ISSUE #01

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Hey all - thanks for taking a flyer and signing up for this newsletter. This first email is more of a thought piece. Other's will be different. I'm planning on publishing different styles of content (brand breakdowns, interviews, branding in the news), some content will be in a paid tier, but I'll always have something available each month for free. Hope you're game! Feel free to give me feedback on what you like.

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What genre of brand are you?

The best brands are easy for customers to categorize. Through a number of direct and/or subtle cues successful brand projects who they are and what they offer. People can easily read those cues and understand quickly if a brand is for them. Poor brand execution leads to confusion and wasted marketing energy.

In business we don’t really have a language for the categories we make to sort or evaluate brands. We have language to talk about our 'voice', 'character', and 'style', but we lack a quick reference tool to quickly frame what a brand is for a potential customer.

Music is different. Whether you are a casual listener or a passionate audiophile, we all understand the basic rules of categories—or genres—in music.

Genres aren’t perfect (no category is) but they help in a few key ways:

1. They help bands be realistic about the potential size of audience they can expect to play to. Not every genre is mass market territory.
2. It help gives a band clarity on what things they need to do in their genre to fit in, as well as what conventions they might want to break to stand out.
3. They help musicians—especially new ones—quickly tell listeners what they can expect when they spin up a new album or single.

That's the key to categorizations for me: Setting expectations

The quicker you can set expectations, the quicker you can find your audience in the market, and the lower the investment risk is for customers.

If you can set clear expectations, people can feel like they know you, like they can trust you, and that they can trust what they might get from you.

Think through your brand’s genre, or quick reference category.

As a thought experiment it might be worthwhile to think of what genre your business is in. Are you a pop band looking to appeal to a large audience that fills arenas, or are you an alt-psyche-folk-funk band that fills the bar every other Wednesday night in your city? The decisions you make around your genre will dramatically change how you should approach building your brand, as well as what tactics, channels, and budgets you should plan for.

Case in point, Pit Viper. I came across this brand a while ago. Eyewear is a crowded space, and so a brand has to stand out either with remarkable product or a super unique personality. It's harder and harder for eyewear brands to claim quality IMO, and so Pit Viper has doubled down on personality. Their genre is.... 80's hairspray rock mixed in with a neon surf bro or ski bunny who lives out of a trailer? I think this brand is definitely catching a wave of millennials sincere and ironic desire for late 20th century nostalgia. This positioning and style dictates a certain way that this brand operates. It's not just product and graphic design - I think it goes deeper than that, and that depth of character resonates with the customer base. Pit Viper has clearly set expectations as to what you can experience as a customer.

The point isn't to go crazy with your brand's genre. The point is to pick a lane, learn the conventions of your territory, adopt some and tweak others. For example, if you're a camping goods store it's likely not in your best interest to walk and talk like and airline, but maybe there's room to make things feel technical/scientific rather than woodsy and heritage. Ask yourself, a) is that who you think you are, or who you could be and b) is that how your target audience sees themself or aspires to be like?

Here's another reason why I think it might be worthwhile to think about a genre for your business:

Over time, as people we use genres less to sort/find new music we want to listen to, and more to describe what sort of person we are.

As we find the music we like, a genre can start to become a short-hand way we think about ourselves and the people we like to associate with. The genres we follow gives us cues and clues that as people we can use to project what community or scene we are a part of - location, style, language, values, etc. we can borrow these things bands (or brands) in a genre to help fit into our 'tribe'.

In business you can use this shorthand referencing to your advantage as well. By adopting some of the cues of the audience, scene, or tribe you’re targeting, you can set expectations for your offering quicker. If you’re successful, over time your customer will actually use your brand or your products to turn around and tell the world what sort of person they are. When you get there, it's a good place to be.