Chapter 7: The Game of Growth

I loved the gamification of marketing. Testing coupon codes, launching flash sales, timing product releases—every campaign generated data, every promotion taught me something new about what resonated with our community. It felt like a game where creativity and strategy combined to create real results.

But the most successful marketing campaign we ever ran came from a group of college students who figured out what we'd been missing all along.

The Rebrand Opportunity

In late 2011, we made the decision to rebrand from "I'm Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation" (or "i[2]y" for short) to simply "Stupid Cancer." The old name was too long, too complicated, too forgettable. "Stupid Cancer" was provocative, memorable, and exactly what our community needed to hear.

We had about 15,000 likes on our Facebook page at the time—not terrible, but not great either. The page URL was facebook.com/stupidcancer, but the page title was still the old foundation name. The configuration was problematic from the start.

The question was: should we continue with our existing page and its modest following, or start fresh with the new brand?

Through some serious luck, we got in touch with someone at Facebook who changed the page name on our behalf. We felt like we'd won the social media lottery. We could keep our existing followers while launching the new brand identity.

But we still needed a strategy for growth.

The University of Texas Class Project

Through another instance of serendipity, Dr. Brad Love's Integrated Communications Campaigns class at the University of Texas had chosen Stupid Cancer as their semester project. The timing was perfect—we'd just rebranded, and this was a blank canvas opportunity for them to create something genuinely useful.

We offered up a few verticals for them to focus on: Facebook strategy, offline outreach, community engagement. Honestly, we weren't sure what to expect from a group of undergrads working on a class assignment.

What they came back with at the end of the semester was nothing short of genius.

Like Us to Give Cancer the Bird

The ad was simple: a clean image with our logo and one line of copy.

"Like us to give cancer the bird."

Their presentation was straight out of a Mad Men episode. As soon as they said it, we looked around the room and nodded our heads. The more we thought about it, the more we fell in love with it.

The ad captured everything we were trying to be: bold, irreverent, memorable, and actionable. It gave people a reason to like our page that wasn't just "support this worthy cause." It let them make a statement, take a stand, express frustration with cancer in a way that felt cathartic rather than depressing.

Being the nimble organization we were, we put the ad into rotation right after the Skype call ended. We were thrilled when Facebook approved it—there was genuine concern that "give cancer the bird" might be too edgy for their ad platform.

Not knowing much about advertising on Facebook, we set a $10 daily limit and watched to see what would happen.

We could have never predicted what would ensue.

The Growth That Changed Everything

Here's what happened to our Facebook page over the next three and a half years:

We went from 11,500 likes in April 2011 to over 310,000 by October 2015. The growth wasn't linear—it accelerated. We hit 50,000 in November 2012, crossed 100,000 in August 2013, reached 200,000 by July 2014, and kept climbing.

We'd turned the ad on and off periodically over those years. Once we began gaining traction with paid likes, organic likes followed. The momentum became self-reinforcing—more likes meant more visibility, which meant more organic growth.

For the majority of the campaign, we spent about ten cents per like. This equated to roughly $1,250 per quarter since Q2 2012. To date, it remained the only significant ad spend we ever had on social media.

We even planned a "100,000 Like" party for a Friday night and had to throttle up the ad spend when we stalled at 98,000 the day before. Watching those last 2,000 likes roll in felt like watching a countdown to a rocket launch.

What Made It Work

The success of that campaign taught me several things about marketing that I've carried forward ever since.

Simplicity wins. The ad wasn't clever or complicated. It was one clear message that resonated emotionally and gave people a specific action to take.

Authenticity matters more than polish. A group of college students understood our brand better than any expensive agency would have because they weren't trying to make it palatable—they were trying to make it real.

The right message at the right time creates momentum. We'd just rebranded to a name that was already provocative. The ad amplified what we were already trying to be rather than creating something new.

Small consistent investments compound. $10 per day doesn't sound like much, but over months and years, that consistency created exponential growth.

Platform timing matters. This was 2011-2015, when Facebook's algorithm still showed your posts to most of your followers. When organic reach still worked. When a "like" actually meant something in terms of ongoing visibility. That landscape would change dramatically in the years to come, but we caught the wave at exactly the right time.

Customer Content as Marketing

As our Facebook following grew, something unexpected happened: our community started doing our marketing for us.

People would send us photos of themselves wearing our merchandise. Not influencers or celebrities—just regular community members who were proud to represent what we stood for. They'd tag us in posts, use our hashtags, and share their stories about what our brand meant to them.

We'd reshare these photos on our page, celebrating our community members and showing that real people wore our gear in real life. This created a feedback loop: people saw others getting featured, wanted to participate, bought products, took photos, got featured themselves, inspired others to do the same.

This wasn't manufactured influencer marketing. This was organic community celebration. Our customers weren't being compensated or incentivized—they genuinely wanted to show off their Stupid Cancer gear because it meant something to them.

Some of the most exciting moments came from unexpected places. Someone would send me a picture of our bumper sticker spotted on a car in a random city. Another person would text a screenshot of our wristband visible on a television show. Athletes would post photos wearing our gear. These organic sightings felt like validation that we'd created something people genuinely wanted to represent.

The Flash Sale Strategy

Friday nights became our testing ground for flash sales. We'd post a coupon code—usually 15-20% off—and watch what happened over the weekend.

The strategy worked well initially. People would make purchases they'd been considering. We'd move inventory. Revenue would spike. But we started noticing something problematic: we'd accidentally trained our regular customers to wait for sales.

Instead of buying at full price, people would hold off, knowing that another Friday flash sale was probably coming soon. We were undermining our own pricing strategy by being too predictable.

We had to get more strategic about when and how we ran promotions. Instead of weekly flash sales, we tied discounts to specific events—product launches, milestone celebrations, community awareness campaigns. This made promotions feel special rather than expected.

The Italia Ricci Post

The most dramatic example of what social media could do came from our friend Italia Ricci, who starred in the ABC Family show "Chasing Life" about a young woman with cancer.

We decided to price a basic black Gildan t-shirt—which cost us about $5 to produce—at just $7. We were essentially breaking even, but the goal wasn't profit. It was reach.

Italia posted a picture wearing the shirt to her fanbase. Within hours, hundreds of orders started flowing in. Not dozens—hundreds. These weren't our usual customers. These were completely new people who'd never heard of us before but connected with our message through her authentic endorsement.

Monday morning, my phone rang. It was our warehouse manager, and he sounded frazzled.

"What the hell happened over the weekend?" he asked. "We're completely inundated. I had to call in friends of the family just to help pack orders. We've never seen anything like this."

That $7 t-shirt campaign generated more new community members in one weekend than months of traditional marketing. People who bought the shirt started following us on social media, signing up for our email list, and engaging with our content. Some became regular customers. Others became advocates who shared our work with their own networks.

From a pure profit perspective, we made almost nothing on those shirts. From a mission perspective, it was one of our most successful campaigns ever.

The Strategy Behind the Chaos

What looked like spontaneous marketing was actually deeply strategic. Every campaign had a purpose. Every promotion had metrics we tracked. Every social post was designed to either drive sales, build community, or strengthen brand awareness.

But the strategy never felt corporate or calculated because it was rooted in genuine excitement about what we were building. I wasn't just testing marketing tactics—I was experimenting with ways to help our community find each other, represent themselves proudly, and participate in something bigger than themselves.

Product launches weren't just about moving inventory—they were events that gave the community something to get excited about together.

Coupon codes weren't just discounts—they were ways to reward loyal customers and give new people easy entry points.

Customer photos weren't just user-generated content—they were celebrations of real people making statements about who they were and what they believed.

Social media growth wasn't just vanity metrics—it was expanding our ability to reach people who needed community when they needed it most.

The Golden Age That Couldn't Last

Looking back, we caught social media at a perfect moment. Facebook's algorithm still showed organic posts to most of your followers. Instagram was young and engagement was high. Hashtags actually worked for discovery. Platform features were designed to connect people rather than maximize ad revenue.

That landscape changed dramatically in the years that followed. Organic reach plummeted as platforms prioritized paid content. Algorithms got more restrictive. What worked in 2012-2015 stopped working by 2016-2017.

But while it lasted, we built something remarkable. A community of over 300,000 people on Facebook who'd chosen to connect with our brand. Thousands of customers who proudly wore our merchandise and shared their stories. A marketing engine that ran on authentic community participation rather than paid advertising.

The lesson wasn't about specific tactics or platform features—those were always going to evolve. The lesson was about creating products and messaging that people genuinely wanted to represent, then giving them opportunities to participate in ways that felt meaningful rather than commercial.

Making It Feel Like a Game

What made marketing feel joyful rather than draining was approaching it like a game with real stakes.

Every campaign was a hypothesis: Would this message resonate? Would this discount drive enough volume? Would this product launch generate excitement? The data would tell us if we were right.

Every promotion was a puzzle: How do we create urgency without training people to wait for sales? How do we celebrate customer content without making it feel exploitative? How do we grow our audience while maintaining authentic community connection?

Every milestone was a achievement to celebrate: hitting 100,000 likes, processing our 5,000th order, seeing our gear spotted in unexpected places.

The stakes were real—every dollar spent on advertising came from limited budget, every failed campaign was a missed opportunity, every successful initiative advanced our mission. But the energy was playful, experimental, creative.

That combination—serious purpose with playful execution—made marketing one of my favorite parts of running the store. It wasn't just about driving sales. It was about building something people wanted to be part of and finding increasingly creative ways to invite them in.

What We Really Built

The marketing campaigns, the social media growth, the flash sales, and product launches weren't just about moving merchandise or building an audience. They were about creating opportunities for people to find each other, represent their experiences proudly, and participate in a community that understood what they were going through.

Every like, every share, every photo of someone wearing our gear was someone saying: "I want to be part of this. I want to connect with this community. I want to make a statement about who I am and what I've been through."

That's what made the game worth playing—not the metrics themselves, but what the metrics represented. Real people choosing to connect with our mission, represent our brand, and participate in building something bigger than themselves.

And that made every campaign, every experiment, every wild success and occasional failure feel like it mattered beyond just business outcomes.

We were building community at scale, using marketing as the tool to help people find each other and find themselves.