The excitement in our house is building. We won’t make it tonight, but we will see Days of Ultron as a family tomorrow. This is a rarer event lately as we have a teen who usually prefers to see movies like this with her pals. This is different. This is Marvel. Marvel movies, with the heavy weight on Iron Man’s shoulders, have come to be a gathering place for our family. No one debates, argues, and usually they don’t talk during these films, even though we’ve seen them at least a dozen times each for the Iron Man series. Robert Downey Jr. holds a tender place in our hearts. His and his character’s humanness, flaws and strengths play deeply to this house of strong personalities.

Between Iron Man 2 and 3, my husband had his leg amputated above the knee. This was after a failed and tragically infected bypass behind his knee two months prior. Our children were 10 and 7. This was terrifying as they almost lost their father. I rarely talk about this period publicly, but today I’m smiling thinking back and looking forward to the movie tomorrow.

As he was recovering from surgery in 2012, the children decorated a pillowcase and drew Iron Man on it for him in the hospital. Our daughter wrote that he is HER Iron Man. It was one of the first smiles he showed during this process.

It still sucks that he doesn’t have a leg, I can’t sugarcoat that. He has pain with each step and is still mastering some skills from before and he’s on his 9th socket that still doesn’t quite fit. Gratefully, rock climbing wasn’t part of the past, so we can leave that off the list. We look forward to EVERY Marvel movie that is released – without question. THIS is brand loyalty. You knew this would have some business spin and wasn’t just going to be a happy, sappy story, right?

When you create your brand, stay true to the MISSION. When you go too far you end up thinking that Hawkeye and Black Widow could carry a movie solo as those characters. Pause. Hone it down, really think though distractions and keep your loyal advocates, fans and customers happy. If you do that, you’ll be able to give them something to look forward to with each product release, white paper, appearance and service you add to your arsenal of wonderfulness.

One Comment
  1. Yvonne Heimann May 1, 2015 at 3:05 pm

    He truly is Iron Man!!
    And you are Wonder Woman :)

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