Jump Start
While still a High School student, Marc started to design his own t-shirts using cans of spray paint. People were impressed with his designs that people started to ask him where he had bought them and then started paying him for his shirts, giving birth to the Ecko Unltd brand in 1993. He started his career as an Entrepreneur with an initial investment of $5000 USD in partnership with his twin sister and a friend.
Here's a couple of videos where Marc talks about his career as an Entrepreneur:
Ecko UNLTD.
In addition to Marc’s talent, he was very smart to take advantage of a huge business opportunity that was unique to his time. Marc was very interested in Hip Hop, but he also noticed that there was a opportunity window for it. Even by the time that Marc founded Ecko Unltd, there was no established market for Hip Hop. The biggest challenge at the time was that commercialization sometimes meant that things stopped being the “real” deal in order to keep investors happy and reach a wider audience. Which was totally against the “core” values of the Hip Hop culture.
The “core” of Hip Hop was basically to give a voice to a part of society that at the time did not have one by using art and expression. While the culture was about “representing” it was also a source of income. Just like politics if the people that you are “representing” didn’t supported their artist, then obviously the artist wouldn’t make a living out of their art. So being considered a “sold out” was definitely bad for everybody (despite their initial lucrative profits). Marc was very aware of this.
So, Marc figured that because there were no companies that really “represented” the Hip Hop culture, he decided to start creating clothing that was inspired by the “Street Style” and the Hip Hop culture. He didn’t care about fitting into trends or following the 80’s pop culture.
Ecko UNLTD became a huge success, to the point that Ecko UNLTD was a synonym of Hip Hop. It became a multibillion global empire basically profiting on uniqueness and individuality.
The Rhino Logo
Marc's worldwide reknown logo (for those in the Hip Hop scene), was not just the logo for his clothing brand, but also it was a signature symbol used throughout his graffiti vandal career. So here's the explanation behind it in Marc's own words:
The alligator was taken. In all seriousness, it was serendipity and a stubborn belief that I was onto something. My dad had a collection of sand draft wood rhinos when I was a kid. I used to play with them , along side my Star Wars action figures. I just kept using it, until buyers stopped calling it a "hippo." For real. They thought it was a dinosaur.
At first they were dismissive. Then when it started to actually work, they corrected themselves and it was finally important enough to be addressed properly.
Air Force One
Marketing has been one of Marc’s top talents. He started and stablished a several worldwide companies and make success histories out of them. But the most clever Advertisement Campaign managed by Marc Ecko was the Air Force One viral marketing campaign. And yeah this was a long long time ago...
