You’re not really in control
I’ve noticed that I have a number of answers for what I’ve learned is a very common question. “So, what do you do?”
I might say I name companies and products or that I build brands that aren’t boring. I might say that I’m part of a creative team with a studio in a former clock factory in West Berkeley. Or that I help people explain what they’re doing to those who matter most. Or, simply, that I’m a writer. When they invariably ask me what I write I might joke mostly emails.
Which is to say, I do all of the above. And many other things between and beyond the hours of nine to five.
These days, everyone says they want a brand that’s human. Then they promptly try to create a brand that’s one thing and one thing only. But of course, no one is just one thing. And this is just as true for a brand as it is for any person.
At the same time, no brand has just one audience, and no audience can be neatly encapsulated, no matter how you might try to slice up the market into targeted segments with catchy nicknames. You might make a product with a certain person in mind and then discover they couldn’t care less. And maybe instead, you are unexpectedly meeting a completely different audience’s needs.
It always helps if you’re building something that matters to you rather than an imagined other who may or may not exist or think the way you suppose they do.
For every company who says they want a brand that’s human, there’s another who says they want to define their category. There’s an obvious appeal to creating your own category. You get to be the first to the party. Which means you lead the conversation—and get first dibs on the best snacks.
Categories can be helpful, but they are usually more important for the people within the company than for anyone out in the world. After all, some people say they’re in a category all their own, even when they aren’t. Others claim to be part of a category where they really don’t belong, in order to avoid being considered a monopoly. It’s common for people to want to appear bigger, more powerful, or more relevant than they really are.
No matter the language, speakers aren’t easily fooled. They’re parsimonious. Call your category what you will, but you can’t control what category others will put you in.
Giving up control isn’t easy, but this one is a losing battle.
Many people try to make branding an exercise in pinning things down, making everything static. There’s a reason people want to do this, of course. It helps to get things down on paper, to work as a team toward consensus, to have a framework that makes the chaos of creation a bit more coherent.
But remember: brands are living, breathing things. And the perception of any brand is always in flux. No brand category or audience segment is going to save you from the inevitability of change.
This is not to say that these exercises aren’t useful—they can be. Just know that the process has little to do with how the world will actually perceive you.
