Why “Why” Is The Most Important Question In Branding
When I was a mid-level copywriter, a mentor of mine gave me a critique of a piece I was working on for a blue-chip client. Actually, “critique” would be putting it mildly. He tore the work apart. Then, after a few minutes of back and forth, he threw up his hands and yelled, “God dammit! It’s not about the brand you’re selling, it’s about the personal brand you’re selling it to!”
At first, this didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. But the point he was making was that the key to selling what you’re selling is understanding why anyone would or should care enough to buy it in the first place. And understanding why a specific consumer would want to choose your brand over another can help you hone in on what you need to talk about and what story your brand needs to tell.
More and more “traditional” branding and advertising is getting edged out by purpose-driven brand action and storytelling that embraces this very philosophy. Consider some of the most successful brands of the last decade, including Apple, AirBnB, Allbirds, Dove, Casper, JetBlue, and Patagonia. Almost all of them have achieved brand love and exponential growth by putting the consumer’s needs first and placing why at the center of their brand stories.
Here are a few things to consider if you want your brand to harness the power of “why” to achieve success:
Why Does Your Brand Exist?
Author, motivational speaker, and former ad man, Simon Sinek has a theory on how successful leaders and brands leverage the power of “why” to build a following. He calls it “The Golden Circle.” If you haven’t watched his TED talk on the topic, I highly recommend it. He goes into far more detail about it and speaks to the concept much more eloquently than I ever could in one blog post.
The Golden Circle (pictured below) is composed of three layers — what, how, and why. Sinek explains that while most communicators start on the outside of the circle (with what) and work their way in (to why), some of the most dominant leaders throughout history, whether they’re individuals or brands, do the exact opposite. They start with why and work their way out.
The brand example he uses to explain this theory is, not surprisingly, Apple. Rather than grounding their brand story in what they make, they choose to tell the story of why they make it.
Remember, Apple’s iconic 1984 commercial, arguably one of the most famous advertisements of all time, only ran once and it didn’t even show the product (Macintosh)! The spot was all about their reason for existing, or why they did what they did. It was about what they believed in — “thinking different” and challenging the status quo, and people still talk about it to this day.
The best part about Sinek’s theory is that it’s grounded in science. He explains that these messaging approaches appeal to entirely different parts of the brain. Starting with “what” speaks to the Neo-Cortex — the rational and analytic part of the brain which is responsible for language — while starting with “why” speaks to the Limbic System, the part that controls feelings and instinct.
In case you hadn’t noticed, emotion and instinct can be very hard to argue with, which is why brand stories and selling propositions that lead with why and tap into the beliefs, dreams, and ambitions of consumers are so effective.
Not only is the why behind Apple more emotionally compelling than the what, the fact that the brand grounded itself in its purpose (“thinking different”) gave it more room to grow and evolve its offerings beyond computers as the years went on. Since the launching of Macintosh in 1984, Apple has introduced myriad offerings and innovations that consumers have flocked to, from the iPod to original content with AppleTV.
Why Should Anyone Care?
This is probably the most important question that needs to be asked whenever you’re developing and evaluating your brand. And it’s particularly important when developing a brand strategy that will resonate with people.
In her wonderful book, Obsessed: Building A Brand People Love From Day One, Emily Heyward, the visionary co-founder of Red Antler, actually defines a modern brand as, “the driving force that helps people understand how [a] new business fits into their lives and why they should care.”
She explains that when her team develops a brand strategy — the vision for what the brand stands for — it’s based on three things: the target audience’s mindset, the key problem that audience is facing, and the overall brand idea, which shows how the brand is going to be the answer to that key problem.
She says that the key to developing a winning brand idea is really getting to and understanding the consumer’s need. This need cannot be functional. It must be emotional. It has to go deeper than the obvious. And the Red Antler team uses something called “The Why Test” to get to the bottom of it.
The “Why Test” helps them interrogate their insights by asking and answering “why does that matter?” again and again until they ultimately arrive at the somewhat morbid answer… “because life is short and we’re all going to die.”
This is how they know they’ve gone as far as they can go with the insight.
Below is Heyward’s example of how the “Why Test” could have been applied to AirBnB when they redefined the problem they were solving for their customers and rebranded in 2014. This pivot from their original position of being an alternative to overpriced, uninteresting hotels to being a company that helped people solve a deeper, more emotional problem by giving them a way to “belong anywhere,” helped them become the brand we know and love today.
AirBnB tapped into the universal truth that people have a deep desire to belong to and experience something bigger than themselves, and they determined that that’s really what their brand had to offer. This simple, yet powerful insight gave their brand a purpose and helped transform a middling startup into a global powerhouse that changed travel forever.
Why Does This Work?
Why doesn’t it work for that matter? Why blue instead of red? Why serif instead of sans serif? Why video instead of infographic? Why would the consumer like it? Why wouldn’t they like it?
Beyond answering why a brand exists and why anyone should care, “why” can also help you take a step back, interrogate your work objectively, and judge whether it’s good or not.
It can prevent you from getting carried away, allow you to stay on track, and make sure the work is on strategy. It can even help you find opportunities to build your story into every aspect of your brand — from design to language to real world actions and experiences. When you think about it, that’s a lot of power for one little three-letter word.
Why My Mentor Was Right About Why.
In short, people choose brands they like and identify with. Consumers know what they like, need, believe in, and desire. And if your brand can demonstrate why and how it overlaps with those things, that’s when consumers will come to care for and love your brand.
If people look at what you’re saying and doing as a brand and think to themselves, “hell yeah, that’s what I’m talking about,” then you’ve cracked the code — you’ve given them a reason why.
A special thank you to Simon Sinek and Emily Heyward for their infinite wisdom on these topics and so many more. If you’d like to see more of how EightySeven taps into the power of “why” with our brand work, or if you’re in need of any other branding advice, visit madeby87.com.
