Fame Requires a Little Bit of Fucking Personality

Every brand wants fame.

Brand fame.

Mental availability.

Cultural relevance.

Salience.

Talkability.

Distinctiveness.

They want customers to recognise them instantly.

Remember them.

Search for them.

Talk about them.

Prefer them.

Maybe even love them.

Excellent.

So what does the brand sound like?

“Warm, approachable and confident.”

Right.

Anything else?

“Human.”

Of course.

“Authentic.”

Naturally.

“Playful, but never silly.”

There she is.

Anything you absolutely don't want to be?

“Polarising.”

Ah.

So you'd like millions of people to notice, remember and potentially love you…

while having as little personality as humanly possible.

Good luck.

Everyone Wants to Be Famous. Nobody Wants to Be Weird.

This is the contradiction.

Famous things are distinctive.

They have edges.

Characteristics.

Things you can imitate.

Things you can quote.

Things you can recognise from across the room.

You know what they would say.

You know what they wouldn't say.

You know how they look.

How they behave.

How they make you feel.

But brands often spend enormous amounts of time removing exactly those things.

Too weird.

Too cheeky.

Too specific.

Too irreverent.

Too confident.

Too silly.

Too much.

Could we make it a little more universally appealing?

Sure.

Just give us a minute to remove its face.

Personality Requires Exclusion

This is the uncomfortable bit.

Having a personality means making choices.

If you're funny, some people won't find you funny.

If you're irreverent, someone will think you're inappropriate.

If you're premium, someone will think you're pretentious.

If you're weird, someone will think you're fucking weird.

If you're opinionated, someone will disagree.

That's what personality is.

Imagine describing a human being:

“What are they like?”

“They're appropriate for everyone.”

Sounds terrifying.

“Do they have a sense of humour?”

“Where contextually relevant.”

Jesus.

“What do they believe?”

“A broad range of things designed to maximise appeal across key audience segments.”

Get away from me.

Yet somehow this is how brands are built.

Your Tone of Voice Document Is Not a Personality

We've seen the documents.

Forty-seven pages.

We are:

Bold, not arrogant.

Playful, not silly.

Confident, not cocky.

Human, not unprofessional.

Unexpected, but always familiar.

Provocative, but never controversial.

So.

Nothing.

You've created a personality entirely from the fear of becoming a personality.

Then come the examples.

Instead of:

“Sale ends Sunday.”

Say:

“Don't sleep on this. Sale ends Sunday!”

Fuck.

Nike must be terrified.

Famous Brands Give You Something to Hold Onto

Think about brands you can recognise without the logo.

There's something there.

A voice.

A character.

A worldview.

A visual language.

A behaviour.

A recurring joke.

A distinctive shape.

A way of speaking.

A point of view.

Something.

That's important because memory needs handles.

You need to give the brain something to grab.

If every campaign changes personality depending on which stakeholder was most involved, you're making the customer's job unnecessarily difficult.

One month you're funny.

Next month inspirational.

Then purpose-led.

Then premium.

Then suddenly you're posting:

“POV: when your Monday needs a little pick-me-up ☕”

Who the fuck are you?

The Logo Cannot Do All the Work

This is how you end up with enormous logos.

The creative doesn't feel particularly distinctive.

Make the logo bigger.

Still doesn't feel like us.

Put the brand colour everywhere.

Still generic.

Add product earlier.

Can we watermark the whole thing?

Maybe tattoo the brand mark onto the creator's forehead.

At some point, branding became confused with showing people the brand assets repeatedly.

Those assets matter.

Obviously.

But the most powerful brands build recognition through more than identification.

They have a recognisable way of being.

You know it's them before they tell you.

That's fame getting interesting.

“But We’re a Serious Brand”

Congratulations.

Serious people have personalities too.

Banks can have personality.

Insurance brands can have personality.

Super funds can have personality.

B2B brands can have personality.

Funeral homes can have personality.

Not every personality needs to be:

UNHINGED SOCIAL MEDIA INTERN HAS DISCOVERED CAPS LOCK.

Personality isn't synonymous with jokes.

It might be authority.

Warmth.

Obsession.

Restraint.

Intelligence.

Beauty.

Bluntness.

Generosity.

Confidence.

Oddness.

The point is that there is something recognisable there.

Something more specific than:

Professional, trusted and customer-centric.

That's not a personality.

That's the minimum requirement for remaining in business.

Stop Trying to Sound Like the Customer

This one gets strange too.

“We need to speak the language of Gen Z.”

Dangerous sentence.

Three weeks later, a 52-year-old executive is approving:

“It's giving financial freedom 💅”

Stop.

Please.

Personality doesn't mean impersonating whoever you're trying to sell to.

Your dad doesn't become more relatable by saying “rizz.”

Your bank probably won't either.

Know your audience.

Understand their language.

Understand the culture.

Then decide how you belong in it.

Famous brands don't desperately shapeshift into every audience they meet.

They bring themselves to the conversation.

Creators Expose Personality Problems Immediately

This is why creator marketing can get awkward.

You hire a creator because they're funny.

Distinctive.

Recognisable.

They have a voice.

People voluntarily follow them.

Excellent.

Then Brand sends the script.

“At [BRAND], we believe everyone deserves…”

Creator:

“I would never say this.”

Brand:

“Could you make it feel natural?”

Sure.

“Hey guys! At [BRAND], we believe everyone deserves…”

Nailed it.

Creators are interesting because personality is their business model.

Their audience knows immediately when they're suddenly speaking Corporate.

Brands could learn something from that.

People follow personality.

They tolerate messaging.

Fame Is Not Awareness With More Money

This is important.

You can buy enormous reach.

Put the logo everywhere.

Sponsor everything.

Hammer frequency.

Eventually, lots of people will know you exist.

Useful.

But fame is different.

Fame has meaning attached.

People know something about you.

They recognise the behaviour.

They have an association.

A feeling.

A story.

They can describe you.

Sometimes badly.

Fine.

At least there's something there.

If I ask someone about your brand and the answer is:

“Yeah, I've heard of them.”

Congratulations on awareness.

If they immediately tell me the joke, character, campaign, attitude or thing you're known for?

Now we're getting closer to fame.

You Can't Build Fame From Individual Campaigns That Don't Know Each Other

Another problem.

Campaign One:

Beautiful cinematic emotion.

Campaign Two:

Chaotic creators.

Campaign Three:

Dead-serious product demonstration.

Campaign Four:

Corporate purpose film featuring slow-motion children.

Campaign Five:

“We're feeling cheeky this summer 😉”

This isn't range.

It's an identity crisis.

Fame compounds.

The next thing should make the previous thing stronger.

Customers should slowly build a richer understanding of who you are.

Instead, many brands reinvent themselves every campaign because a new brief arrives and everyone wants to do something fresh.

Fresh is good.

Amnesia isn't.

Consistency Does Not Mean Making the Same Shit Forever

Important distinction.

Personality should be consistent.

Execution shouldn't have to be.

A funny person doesn't tell the same joke every day.

A stylish person doesn't wear the same shirt forever.

A filmmaker can make wildly different films and still have a recognisable sensibility.

Same with brands.

You can surprise people while still feeling like yourself.

Actually, that's the sweet spot.

Consistent enough to recognise.

Interesting enough to keep watching.

Brand guidelines often nail the first half and accidentally murder the second.

Personality Makes Creative Decisions Easier

This is the operational benefit nobody talks about.

When a brand genuinely knows who it is, decisions get faster.

Would we say this?

No.

Would we work with this creator?

Absolutely.

Would we make this joke?

Yep.

Would we respond to that trend?

Not us.

Would we make this beautiful, expensive campaign that could easily belong to four competitors?

No.

Personality becomes a filter.

Without it, every decision goes upstairs.

“Do we think this feels on brand?”

Nobody knows.

Schedule meeting.

Personality Also Makes Approval Harder

At first.

Because personality creates edges.

Edges create opinions.

Someone will want to soften the line.

Someone will worry the joke is too much.

Someone will ask if we're alienating customers.

Someone will suggest:

“Could we make it work for both audiences?”

And there goes the interesting bit.

This is why personality needs protection.

Not blind protection.

Brands evolve.

Culture changes.

You learn.

But if every distinctive characteristic disappears the first time someone internally feels uncomfortable, you don't have a brand personality.

You have a mood board.

You Don't Need Everyone to Love You

This is perhaps the hardest thing for brands to accept.

Fame doesn't require universal affection.

It requires enough people to care.

Obviously, don't deliberately make people hate you.

That's a fairly exhausting strategy.

But the pursuit of universal approval has a cost.

You become broader.

Safer.

Less specific.

Less recognisable.

Until nobody particularly dislikes you.

Success.

Unfortunately, nobody particularly loves you either.

And love is quite useful.

Love gets repeated.

Recommended.

Shared.

Defended.

Remembered.

Your Brand Needs Something People Can Take the Piss Out Of

This might be our favourite fame test.

Can people impersonate you?

Can they parody you?

Can they make a meme about you?

Can a comedian describe your ads and everyone immediately knows what they're talking about?

If yes, congratulations.

You probably have distinctive characteristics.

If nobody can parody your brand because there is literally nothing specific enough to exaggerate…

That might be worth investigating.

Parody is recognition with a funny hat on.

You need to be known for something before anyone can take the piss out of it.

Being Interesting Isn't the Same as Being Loud

Personality doesn't mean screaming.

You don't need swearing.

We do.

You don't.

You don't need stunts.

Memes.

Mascots.

A chaotic TikTok account.

A founder posting shirtless from a sauna about disruption.

Please don't.

Some of the strongest personalities are quiet.

Specific.

Controlled.

The key is intentionality.

Why are you like this?

If the answer is:

“Because our brand strategy says we're bold, human and optimistic.”

We've got work to do.

Fame Is Built From Repeated Evidence of Who You Are

One campaign won't do it.

One viral post won't do it.

One funny reply from the Community Manager won't do it.

You build personality the same way humans do.

Behaviour.

Repeated over time.

What you say.

What you don't say.

What you make.

Who you work with.

What you find funny.

What you care about.

How you react.

How you behave when nobody handed you a campaign brief.

Eventually, customers learn:

Oh. That's them.

Beautiful.

Now you have something media money can amplify.

Before You Buy More Reach, Ask What You're Making Famous

This is the question.

You want awareness.

Great.

Awareness of what?

You want fame.

For what?

You want 10 million people to see the campaign.

Excellent.

What do you want left inside their heads when it's gone?

A logo?

A product?

A feeling?

A joke?

A character?

A point of view?

A distinctive idea?

Because putting more money behind something doesn't magically give it personality.

It just means more people meet it.

And if what they're meeting is a carefully approved combination of:

Warm. Human. Confident. Approachable.

They're going to meet quite a few other brands at the same party.

Give People Something to Remember

Fame requires repetition.

Distribution.

Consistency.

Distinctive assets.

Good media.

All the serious marketing things.

But underneath all of it, there needs to be something worth becoming famous for.

Something human enough to create a reaction.

Specific enough to recognise.

Consistent enough to remember.

Interesting enough to repeat.

Maybe some people won't like it.

Fine.

Maybe management needs a minute.

Fine.

Maybe someone says:

“I'm not sure every customer will get this.”

Also fine.

Every customer doesn't need to.

But somebody needs to feel something.

Because nobody becomes famous by being vaguely pleasant.

Nobody tells their mate about a brand because its tone was appropriately approachable.

Nobody falls in love with a personality designed by committee to offend absolutely no one.

If you want people to know who you are, eventually you have to decide who the fuck you are.

Fame requires a little bit of fucking personality.