Building brands of integrity and contribution

Part 3 of 3 in a series about my life after a failed startup

The amazing community I built around my last company, Ping

Please read Part One: ‘My battle with ‘Post Founder Depression’ and Part Two: ‘My work is no longer my identity’ of this series first.

I’m a brand builder. I’ve worked both agency side and client side, for startups and for corporates, and in a wide range of roles from marketing to product. My identity might now extend beyond my work, but my passion for building brands is unwavering, and believe deeply in their ability to play a role in influencing society and culture. I wish more brands would understand and acknowledge that power and leverage it in a more meaningful way.

Which is where my train of thought turns to as I begin to think how I hope to apply myself in my work and career from hereon in. You see, we live in the most exciting age of innovation, but when I reflect on the tech industry in particular, I believe there are two fundamental beliefs accepted as gospel, which hamper the capabilities of brand builders, and building great brands.

“Technology is your moat”

Somewhere along the way, the industry has convinced itself that it is technology that makes them defensible above all else. We’ve seen an explosion in companies heralding their utilisation of blockchain and AI, despite very little consideration for the human experience of their product.

Sure, there will be unique cases where the notion runs true. But as access to the tools and knowledge to build is democratised, and the remote/distributed team model becomes more mainstream, the thirst for engineering talent will be quenched, and the ability to out-build or out-innovate the competition will be tamed.

“Brand is marketing”

In an age when people have little tolerance for and a fine tuned sensitivity to (for want of a better turn of phrase) bullshit, far too many companies are mishandling brand in marketing departments under the assumption that it exists to exclusively sell their product. This almost always manifests as a tone deaf ad campaign.

Your brand marketing means nothing if not intimately aligned with the way you operate. Companies that try to pull a fast one almost always get found out. The internet makes it hard for these companies to hide their true colours and things won’t be getting any easier.

Brand building is moat building

People find it easy to forget that the greatest companies of our time have more often than not also been the greatest brands of our time. Who they are and why they exist is felt in everything that they do, not just ad campaigns.

Airbnb is always my favourite reference here. From day one, they’ve clearly identified and known their customers, been relentless in building products to service those customers and ensured every time they interface with the business, they feel their mission and values in action. Airbnb was doing this long before they got a fancy new logo and the ‘Belong Anywhere’ strap-line.

Brand has always been a powerful moat, regardless of whether you’re selling apple juice or APIs. Your brand is what builds trust with partners, loyalty with customers, promotes advocacy from employees and resonance with investors. It’s that unfair advantage that makes someone feel invested in you when it might be cheaper, quicker or simpler to buy from someone else.

The rise of the Chief Brand Officer

Marketing always has and always will remain a key pillar of business, and has rightly justified the appointment of Chief Marketing Officers as and when the time was right. But we’ve begun to see a shift. Uber appointed Bozoma Saint John as Chief Brand Officer. Ford Motor Company hired Musa Tariq into the same role.

Companies that (seemed to) understand the value and importance of brand both within and outside their company, and as such hired smart, inclusive minded, culture contributing marketers into the role. I’d bet a big chunk of my future earnings that it was actually Bozoma and Musa who pushed for their roles to focus on ‘brand’ over ‘marketing’ too.

Alas, both left their positions within 12 months. Now although there isn’t any definitive information on their departures, we can start to make some assumptions that maybe the leadership weren’t committed to doing the hard work of real change, and prepared to invest from the ground up in evolving their brands.

Building brands that build the future

This mentality shift from marketing to brand should not be underestimated. It will radically change multiple archaic industries, from the world of advertising to venture capital, and will be facilitated by two major ideals:

• In a world of fake news and clickbait, operating with absolute integrity will become even more key to building real trust
• Making meaningful contributions to society and humanity will become instrumental in driving loyalty and resonance

These will no longer be nice to haves. These will be expectations of customers — as well as prospective employees, partners, governments and (hopefully) investors. So, what do I mean my integrity and contribution?

Integrity

The true power of brand isn’t just the ability to share your message with the masses, but how it should guide the way you operate and make decisions. What you say and how you say it, and what you do and how you do it, have to be aligned in order to build a modern day brand. Your brand can be stripped of value in an instant if they don’t, which is why it is important to be authentic, consistent and accountable.

• Authenticity — You have to do things that are uniquely you. No doing things because it’s flavour of the month, or because your competitor did it too. Doing what is tightly aligned with your values and doing so fearlessly.
• Consistency — A brand is for life, not just for Christmas. If you bang on about how you put the customer first in marketing, yet have the world’s most unusable mobile app, guess what? You’ve lost their trust. When you know who you are and what you stand for, you must act on it relentlessly.
• Accountability — Brands are run by humans. Humans are not perfect. By definition brands are not perfect. That’s why holding yourselves account for wrong turns, bad decisions or big mistakes, and being open and honest with your customers and partners about doing so, is a surefire way to turn a shitty situation into a positive for your brand.

Contribution

It can be a little tough to remain positive about the current state of affairs here on planet earth. The amplification of racism in divisive politics, the growing global refugee crisis, and let’s not forget we have just 12 years to stop irreversible damage to Earth’s atmosphere. And that’s just the start of it.

We’ve seen a huge rise in brand activism in the past few years, with more brands using their marketing as an opportunity to have a say on political or socio-economic issues. However this isn’t always impactful, targeted or in fact any use to the actual cause. Some of it is actually even more harm than good. Don’t worry I won’t drag you here Pepsi.

It’s going to become increasingly prevalent and important for brands to be more targeted and intentional with their activism, and in turn support consumers in making decisions and taking actions that contribute more directly and valuably to real change.

Brand building ain’t easy

It is important to reinforce at this point, that brand building is hard work and will require making some really hard decisions. I‘d argue that my last company Ping was killed by it’s own brand. We made two fundamental decisions that were deeply enforced by our own values, which inhibited our progress:

1. We refused to use growth hacking techniques. One of our values was ‘Humanity is greater than technology’. In the earliest stages, there wasn’t much value in inviting your friends to the product, so utilising the consumer social playbook for fuelling growth didn’t feel meaningful or human. So by the time we came to raise our seed, there was no hockey stick curve and thus were dismissed for not having traction.
2. We turned down money from questionable investors. I had a £50k cheque on the table from an investor who I didn’t believe aligned with our value of ‘Inclusion matters most’. He said some things during our multiple meetings that didn’t sit well with me. And when I gave him feedback he only doubled down on his words. That money could have bought us precious time to get to where we needed to.

I don’t regret either of these decisions in the slightest. Failing with integrity is infinitely greater than winning without. And companies like Airbnb and Patagonia show that strong values, when accompanied by bloody hard work, can become companies that will stand the test of time.

So what am I gonna do about it?

Narrative and story can play an instrumental role in shifting perceptions, educating those without the privilege of education and changing human behaviour. And as highlighted above, the platform of brands facilitates this at real scale.

It was the essence of my thesis for my last company Ping — to not just build the next Linkedin, but to place inclusion and equality at the core of our product development and communications. I want to take everything I’ve learnt in the past 2 years building a brand from scratch (and my ten year career as a whole) to focus my energy on being a brand builder for planet positive companies. How might that manifest?

• Accelerate planet positive startups by making their radical products more accessible and palatable to a mainstream audience with brand, marketing and comms.
• Help corporations be more targeted, impactful and influential with their activism in marketing and comms.
• Help people move from conscious consumption, to conscious action, through community and education, supported by planet positive brands.

Now I need your help. Let’s get me to work.

If you’ve managed to read this far, I’m super grateful. I’ve now got a really big ask. If you understand my vision for how I’d like to contribute and feel well positioned to help, I’d really welcome your support. This might be in one of two ways:

1. I’d love to chat to as many planet positive companies as possible about potentially joining them to drive brand strategy. I’m really open to peoples ideas about what planet positive might entail, but I’m most interested in consumer companies aiming to have a direct impact on climate change. If you’re a founder, or know of a relevant one, let’s talk.
2. I have been putting some work into an idea for a new company. It’s certainly not fully formed by any stretch of the imagination, but for now, let’s call it ‘Red Antler for planet positive companies’. If this piques your interest, as an investor or collaborator, give me a nudge and will happily guide you through where I’m at with the idea.

By sharing or applauding this post, sliding in my DMs with ideas, making relevant introductions or just sending me love and encouragement, you’re playing a big role in my transition from ‘post-founder lost in the wilderness’ to ‘engaged and excited human finding purpose in his day to day once again’. The smallest gesture could be life changing, so do not underestimate your contribution.

This process has been hella wild, and it is far from over. But the deep period of reflection and personal growth is one I am overwhelmingly grateful for, despite how painful it might have been. If anything in this series of posts has really resonated, or you’re curious to better understand more of the tangible activities I’ve pursued to support navigating this path, please do feel free to reach out and I’m happy to share and support.

You can find me on Twitter (DMs open) at carlmartin, or alternatively drop me an email on carl@letsping.co. Thanks again to any of you who’ve taken the time and energy to join this recap of my journey.

Onwards.