Bastian Fisser is the man who shapes Reebok DACH like no other. You can listen to him on the podcast with Max as they gorged on cheat food and lost all pace on the Ragnar Relay. You'll hear insights from Max, how he broke bikes at running events, had to sprint across the finish line to the toilet with stomach problems and how he got his status as a Reebok athlete. If that's not enough for you, we'll drop a bomb at the end and give you hints on how your sports closet will soon be upgraded. Look forward to a podcast episode of the Wodmagazin between football, froning and focus!
Click here for the podcast on Spotify (The podcast is available on all known platforms)
Fisser's Vita: Few words for a complex man:
Bastian Fisser, moved from Munich to Nuremberg. He is a family man, freshly baked and in rearing stress. Jumped from American Football to Adidas to Reebok to CrossFit® and ended up staying there. Although CrossFit® was already relevant in the States, it has not yet been taken seriously. Reebok brought the first points of contact with athletes and competitions. Since then, parts of Bastian's private life and large parts of his everyday work have been dedicated to fitness.
Professionally, Fisser belongs to the Reebok team, which deals with sports marketing in German-speaking countries. That means in plain language, he is an advertising man through and through. He oversees athletes and press, advertisements and public relations. A person for everything that is communicated to the outside world.
A life between a full-time job and full throttle:
But Fisser can also deliver in terms of sport. In 2018 he started CrossFit®, the power was given by football. This resulted in the top 10 of the German CrossFit® scene in 2019. A trademark of athletes and thoroughbred athletes is spreading here again: despite job, family and co, they create niches where they offer themselves. Whether it's during the lunch break or in the basement after work: Bastian has gone on the offensive in recent years and achieved success without the other athletes even knowing about him. To put it mildly, for us at wodmagazin he is the epitome of an underdog.
Marketing: How to get to Reebok?
As so often, CrossFit® was a door opener for Fisser in the job context. His boss at the time had already socialized with him through CrossFit Nuremberg, and his skills did the rest for him. Reebok, as one of the few big players, has understood that it pays to rely on people within the community to reach them. From our point of view and yours, it doesn't help to have to explain CrossFit® and the Functional Spirit to someone from the bottom up. Previous experience must be there, everyone must have had semi-near-death experiences on an Amrap at some point. Only then do you finally know which words to find to motivate yourself. So Fisser was able to ask himself early on what would have appealed to him as an athlete and transferred this knowledge to Reebok.
Sponsoring stories made by Fisser:
Everyday life in marketing is not always glamorous, but it does have its moments. In an interview with Max, Bastian tells how he semi-spontaneously dropped everything in order to be able to experience one of the fittest people in the history of CrossFit® up close:
Rich Froning was at Reebok, Bastian skipped the lunch break because of him. In the end, Fisser gave the stage pig and dropped out in the middle of an interview between Reebok, Froning and Chris Hinshaw. Yes, contrary to what you might expect, Rich was approachable and even let Bastian train next to him shortly after the interview. At that moment, Bastian was not only inspired, but also briefly transformed into his fangirl status. After all, you don't assume that people you only know from the media can go through the world in real life without airs and graces.
Max and Basti: How does that fit together?
Max has personality and comes from sports. Although he hides his sporty side under stored calories, which still reach Jericho, he is on first terms with almost every athlete in Germany. The Kelm thus results in potential for Reebok, which makes Max a kind of young athlete with a special status.
But they got to know each other at CrossFit Voluntas in Hamburg. Out of the blue, Max asked if Bastian had prepared his signing as a Sponsored Athlete. Audacity wins, rascal charm all the more. Through individual projects such as the Ragnar Relay, Max was also allowed to start over time. As an athlete, as a meme, as the good soul of the team with hunger and motivation.
But even if it destroyed Kelm and Bastian as a tag team: the memories remain and the community has been strengthened. That's what matters, that's what counts. Follow through, keep going, bite, and rake in personal victories whenever possible. Through events like this, the partnership between Kelm and Fisser has been strengthened and is now based more on sympathy than purely business. So, in a way, Max serves as a red flag of motivation for all of us: if you work hard enough and stand out as a special character, you'll even impress the Reebok marketing team!
Reebok thinks ahead:
Reebok has said goodbye to the CrossFit® Games as a sponsor, it's NoBull's turn. Time for the brand to venture to new shores. Corona and the development of functional fitness have shown that the broad masses of people are becoming more and more sporty and active in different ways. For everyday athletes and casual gym goers, for Sunday athletes and lunch break marathon runners, Reebok has now launched an outdoor nano as a shoe for complicated weather conditions.
