Position your brand perfectly out of tune

I started writing these words from my friend’s music studio in the Devon hills.

My friend is a music producer who built this studio himself over eighteen months. I don't mean this figuratively. He literally built it, in his words, "armed with three years of YouTube videos, a spade and four power tools".

People came along for the ride - via the old Instagram.

They watched as the studio was put together plank by plank, failed roof by successful roof, and finally track by music track.

Now musicians are seeking this place out. It has a kind of grassroots appeal that gets down into the soil of your psyche. The studio is just getting started and the horizon is both figuratively and literally covered in sea fog.

One day, as my friend was mixing vocal tracks for a new client, he told me that was purposefully making every note sound ever so slightly off pitch.

Some vocals he’d pull a little below the note, some a little above.

My friend had the power to make everything sound dot on perfect.

He was determined to ensure it didn’t. He – and his clients – would want it to sound a little raw.

This is precise imperfection. He was making a tradeoff, losing a little polish for something a little more distinctive, a little more in keeping with the artist’s vision and his own.

So here’s a question: do you have a vision for your brand? And are you making the tradeoffs it requires?

Even if you have to set aside best practice.

Dare to serve beer instead of wine

Intentional breaking of best practice is better than unthinking commitment to it.

Everyone has a different view of what best practice is. Especially in marketing. Ask the growth marketers and they’ll say one thing. Ask the RevOps marketers, they’ll say another. The same goes for ad firms, brand marketers, social-first groups, community marketers, etc. etc. etc.

And so chasing best practice in marketing will keep us climbing an infinite staircase that sadly leads nowhere in particular.

The problem is this:

We’re asking what best practice is first and asking what our vision is second.

Take a look at the really distinctive brands and you’ll see they often break the rules of what marketers say you should do so they can commit to a vision.

It’s not rule breaking for the sake of being different or edgy. It’s because they’ve seen the statue of David in their marble, and they’re quite happy to chisel off anything that doesn’t fit.

Working to a vision instead of best practice is “a different kind of correct”, as Will Guerara writes in Unreasonable Hospitality,

Will helped create the best restaurant in the world, Eleven Madison Park. not by breaking all the rules of fine dining, but by breaking all the rules that didn’t serve their vision of hospitality.

So by all means place your hands on the table, serve souffle while facing the customer (a big no, no apparently) and dare to serve beer pairings as an alternative to wine.

Your vision is more important than the rules of your industry.

How to ignore a PR company

I recently worked on an employer brand project where the story needed to shift. The company had a solid employer value proposition, but once you got beneath the skin of what they were saying, it could all be interpreted as: Here’s a really nice job. Don’t you want a really nice job?

This attracted a few people who mostly wanted a comfortable life, and didn’t always attract the people who were after more. Not more line items in a list of perks. But more meaning, more purpose, more unconventional ambition.

Without going into confidential details, I worked with the leadership team to change it up..We added a little unpredictability into the narrative. We gave people an adventure to go on. We told an emerging story they could be a part of building.

For a FCA-regulated company in a traditional industry, this was unfamiliar territory.

In fact, a PR company caught wind of the change and recommended against it – saying it was not the done thing.

Not in this industry.

We did it anyway.

We could have compromised on our vision, deferring to PR-thinking on best practice. And if I’d been working with a more timid company, this might have happened. But it would have split the priorities so completely, it would shatter the brand vision.

Instead of carving David out of the marble, we’d have a Frankenstein-esque creature that didn’t look like anything in particular.

Yes, by committing to our vision we took a risk, but it was the kind of calculated risk that’s essential to making magic happen in any area of business – brand building included.

The reality is, compromising on vision to accommodate someone else’s idea of best practice is also a risk – it’s just a less calculated gamble, one that comes with an illusion of safety that a guy called Daniel Kahnemann has written several chapters about.

So often what we call best practice is a form of unthinking. An outsourced assumption. And not necessarily one that serves our vision.

You want to be more than a rulebreaker.

This is not just about breaking the rules. As fun as that can be.

If you’re anything like me, when you left home for the first time you pushed against the boundaries set by whoever brought you up. Maybe you became nocturnal. Maybe you kept your shoes on in the house.

This is what some people can act like after they leave the corporate world, or set up their own startup for the first time. How many brands have you come across that emphasise they’re un-corporate, a disruptor, or a rebel brand?

Some of this can give birth to exploratory, innovative ideas.

But some of it is just kids pushing against their parents’ rules.

And pretty soon, they realise the mud on the carpet is a hassle to clean up. Their sleeping pattern is all kinds of messed up and maybe they need to think this through a little more.

It’s not enough to be a rulebreaker brand.

Not unless that is the soul of your business structure and it’s part of a calculated strike on the market.

But you should break some rules: the ones that don’t align with your vision.

You’re the curator of your brand magic

And sometimes that mean pulling notes very precisely out of tune.

It will seem foolhardy to some people out there, even some experts.

But it’s actually just intentionality.

You’ll be following a vision very, very carefully, even if the vision defies the recommendations of a business leader or two, or your marketing firm partners and their opinions.

You’re the curator of your brand magic. As for how you do that very precisely, that’s a story for another time.

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