Page 90 - THE DO-IT-YOURSELF LOBOTOMY Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

Better Question/Better Ad 81

The Lobotomy Files

Bite Me Live Bait , Thinking 180 to Port.
Arkwear is one of the top tourist apparel outlets in the busy seaside
city of Newport, Rhode Island. On a sunny summer afternoon we are
constantly restocking our most popular designs to keep pace with our
customers.
In 1997, in an effort to make our T-shirts, hats and other souvenir
apparel stand out from the cluttered local tourist offerings, we decided
to use 180 Thinking. Figuring that virtually all of the other local
souvenir garment designers were featuring beautiful sailboats in the
surf and other classic, nautical Newport icons on their clothing, why
not go in the opposite direction and show the barnacle-crusted fishing
heritage of the real Newport? The Bite Me Live Bait brand was born
and became an immediate success with our customers. It has since
achieved a sort of pop-culture notoriety as its own brand, in many
ways eclipsing our highly successful, more established Arkwear
brand. The Bite Me Live Bait brand has continued to grow and
prosper in recent years to the point where it now has its own website,
bitemelivebait.com, featuring Bite Me Live
Bait sweatshirts, baseball caps and
coffee mugs, beyond the original tourist
apparel scope, bringing in business from
around the world.

Jeff Marlowe
President, Arkwear
Lobotomized 1995

For more on 180 Thinking, go to Chapter 8.

tions. Why do you need to be comfortable? Because you run all over
the tennis court. Forward. Backward. Side to side. Lateral. Linear.
Jumping. Turning.
How much of that do you do? Good question. “How far do you
think you run?” asked Bruce Leonard, a great marketing mind with
whom I later went into business. That was a better question.