Honest Darkness

Let’s be honest, your brand is bullshit. You’re a business masquerading as a moment. A spreadsheet matted in sticky scraps of culture you don’t really understand. Or maybe, you’re the kernel of a brilliant idea that’s been muffled, minimized, and shut away in black box of algorithmic domination. Whatever’s happening, it’s not the dream. It’s not what made you make the leap. It can’t be why you became a founder.

No, not you?. Good for you.

But for most of you, you’re barreling through an acid-trip kaleidoscopic forest of reaching tendrils (market, money, meaning) scraping and scarring your resolve as you try to simply survive. The answer isn’t data. Not artificial intelligence. Never trend-jacking or new-Meta-feature supplication. The answer is going deep. Delving into the shadow self of your brand. And letting the truth escape. Humans like it when you show them the bit of darkness in your truth. Let’s give it to them.

Defining Darkness

The fact that your brand could be absolutely anything and completely nothing–all at once–can be disorienting. You look to the horizon, seeing the loyalty-born-from-truth that brands like Liquid Death and Skims engender and think, “yes, that’s who I’ll be.”

The issue is that success in the now isn’t defined by who you’ll be, but what you are today. And most importantly, it’s defined by whether you’re willing to let people see it.

When I say “darkness,” I’m talking the underbelly-born, closet-kept things that make us human. The things that make us stop and say “I know that…I feel that…I guess I’m not alone!” The things that ultimately connect us.

The brands we envy didn’t invent personalities. They allowed them. Mike Cessario (founder) and Andy Pearson (head of creative) didn’t build Liquid Death from mood boards and fever dreams, they simply gave form to their unique darkness. The sins of the father, if you will.

Start in the same place.

Who is in control?

What do they want?

What do they believe?

Where is the darkness?

Historically, brands have leveraged the macro versions of this darkness, but nowadays niche is the game. For that reason, we’re seeing nipple bras, perianal creams, and menstruation cups find their audiences fast AF. People want to see brands give voice to what they’re volleying about in the recesses of their brains. More commonly, that means something on the dinner-party-improper, NSFW spectrum. Honest darkness finds its friends.

For example, I don’t think recent campaigns from American Eagle are great. Or even good (based on my beliefs and taste). But what is America the country’s brand now, if not divisive? So I’m not surprised that a brand that shares the name of a neo-colonial superpower leaning into eugenics resonates with people. Exactly the same way Bob, Linda, Tina, Louise and Gene Belcher resonate with underdogs.

Not because everyone loves them. Because the people who do see themselves in them. That’s honest.

The BS

The rub? Brands inherit the insecurities of the people building them.

We spend far too much time in our personal lives trying to become who we think the people we like want us to be. Then we drag that same instinct into our companies and call it strategy.

For whatever reason, values have become magical things we summon in rooms with whiteboards, Post-its, and editorial clippings. Oftentimes they’re our most utopian views etched into pixels and codified through groupthink. Frankly, it’s a cop out.

There is power in knowing thyself and making a damn decision. When smart people in charge stop navel-gazing and start peeling back the façade to the bone, real shit starts happening.

It’s okay if I don’t like it. Or your spouse doesn’t get it. Or it doesn’t test well. If it’s real, and you real real believe it, you’re on the right path. You can’t test into personality.

So stop. Stop debating about “working on” versus “working in” the business. Stop paying people to tell you who you are. Stop treating your customers like data. Stop making the special sauce someone else’s problem. Start listening to the darkness. Find your shade of shadow. And start making things that feel right.

Because when you do, your brand stops feeling like lifted culture and starts becoming undeniable.

Now

Imagine this: your brand is bad ass.

You’re a bolide careening through a nebula of hell yes, and fuck yeah. Particles ping off you as you go supersonic, tearing through the miasma, trailing a kaleidoscope of passion and purpose. Brilliance bursts from you like rebel yells from hoarse throats. Your depth is darkness.

And your CaC is low AF.