How do you build a brand people love?
At a WeTransfer company offsite earlier this year, I shared a presentation that tried to answer the question: “How do you build a brand people love?” As the company moves to its next chapter post-acquisition, I’m sharing that presentation here in written form to give credit to all the people who built the WeTransfer brand into what it is today.
It is entirely subjective, there are some cliche examples, and it is not definitive or complete — but it focuses on a few of the important things I’ve found to be consistently true.
In an attempt to answer the question “how do you build a brand people love?”, I started by looking at the qualities that have made WeTransfer so loved for so long.
I believe it is one of the best executed, not-talked-about-enough brand strategies from the last 15 years. WeTransfer feels and acts like an artist. They embrace who they are for all of their faults, quirks, and mistakes — rarely talking about themselves. They’ve been the coolest person at the party for years, which is no secret to the 80 million monthly active users of the product, but way too hidden from the discourse about the top “purpose-driven” brands of the 2010’s.
Credit to the team past and present for the humility, vision, and leadership to build such a unique, profitable business without an ounce of inauthenticity. I’m grateful to have gotten to see something rare which was building a company that believed in paying it forward to their community as a growth strategy.
How do you build a brand people love?
- Acknowledge that brands aren’t built by marketing teams
Brands aren’t built by marketing teams. Marketing contributes, but every team at a company shapes the brand in some way.
Can marketing be designated to focus and be the “captain” of it? Maybe. But to truly make an impact, that person or team needs to have the authority to influence decisions that affect the customer experience (which is rare).
WeTransfer has endured as a brand because it built and grew a moat — ‘moat’ can be used synonymously with ‘brand’. WeTransfer’s brand has become a force to protect it from copycats, industry disruptors, and new entrants. It is a competitive advantage built over the last 15 years resulting in strong organic growth, pricing power and cost advantages, unique partnership opportunities, and has helped attract a talented team.
It’s evident in this slide how many teams have contributed to building WeTransfer’s moat. That’s why, ultimately, a highly collaborative and cross-functional approach to brand building instead of expecting or relying on one team to be accountable for it separates enduring brands from fleeting brands.
2. Recognize that measuring “brand” is difficult, but not impossible when you look at the right things
Website traffic, search volume, market share, customer surveys, CSAT and NPS, repeat purchases, retention rates, sales growth are all decent proxies for brand health.
That said, relying on these metrics alone to measure the value of a brand to a consumer is incomplete.
Specific examples can be helpful to make a point, so let’s look at Airbnb. (Disclaimer, Airbnb is an incredible category-creating brand. I would not bet against them.)
From what headlines tell us, the story is that Airbnb cut marketing spend by half (mainly performance marketing) due to reduced travel during the pandemic in 2020 and still generated 95% of website traffic (source). Two years after the decision to reallocate marketing spend, the company reported its most profitable fourth quarter on record in February 2023(source). On the heels of a 2023 brand campaign last August, it was reported that Airbnb’s marketing team would double down on a ‘brand-first approach’. Their CMO said: “our approach is that product development and marketing should go hand-in-hand. We’ll work off of one central customer insight that then feeds what we do on the product — and that same insight also feeds how we market it and how we talk about it in paid media and in PR.”
Airbnb’s decision is commonly recited by marketing teams as evidence for the importance of brand investment and rationale for more budget to invest in upper funnel initiatives.
So, it’s simple — shift money from performance marketing into brand marketing and that’s all you need to do to build a brand, right?
The truth is somewhere in between:
This isn’t an apples to apples comparison exactly. The first point is about budget allocation and how to invest in marketing to support growth most efficiently, and the second is a function of operations / customer experience. The point is, Airbnb gets a lot of positive press about its brand marketing strategy, but also gets a lot of negative social commentary about a deteriorating experience.
Which is a better signal for long-term brand health? The one controlled by marketing or the one that’s not?
Even though it is difficult to measure, having a strong brand is more important than ever. A differentiated and unique point of view is and will continue to be a competitive advantage — especially with increased privacy regulations that erode efficiency in performance marketing and Gen AI making it possible to create a decent brand identity in minutes.
So how do you build one that people love?
3. Actions over words
“In order to truly win the game, you need to subvert its rules.” (Networked Counterculture by WePresent)
I’ve worked with agencies and internal creative teams for years building brand books. Many hours are spent debating the following:
Positioning, Company vision, Company mission statement, Core belief, Brand truth, Brand archetype, Brand map, Brand strategy, Tone of voice, Manifesto to demonstrate the tone of voice, Brand attributes, User personas, Key insights….
Even when agreement is reached on any of the above, the problem with traditional “brand books” is that they are treated like dogma without even knowing if what’s in them resonates. They become outdated the moment they are published.
Spending energy on nailing the perfect expression of any of the terms above is largely wasted. It’s not the way the world works anymore — things change too quickly and it can feel like more time is spent debating the articulation of the brand than implementing the strategy. Creative guidelines are important to avoid fragmentation, but no brand was built from a long strategy document or hours of internal meetings.
It takes thinking and acting differently to create a breakthrough brand. It takes subverting the rules, especially in 2024.
WeTransfer is a breakthrough brand because it has ignored conventional brand thinking. It operated for years without a “brand book” and instead thought of itself as an artist and expressed itself accordingly. WeTransfer has interests, friends, hobbies, things that it’s inspired by, and those things have changed over time. Like a person, your tastes may evolve, but you’re still the same person at the core.
The best version of a “brand book” isn’t one made by a brand or marketing team. The Netflix culture book (2009 version) has been edited five times in 15 years with the same theme of values and performance mattering more than rules or controls.
For any brand thinking about how to become or stay relevant over the next 10 years, building a unique personality that’s known for what it does and how it makes people feel will win against the ones with great brand books.
4. Values over rules
When a brand grows up, it can feel awkward and result in questions like “who are we and what do we stand for?” If Netflix is any example, what matters most is staying true to your values over the long-term.
Every brand action or communication should connect back to a set of values. Not prescriptive guidelines or rules, but a compass for decision-making with the freedom to explore new things and make mistakes.
Another widely used example of this is from Steve Jobs’ 1997 speech where he introduced Apple’s Think Different campaign.
“The market is a totally different place than it was a decade ago and Apple is totally different. But values and core values, those things shouldn’t change. The things that Apple believed in at its core are the same things that Apple really stands for today.
The theme of the campaign is “Think Different”. It honors the people who think different and who move this world forward. It is what we are about. It touches the soul of this company.”
25 years later, Apple released a campaign called Behind the Mac with a script that reflects the same spirit from the original Think Different campaign. They’ve stuck to their values (at least in their advertising, for the most part).
5. Coherency over Consistency
Conway’s Law states that the structure of software will mirror the structure of the organization that built it. Another way to say this is “don’t ship your org”.
So how do companies overcome their structures to show up in ways that deepen their ‘moat’ at every touchpoint?
Through coherent action and communication, not necessarily consistent. Coherency can be described as being logical, well-organized, and easy to understand. Consistency is always acting in the same way or of the same quality. Coherency allows for experimentation and spontaneity, where the idea of consistency in brand-building can create rigidity that prevents breakthroughs.
If a brand experience is incoherent, it needs to work harder to build trust. As a general rule, it takes people hearing the same message seven times before they retain a message.
Coherency compounds. The impact comes from small, day-to-day efforts over time across every brand touchpoint. These efforts should be rooted in a brand’s values, not a brand guidelines document.
To wrap it up…
To build a brand people love, I would recommend:
- Acknowledge brands are not built by the marketing teams
- Measuring the true value of a brand can be difficult but doesn’t devalue the importance of having a strong one
- Actions over words
- Values over rules
- Coherency over consistency
What are specific ways WeTransfer has tried to stay bold, coherent, and avoid shipping the org?
- Keeping brand values top of mind in work: (Move It Like a Pro campaign)
- Sharing insights regularly to help us stay creator-first: (Insights)
- Showing not telling in marketing campaigns: (Jungle, Matty Matheson)
- Champion creativity: (Russell Tovey, The Brown Dog, The Supporting Act)
- Established a cross-functional brand committee with Product, Marketing, People, Operations, Comms
- Pushing for bold, unique messaging in product launches: (Save for Later social campaign)
- Standing by the belief that business can be a force for good: (B Corp status for multiple years running)
In the end, you’re lucky if people say nice things about you like this:
