Enterprising your celebrity with Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read

For those of you not familiar with Chopper, Mark Brandon Read. He’s a convicted murderer and has admitted boasted of killing 19 people- and bashing, axing, shooting and stabbing “human filth”. He was in and out of prison his early life- as you would assume. He wrote a book and became some what of a cult hero. Most Americans have never heard of him, that’s because he’s Australian. He’s authored over 10 books, done PSA’s for the Pedestrian Council of Australia and had a film done about him that starred Eric Banna…which is a must see. His Myspace page has over 40K fans and he uses it has a marketing vehicle.

When I was in prison… I got slashed in the face… my ears cut off… a butcher’s knife here, an icepick here, etc… If you drink and drive and you’re unfortunate enough to hit somebody, you ought to pray to God that you don’t go to prison.

The reason I’m writing about this, besides being fascinated with his celebrity. He just recently launched a new “online/offline” business that I thought was pretty interesting. He just launched the “The Chopper Club” which gives his fans exclusive deals, a newsletter and most importantly, a Birthday Card signed by Chopper. Who wouldn’t want that? As a matter of fact, I think that would be a great business for someone to manage fan clubs or at least do some sort fan birthday club. I’m not sure how difficult/ expensive it would be to get celebrities to sign birthday cards but I’m sure it could be done. Never-the-less, for more info on Chopper, check out the links below and his PSA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Brandon_Read
http://www.chopperread.com/
http://www.myspace.com/markchopper
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0221073/
http://www.thechopperclub.com/