When the influencer becomes the brand, you know things are changing and the latest Slazenger experiment demonstrates this perfectly.
For decades, the Slazenger logo – the iconic leaping panther – represented the pinnacle of British sports. It provided the orange ball for England’s 1966 World Cup win and invented the fluorescent tennis ball. However, by the 1990s, the brand had lost its roar, sliding from a £300m valuation to just £40m.
Traditional marketing – putting clothes on athletes and buying billboards – wasn’t working anymore.
Enter Alexei Hamblin. He’s 23. He has 88,000 TikTok followers. And, he was just given full creative control of the 145-year-old brand.
The Rise of ‘Gonzo Marketing’
Alexei Hamblin didn’t get the job through a prestigious agency pitch. He got it by walking through Sports Direct (Slazenger’s parent company), filming TikToks about how boring their clothes were, and showing how he’d fix them.
The CEO didn’t send a cease-and-desist. Instead, Alexei was sent a job offer.
This is what the industry calls Gonzo Marketing. It’s raw, it’s unfiltered, and it’s highly effective. Alexei is currently ‘building in public,’ taking his followers to fabric markets in Guangzhou and asking for feedback on samples that don’t quite work yet.
Why This Matters for the Marketing Industry
This is a fundamental shift in how brands survive in a content-first world.
The Content IS the Product
In the past, you made a product and then made an ad for it, with the support of a full spectrum campaign. Now, the process of making the product is the ad. Hamblin’s followers aren’t just fans. They are a pre-qualified customer base watching the origin story of the clothes they will eventually buy.
Trust Over Reach
Data suggests 60% of TikTok users trust brands discovered via influencers more than in-feed ads. We are moving away from ‘The Brand Says; to ‘The Person I Trust Says.’
Low Barrier, High Risk
As a recent article in the Observer noted, there is significant key person risk here. If Hamblin leaves or faces a scandal, he takes the brand’s new identity with him. However, in an AI-slop world where generic content is everywhere, a human face is the only thing that creates a genuine connection.
The Bottom Line
Slazenger used to be an industry pioneer without posting a single TikTok. Today, they are betting that the path back to the top requires a ring light, a smartphone and a 23-year-old with a vision.
As marketers, we have to ask ourselves: Are we still trying to reach people through the top-down methods of the 90s, or are we brave enough to hand over the keys to the creators who actually own the audience?
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About Me
If you enjoy my blogs, you might be curious about my background. I’ve worked in PR and Marketing since 1993. Later, in 1999, I founded a full-service agency and spent the next 24 years successfully growing it. During that time, I had the privilege of partnering with some of the biggest blue-chip brands in the UK and learned extensively from the exceptional marketing professionals I met along the way. Then, in 2023, the management team I built successfully acquired my agency, 8848, setting me free to pursue new passions.
For the last five years, my love of marketing and communications powered our own family venture: a retreat of holiday cottages in the Peak District. I love making brands look and work better, and consequently, in just a few short years, we drove significant growth. In fact, thanks to my focus on SEO, we consistently ranked on page one for most key regional search terms, making 2025 our busiest year yet. We sold our venture in 2026, achieving a great return on investment.
Do you need help making your brand or business perform better? If so, I’d love to meet you. I’m based in Ashbourne, Derbyshire but work with companies across the UK and globally.