Armstrong’s “Livestrong” Bracelet Starts New Trend
By Gordy Megroz
October 12, 2004 Besides raising millions of dollars for cancer research, Lance Armstrong’s “Livestrong” bracelet has created a phenomenon—rubber-band “idea” bracelets. Or, as Jeff Huvar, president of promobrands.com puts it, “a way to wear your thoughts on your wrist.”
Huvar’s company slaps other company’s logos on everything from Frisbees to water bottles. But lately, one of promobrands.com’s biggest sellers is its rubber-band and silicone bracelets. While Huvar’s company does not make the Livestrong bracelet, he believes the popularity of that bracelet has done wonders for his business. Lately, he’s received orders for bracelets from high schools, colleges, and professional teams to bracelets marked with “Bush ‘04” and “Kerry ‘04.”
“It’s unbelievable,” Huvar said. “It’s hard to keep up with all the orders.”
Most recently, as the Boston Red Sox took on the Anaheim Angels in the their playoff series at Fenway Park, Boston, Chuck Pointer of Winthrop, Massachusetts, took to the streets outside the park selling his own “idea” bracelet. Pointer said his red, industrial-strength, rubber-band bracelet emblazoned with blue print that states the Red Sox 2004 motto, “We Believe 2004,” is a “shameless rip-off of Lance Armstrong’s bracelet.”
Pointer, a pharmaceutical salesman, ordered 3,000 of his bracelets from promobrands.com at about 10 cents per bracelet. He sold close to 250 of them for a dollar each outside of Fenway before the Boston police department shut down his operation. “They told me I needed a vendor’s license,” Pointer said.
Unlike Armstrong’s Livestrong bracelet, the revenue made from Pointer’s bracelet goes directly into his pocket. But he said, “If I had done it right, I would have gone through the Jimmy Fund (a Boston-based cancer charity), raised money for them, and made a small profit.”
Lance Armstrong Foundation spokesperson Michelle Milford said her organization is contacted every day by other organizations interested in raising money by making their own bracelets.
And for good reason.
The LAF’s bracelet campaign has done extraordinarily well. Since May, the organization has raised nearly $18 million by selling its silicone bracelet.
In fact, the bracelet became so popular that people started reselling it on eBay (the Internet auction site). Milford says this is totally unnecessary.
“There’s a perceived scarcity of the bracelet,” she said, adding that there are plenty available to purchase through the foundation. Milford also noted that, “If you buy a Livestrong wristband off eBay for $20, only the one dollar spent to originally purchase the wristband goes to charity. If you donate $20 to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, all $20 goes to fighting cancer. And you get 20 wristbands.”
Milford credits Nike Corporation for coming up with the bracelet idea. “They came to us in May and said they wanted to do something for Lance and that they wanted to make wristbands,” she said.
But Nike refuses to reveal which company is making the bracelets for them. Nonetheless, people and companies are finding a way to make their own.
