03 | A Brand's Authority

and how to tell stories around it.

February 09, 2024

We snuck the guests for Red Bull’s first-ever podcast through the back door of the Red Bull recording studio in Santa Monica, CA. We had a window until noon, because why would any self-respecting musician show up before then. We had no budget and no brief, hence the skullduggery.

The global mag I was editing at the time provided the guests, and the interview format stayed close to the magazine’s editorial philosophy: talking to top performers about the tips and tricks that made them better. But the filter wasn’t quite right for the podcast.

The interviews went on too long and rambled. The story filters we had for a long-form magazine didn’t suit the podcast counterpart.

We borrowed a strategic consultant leadership had hired for something else and roped him into our meetings. He was a kind and smart fellow — thanks, Joe Kavanagh — and guided us to the right name: Risk Made Me Do It.

Risk, and the guests’ relationship with it, made complete sense given the logo on the podcast cover. It was narrow enough to define the value proposition for the listener, and broad enough so that we could interview big wave surfers, VCs, artists, and cultural figures under the umbrella of one podcast. The naming exercise had given us the filters that mattered.

Episode 3 featured Roy Choi talking about risk and - quite unexpectedly - his gambling problem.

Content filters help brand storytelling efforts from going off piste (hey, it’s winter here). They define the spirit and the type of stories you want to tell. And they’re the guardrails that enable you to scale stories across different platforms. In the dream world of dream worlds, there is a brand purpose and mission that the filters ladder up to (see the last letter) and help shape the personality the brand wants to put out into the world.

But filters should aim to position the brand as an authority in the space. This can only be done if the brand has a story the audience is willing to “buy” (An example of where this is not the case, please see Church’s Chicken from the first letter).

If you’re seen as an expert in the space — Sequoia Capital on the pivotal moments as a business changes, Patagonia on those fighting to protect our planet — then your story becomes sticky and ladders up to your sought-after brand equity. Filters can also dictate the creative expression of the content. Is it premium and polished? Or is it intimate, DIY or collage in feel? A brand like Glossier — started close to the beginning of IG’s ascendancy — showed up in a premium, polished way at the outset before changing to the more accessible, raw aesthetic Instagram became in the late 2010s. But even that made sense — Glossier was always about the community that had helped grow it.

Boy I had a lot to say about that one.

👇🏼 some nice examples

YOU TWO SHOULD MEET by Square 📽️ For a company whose chief product is a digital cash register, Square has done an admirable job of celebrating the community of entrepreneurs it serves. They produce city-focused series on the diverse small businesses that make a community run, highlight big-name brands that started small, and pit young with more seasoned entrepreneurs together in useful conversations about risks and rewards (the cleverly named series above). Their filters — risk, hustle, authenticity, passion — are broad enough to encompass a variety of business types and while the views and engagement rates could be higher, who knows how much of that has to do with the shifting pay-to-play landscape in socials complicating “editorial” content. Also, well … they put out a lot. And the fact they’ve been in it for the long haul indicates the value the stories provide their community and — therefore — their brand. Would I click if I didn’t own a brick and mortar business? No, I wouldn’t. But I’m also not their customer and there’s enough inspiration and practical advice in there for those that are, or might be soon. Still not loving the mandatory tip screen, though.

THE MOVEMENT by Shinola ⌚️ I had been shifting this one around several different planned letters, before deciding to use it here. It’s a good example of much of what I’ve learned about brand storytelling — positioning, format, voice, context. But let’s use it for this and I’ll scramble to find better ones for those other ones just mentioned, okay? So here it is: Actual Shinola watchmaker Titus Hayes hosts a series of famous Detroiters in a format that asks them to answer questions while they learn how to assemble a watch. Craft, authenticity, pride, irreverence … there are a clear number of filters this hits (with some elegant interstitials). And while Hayes is still clearly growing into being a host, the difficulty of the actual watchmaking task makes the interviews unpredictable. There’s also clear intention behind showing this on YouTube rather on their IG, which has the high gloss of a European luxury brand strategy. It’s on their IG where I realized that they’ve diversified into other product lines. I imagine it’ll be easy enough to take The Movement format to those factory floors — craftspeople abodes? — as well.

🦑 Flotsam & Jetsam 🚢
Random links from this week’s haul

👟 Deep cut alert with this Malcolm Gladwell piece on “cool-hunting” from way back in 1997. Profiling two fashion-forward types on the hunt for what’s fresh for Reebok, it made me think about what gets lost when a “cool-hunt” (Gladwell can be quite cringe) goes from physical to digital. Come for his dated references, stay for the deep dive on how trends spread (hint: it all began long ago with a couple of Iowa farmers).

📺 Not every episode in the Home series on Apple TV+ is great. But this one is. A serene Icelandic architect re-imagines an abandoned concrete factory in the fishing village in which he grew up. He’s also in the process of building a “Sunset Museum” nearby, which sounds just wonderful.

🎧 This episode on artists embracing — and shirking from — the technology destined to change the creative act, gives a clear picture of the opportunities and challenges. Especially poignant, how the advent of AI-generated lyrics might damage the validity of the Black experience. And if I didn’t tell you, would you know this podcast is produced by a web browser company?

Hey, what is this?
BRAND NEW STORY highlights smart strategies and good stories told by brands and humans. It’s penned by me, Andreas Tzortzis (or, simply, Dre) and draws on insights from my career at Red Bull, Apple, and in my own brand consultancy Hella. Every week or so I write on a theme and curate links of brands doing it well, along with just great stories from the worlds of culture, tech, and, um ... humanity. Sign up here. And a special welcome to those from the global ad sales team at WeTransfer - who gave me the chance to give a talk on reframing their story to clients, and shared their own in our workshop.

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