In 2013, Hairbond signed its first ambassador.
Jimmy Anderson.
That was a big deal for us.
Hairbond was five years old.
Jimmy had just passed 300 Test wickets for England.
We were still a small independent British brand from Lancashire trying to punch above our weight.
Then one of the best cricketers in the country put his name next to ours.
It felt huge.
Looking back now, it looks even better.
Jimmy went on to finish with 704 Test wickets.
He became Sir James Anderson.
But I don’t remember the numbers first.
I remember the shoot.
And the eagle.
I Styled His Hair Myself
Hairbond was still very hands-on then.
There was no army of agency people.
No layers of brand managers.
No twenty-person creative call deciding where the comb should sit.
I was a hairdresser.
I had built Hairbond from that world.
So when Jimmy came in for the shoot, I styled his hair myself.
Simple as that.
One of England’s best cricketers was in the chair.
I was doing his hair.
That probably says more about Hairbond in those days than any polished brand history ever could.
We were ambitious.
But we were still close to everything.
Close to the product.
Close to the customer.
Close to the person representing us.
I liked it that way.
Then We Got An Eagle
For the shoot, we brought in an eagle.
A proper one.
Jimmy held it.
It looked brilliant.
I would love to tell you there was some deep brand strategy behind it.
There wasn’t.
It looked cool.
That was enough.
Sometimes marketing people invent reasons after the event.
We didn’t need to.
There was Jimmy Anderson.
There was an eagle.
There was Hairbond.
Job done.
I remember looking at it and thinking how strange business can be.
Five years earlier, Hairbond had been an idea.
Now Jimmy Anderson was holding an eagle for us.
Business is strange.
But it was about to get funnier.
Then He Dropped The Hairbond
We wanted a shot of Jimmy throwing the product into the air.
Up it went.
Down it came.
He dropped it.
Perfect.
That is one of the bits I remember most.
Not the polished pose.
Not the perfect lighting.
The drop.
Because it was real.
We laughed.
Carried on.
Got the shot.
Modern brands can polish the life out of everything.
Perfect lighting.
Perfect teeth.
Perfect caption.
Perfect nonsense.
Nobody believes perfection.
The dropped tub was better.
It had a pulse.
There Was One Problem With Jimmy
He was Burnley.
I am Blackburn Rovers.
So obviously we had words.
Plenty of them.
For anyone outside Lancashire, Blackburn against Burnley might look like two northern towns taking football far too seriously.
Correct.
That is exactly what it is.
And it matters enormously.
Jimmy gave it back.
I gave it back.
That was part of why I liked him.
He was one of the best sportsmen in Britain, but you could still have a laugh with him.
There was no nonsense.
No superstar act.
No pretending everyone should be grateful because he had entered the room.
He was just Jimmy.
Very good at cricket.
Sadly confused about football.
Nobody gets everything right.
Why Jimmy Worked For Hairbond
Celebrity endorsements can be rubbish.
Someone gets paid.
They hold a product.
They smile.
Next month they are holding something else.
That was never what I wanted Hairbond to be.
The fit had to make sense.
Jimmy did.
British.
Northern.
Successful.
Stylish.
Professional.
He cared about how he looked.
And it wasn’t something invented for our cameras.
He genuinely liked fashion and later designed his own menswear collection.
That mattered.
Hairbond cared about making men look good.
Jimmy cared about style.
No marketing committee required.
Harvey Nichols
The relationship didn’t end when the shoot finished.
When Jimmy launched his clothing line, he held a launch party at Harvey Nichols in Manchester.
He invited me.
I went.
That meant something.
Not because I desperately needed to be seen at Harvey Nichols.
I didn’t.
It mattered because it showed the relationship was real.
It wasn’t:
Sportsman.
Product.
Cheque.
Goodbye.
We got on.
He was doing his thing in fashion.
I was building Hairbond.
And somehow my life had gone from cutting hair in Lancashire to standing at a Harvey Nichols launch with Jimmy Anderson.
You have to laugh sometimes.
Business takes you into some odd rooms.
The trick is remembering which ones actually matter.
The Product Still Had To Be Good
There was one thing Jimmy couldn’t do for us.
He couldn’t make a bad product good.
Nobody can.
A famous face can get attention.
It can get someone to try you once.
That is useful.
But the second sale belongs to the product.
Always.
I came from hairdressing.
You learn quickly that marketing cannot argue with someone’s hair.
If the product doesn’t work, they know.
If it does work, they come back.
That was always the real job.
Jimmy could get eyes on Hairbond.
Hairbond had to earn everything after that.
Too many brands get this backwards.
They spend fortunes renting attention.
Then save money on the thing they are actually selling.
Brilliant.
Before The Footballers, There Was Jimmy
Hairbond later became heavily connected with football.
Players.
Clubs.
Dressing rooms.
That world became a big part of the brand.
But Jimmy came first.
An England cricketer from Lancashire.
Our first proper sporting ambassador.
That felt right.
Hairbond wasn’t pretending to come from New York.
Or Paris.
Or Milan.
It came from Lancashire.
So did Jimmy.
That mattered.
We were building a British brand.
And one of Britain’s best sportsmen was standing with us.
300 Became 704
When we signed Jimmy, he had just passed 300 Test wickets.
That already sounded enormous.
He could have stopped not long after and still been remembered as one of England’s great bowlers.
He didn’t.
He kept going.
And going.
And going.
He finished with 704.
That is ridiculous.
Fast bowlers are supposed to wear out.
Jimmy just kept adapting.
He got better.
More precise.
More experienced.
Harder to shift.
Then came the knighthood.
Sir James Anderson.
Looking back, there is something I admire in that.
Talent gets you noticed.
Standards keep you there.
There is a lesson in that for sport.
There is a lesson in that for business too.
Longevity looks glamorous afterwards.
While you’re doing it, it mostly looks like turning up again tomorrow.
We Picked Well
I look back at those photographs differently now.
I don’t just see Jimmy Anderson.
I see Hairbond at five years old.
Still small.
Still hungry.
Still doing things ourselves.
Still mad enough to bring an eagle to a hair product shoot.
I see myself styling Jimmy’s hair.
I remember the Blackburn and Burnley banter.
I remember him throwing the Hairbond up.
And dropping it.
I remember Harvey Nichols.
I didn’t know then that Jimmy would take another 400 Test wickets.
I didn’t know he would become Sir James Anderson.
I just knew he was world class.
Stylish.
British.
And right for Hairbond.
And I liked him.
Even if he was Burnley.