Branding

Radical Authenticity: Your Mind Makes It Real

The power of storytelling in the world of authentic branding

Photo by Lukas Bato on Unsplash

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There is a scene, early on in The Matrix, where Neo and Morpheus are fighting in a simulator, and when they’re done, Neo realizes his mouth is bleeding.

“I thought it wasn’t real,” says Neo.

“Your mind makes it real,” says Morpheus.

I was watching a video of Liquid Death founder Mike Cessario, and he was talking about their early attempts at making viral marketing videos. One of them involved taking a few vials of blood from skateboard legend Tony Hawk, then pouring that blood into a gallon of red paint. That paint then became the primary color of a limited edition series of skateboard decks that Liquid Death sold online. They sold out in minutes.

The question I have is this: Was there anything inherently special about these skateboard decks? They claimed to include Tony Hawk’s blood and I have no reason to doubt the veracity of such a claim, but how would you know the difference? Even if it did contain Hawk’s blood, what difference would that make? None at all, of course. Except that now you had a story, and that’s what they bought. I’m not…