professional strongman who started his theatrical career in 1887. Upon his retirement in 1903, the Sandow name was known interna tionally as a synonym for strength, health, and bodily perfection. Sandow used this popularity to market a number o f different products including books, a magazine, health clubs, exercise equipment, and miscellaneous health products. Although literature on Sandow documents his cultural influences and continues to grow, none specifically or comprehensively address the business an d marketing aspects ofhis career. This paper attempts to fi l l that void. I t argues that Sandow utilized a three-pronged strategy in order to establish his personal brand. Fur thermore, it examines the way Sandow leveraged his brand in order to market his name and other products worldwide. Finally, the paper is a starting point for others to examine ways other popular physical culturists like Bob Hoffman, the Weiders, and Arnold Schwarzenegger marketed their brands. TThis paper is a rev.sed version of that which won the North American Society for Sport History Graduate Student Essay Award for 2012. Correspondence to dominie [email protected]. A rn o ld Schwarzenegger, David Beckham, Martha Stewart, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and numerous other celebrities and athletes share a particular trait. Through endorsements, commercials, businesses, movies, television appearances, and reputation management via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, these celebrities have branded themselves. We know them by a single name—Arnold, Beckham, Martha, Jor dan, and Tiger. But well before marketing textbooks delineated strategies for building brand equity globally through television and the internet, a few pioneering sportsmen utilized marketing strategies similar to those employed by contemporary celebrities and athletes and, in essence, became their own brand. Late nineteenth-century pugilist John L. Sullivan is often cited as the first athlete to become a true celebrity.' His contemporary, the strongman Eugen Sandow, was actually far more successful in marketing himself to the public, although this aspect of his career has never before been fully recognized. Historians have documented Sandow's cultural influence in a number of important monographs. David Chapman published the first major biography, which endures as the seminal work on Sandow, in 1994 with Sandow the Magnificent: Eugen Sandow and the Beginnings o f Modern Bodybuilding.2 O ther scholars have demonstrated in their works a number of different ways in which Sandow left lasting effects on American culture, the constructed body, and physical culture globally.3 Finally, examinations of Sandow and his influence also abound in numerous journal articles and dissertations from many disciplines.4 Despite the profuse literature on Sandow, discussion of his business and marketing acumen is relatively scant. Therefore, in order to highlight Sandow’s historical significance as a businessman— specifically a marketer— this piece examines the methods Sandow employed to transform himself from music hall muscleman to internationally recognized expert and entrepreneur of health and physical fitness. Marketing in its modern meaning was not yet a term that had entered the English lexicon when Sandow first stepped on the stage in 1887, yet he intuitively grasped the principles of self promotion and used himself to market his system of exercises in ways never before seen in the field of physical culture.5 In doing so he became known to everyone simply as Sandow. That single name came to symbolize not merely health and strength but also elegance and perfection. Art historian Ellery Foutch asserts: Sandow transformed his image . from a living, breathing man who was susceptible to aging, disease, and the ravages of time into a simultaneously modern and classical— or timeless— sculpture. In the midst of fears about de generation and the speed of modern life, in which people abandoned health in the rush of a “race for wealth,” Sandow provided a striking counterpoint of composure and static perfection.6 As will be demonstrated, despite their efforts, Sandow surpassed all other strongmen in terms of fame and cultural impact not because he was truly the strongest man but because he was decades ahead of the sporting world in understanding the potential of branding. Before continuing, however, it should be made clear that it is unknown if Sandow’s scheme was a premeditated strategy or solely intuition. It seems likely it was a combina tion of the two. For example, because of Sandow's early travels as a wresder and strongman throughout Europe, it is likely he understood that more publicity meant more ticket sales.7 He then transposed this concept to the international stage as his popularity grew in ways explained in the remainder of the paper. However, there is no evidence to back this claim. Along these same lines, no evidence was found indicating how much of Sandow’s strategy, especially after they parted ways, can be attributed to Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., who managed Sandow for three years early in both of their careers. However, it will be shown that Ziegfeld played a significant role in Sandow's rise to fame. Finally, although other figures in the physical culture and health fields such as Bernarr Macfadden and John Harvey Kellogg also utilized different methods of advertising and publicity, because they did not leverage their physique, persona, or other personal characteristics in order to differentiate their products they did not personally brand themselves.8 Thus, it holds that Sandow was the first sportsman to use branding in a vastly successful way. Setting the Stage Kevin Lane Keller, author of Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring and Managing Brand Equity (2003), explains that a brand is some name, symbol, or other attribute that identifies and distinguishes certain goods and/or services. Brands come in many forms including ideas, organizations, products, and, as this paper argues, people. The purpose of a brand is to instill and evoke in consumers a certain type of emotional or psychological response that differentiates the product(s) associated with the brand from others in the marketplace. But branding and marketing are not necessarily characterized by hard and fast rules. W hen implementing these types of strategies, originality and cre ativity play a major role.9 Furthermore, according to business professor Ifan Shepherd, in branding “there is often a blurred dividing line between the selling of a person and the selling of a product or organization [T]here is no clear dividing line between market ing their business and marketing themselves.”10 This is im portant because Sandow’s name became associated with health, exercise, and the built body, which he leveraged to sell various products. In essence, the more popularity Sandow gained meant that more people associated his name with these notions, thereby increasing his brand equity. Although this is only a cursory discussion o f branding, especially compared to its profuse scholarship, no more is necessary to understand the argument of this piece. Eugen Sandow employed a primitive marketing scheme based on two major ele ments. The first was the creation and building of a marketable personal “brand” through the use of advertising and publicity. The second was the creation of brand extensions and the building o f brand loyalty on a global scale. It must be noted that these elements coa lesce. In other words, different parts o f his strategy overlapped at times. Sandow, influenced as a child by Friedrich Ludwigjahn and the German turner move ment, was a professional strongman who started his theatrical career in 1887." After garnering much attention due to his strength and muscularity, Sandow ventured into the business realm. In 1894 he published his first book entided Sandow on Physical Training: A Study in the Perfect Type o f the Human Form}1 Then he began a magazine titled Physical C ulture \n 1898. Over the years the title of the magazine changed— first to Sandow's Maga zine o f Physical Culture, and then to simply Sandow’s M agazine.l3 He used his magazine, along with other forms of advertising, to market health and wellness products including mail-order exercise courses, fitness equipment, cocoa, and even corsets.14 Additionally, he toured the globe giving exhibitions and lectures in order to spread his physical culture message.15 He died in 1925 and is now often called the father of modern bodybuilding in both scholarly and popular literature.16 Like many popular historical figures, Sandow was not successful simply because of his own efforts. The fin de siecle era in which he lived, as many historians have observed, was a particularly rich and open culture. It was a time of progress and reform. Both the United States and England experienced a maelstrom of societal change due to technological ad vances, industrialization, urbanization, and mass culture.17 Because of the industrialization of both countries, society became more urban and less agricultural, resulting in a more sedentary lifestyle. Eventually concerns emerged about the ills of this urban life. In England much of this apprehension was due to worries about racial degeneration or deterioration. Included among these worries was anxiety about

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