Kangol
When the iconic Kangol 504 faced extinction, we helped save it, with Samuel L. Jackson, a last-minute red-eye rewrite, and a “Mother Funder” campaign that turned profanity into performance. Hats were saved. T-shirts sold out. Crowdfunders? Cursed joyfully. This wasn’t just a Kickstarter. It was a hat trick.
Since
2019
What We Do
Website Design And Development , Logos and Brand Strategy , App Development , Content Creation , Graphic Design , Consulting
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What You Think You Know
Oh, a Kickstarter? Must’ve been T-shirts and stickers. Maybe a hype video, a social post or two, and some designer with a Fivver account pitching the word “legacy” in Helvetica Bold.
Wrong hat, mother—.
This was the save-the-whole-damn-thing kind of campaign. The Kangol 504, the iconic cap made famous by hip-hop royalty, style legends, and your uncle who swears to have met Rakim once, was on the verge of extinction. The machines that knit the 504? Only a handful in existence, all sitting in a Chinese factory slated for the scrap heap. Once those went, the hat went.
Enter Bollman Hat Company, America’s oldest hatmaker out of Adamstown, PA, and one hell of a bold idea: rescue the machines, bring ‘em home, and fire ‘em back up on U.S. soil, creating American jobs along the way. But hats and heritage only get you so far. They needed a spark. Something loud. Something unforgettable. They needed to fund it.
They needed a Motherfunder.
How We Saw It
We love a good mission. But we live for the ones that feel like they’re about to crash and burn, right before someone lights a match and builds a rocket instead. This campaign had heart. A heritage hat, one-of-a-kind knitting machines on the brink of extinction, and a century-old company trying to do the impossible: bring it all back home. But it also had problems. The rewards were basic; hats, shirts, maybe a thank-you, and the margins were tight. We knew from day one that it needed more than sentiment to move the needle. So we pitched heat. We pushed for celebrity. And then came the drop. I said, “Get me Rev Run or LL Cool J. Anyone.” Then the call came, “Jay, we got you Samuel L. Jackson.” Stunned. Cue jaws on floor. The ultimate voice. The living legend. The one man who could yell at the internet until they threw money at us. Then came the catch: No profanity. Not one curse. Not even a “damn.” Just a clean, friendly Samuel L. Jackson. It was like getting Hulk Hogan and being told he couldn’t flex. Or giving Freddy Krueger mittens. We were one week from filming. We had a red-band concept ready to go and permission to film “just in case,” but the chances of seeing the light of day were slim. Without Sam’s signature venom, it all felt flat. We needed a new direction, fast. Mid-flight to California, somewhere over flyover country, we hit the existential panic wall. Half asleep and half-stressed, one of our video guys muttered, “Too bad we can’t just make it sound like he’s cursing…” Lightning in a motherf*cking bottle! It didn’t have to be “motherf*cker.” It just had to feel like it. The idea hit like a freight train. On that plane, the entire campaign got rewritten. The tagline became Motherfunder. The domain motherfunding.com was purchased right there in the clouds. All references got swapped. We turned shirts, hashtags, rewards, and the whole damn story into a rally cry for funders everywhere. And the man himself? Walked into that shoot, read the new script once, looked up, and said, “So we gonna do this?” Damn right we were. He nailed every take. No cue cards. No flubs. Just full-throttle SLJ, straight into the lens. And when someone dared to offer him makeup to dull his shine, he playfully snapped back with what might be the greatest thing we’ve ever heard on a shoot: “Makeup? What would I need makeup for? I’m a motherfucking star. That’s what we fucking do. We fucking shine.” Legend. We didn’t just make a crowdfunding campaign. We made a movement. We saved a legend. And we did it by being exactly what we always are—relentless, creative, and a little bit crazy. The campaign hit its goal. It even passed it. We designed the merch, directed the video strategy, ran the social, and built the Motherfunder brand from thin air. And in the end, we didn’t just sell hats. We saved a piece of fashion history.
What They Want You To Know
The 2015 Kangol 504 Kickstarter campaign was launched by The Bollman Hat Company to reshore the last remaining knitting machines capable of producing the iconic 504 cap. Designed in the U.K. and worn by cultural giants from LL Cool J to Samuel L. Jackson, the Kangol 504 had become a symbol of timeless street style. The crowdfunding campaign required a full-stack creative solution to inspire contributions and generate national attention. Our agency delivered: • Strategic brand concepting and copywriting • Full scriptwriting and creative direction for a celebrity-led video • Logistics coordination for production in California • Social media content and campaign execution • Domain creation: motherfunding.com • Merchandise design, including Kickstarter-exclusive Kangol T-shirts • Digital and organic marketing around the “Mother Funder” theme This multi-channel effort culminated in a fully funded campaign, a massive spike in Kangol’s cultural capital, and the successful relocation of the knitting machines to U.S. soil. Samuel L. Jackson’s performance in the video anchored the campaign’s success and elevated visibility across media platforms, helping the message reach a global audience. The project remains one of our most memorable, and meaningful campaigns. It wasn’t just about a hat. It was about preservation, pop culture, and one hell of a pivot at 30,000 feet.