Brand and Butter

People don’t buy products; they buy mirrors of themselves

• Tara Ladd • Episode 80

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Want to see a brand contract break in real time? We dig into Disney’s 1.7M-subscriber drop and why it wasn’t about content quality – it was about identity. Customers don’t just buy the thing; they buy what the thing says about them. When a brand’s actions clash with that self-image, churn isn’t quiet or rational; it’s fast, loud, and contagious.

We trace how today’s low-trust, high-speed media ecosystem punishes inconsistency and rewards coherence. From free speech vs hate speech debates to celebrity-led boycotts and TikTok-fueled pile-ons – integrity isn’t a tagline, it’s table stakes. 

As mentioned in the podcast, you can download The Brand Gap Finder here: https://youroneandonly.kit.com/17de8fad49

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SPEAKER_00:

You're listening to Brandon Model. Straight talking, occasionally in your face, no BS, branding podcasts, modern marketers and business owners. For those who want to understand the influence and power of branding and health caring associations, consumer behaviour, and design thinking, it is located field. On your post, our life is sometimes funny, sometimes vulnerable, and often unapologetically one founder and creative director of brand and design agency, your one and only. Hey, hey, welcome to this week's episode of Brand and Butter. So a few things have happened over the past couple of weeks. We've seen Jerry from Ben and Jerry's leave as the co-founder of the business, which we spoke to. And most recently, over the past week and a bit, we saw Disney lose 1.7 million paid subscribers in a week. Now, this is a really interesting story of brand alignment and the modern day consumer. I think as we're talking to our audience as brands or, you know, sending communication out, it is really important that we understand this nuance now. With a world that is so accessible to information at the tip of our fingers, anything that we say or that seems disingenuous will be absolutely ripped to shreds. So transparency is the word that was thrown around a couple of years back, is a fundamental core value that you need to have within your business now. And I think we're watching these bigger brands target and Costco DEI policies both taking contrasting um direction. So we saw Costco drop their DEI policy, and we saw Costco double down, and the financial repercussions of that were huge. And obviously, everyone sided with Costco. I remember seeing online TikTok videos of people leaving their full trolleys, returning them back to Target in order to go and shop at Costco. So we're watching the consumer really step up here, and this is at a much bigger scale uh than we've ever seen before. And it all really trickles down to how we are able to consume media, where we're getting information from, what we've notoriously been exposed to, narratives that have been shaped that are now different across social media as opposed to mainstream media and the diversification of where it's coming from. So it's not just the standardized, you know, three-channel TV anymore, like it was way back when. I mean, it hasn't been that for a while, but it is also like newspapers have all also been abolished. We're looking at online resources, it is a really diluted market, and trust has never been as low as it has now. And so, what comes with that is the rise of brands really needing to be consistent, be honest, be truthful, and to show up with integrity because they will absolutely tear you to part if you don't. So, coming back to the Disney Kimmel sitch, super interesting that one. We saw obviously Jimmy Kimmel, if you haven't been across the news, which I highly doubt. We saw Jimmy Kimmel's late night show be suspended because of remarks that he made about the death of Charlie Kirk. Wherever you stand on that, is you know. Uh, but the interesting fact was the show the show didn't get banned because well it did, it got banned because of a political reason and there was a contradiction between what people thought should have happened and what shouldn't have happened, and it was the pushing the mark, I guess, on free speech, what you can say, what you can't say. There's a big difference, by the way, between free speech and hate speech, and I think that there is the conversation that's going around is quite interesting. Behavior is has never been as interesting. I think that there's been permission for certain behaviours to be tolerated where we otherwise wouldn't have tolerated them before. So it is, it's a really interesting time. And so I guess that we saw people drop their subscriptions to Disney, not because their product got worse, but because people saw the company make a choice that didn't align with who they believed that brand to be. I found it quite shocking that well, I mean, at the end of the day, it's a corporation, right? But I found it quite shocking for Disney who are otherwise considered, and I put an adverted com as woke, which is not a bad thing, by the way. Uh and yeah, I just found that a really interesting stance that they took there. So it was, and when you're looking at audiences, and especially in what you can and can't do, it was quite risky, and we saw that happen. So they lost something like four billion dollars. It was a huge it was huge. And I don't know whether they're going to recoup that. And also interesting play of effect, whether that was just happening anyway, was that like last week we got an email to say that our Disney subscription was going up. So I find it's just really weird timing. So obviously, in alignment to that, when ABC, owned by Disney, suspended Kimmel after the political pressure, what was really interesting was the behavior that followed. So not only did people cancel their memberships, we also saw celebrity call for celebrities call for boycotts and everyday people then followed through. So we started to see these people who otherwise have stayed silent in a lot of places and look, you know, but it it is interesting that people are really starting to to speak out now. And so we even saw protesters appear outside Disney headquarters, and social media was obviously flooded with uh cancellation screenshots, or over TikTok, or Instagram, and within days, obviously, they then reinstated Kimmel's show. Unfortunately, like I said before, the damage has already been done. And this is something really interesting when we look at brand association. So these are the things that you need to know when building a brand. It is so much more than a visual identity. Your brand is your reputation. That's why you have elements of marketing. You have PR, which is a huge thing to maintain, basically to maintain your reputation in the media. And we look at the way that well, I guess when you're looking at a positive to negative association is that it takes uh one negative one negative association knocks out 13 positives. So quite a significant comeback to, you know, recoup from when something like that happens because people are more likely to remember a negative situation. So in alignment to that, Disney's market cap has dropped 1.4 billion overnight, reaching, like I said, up to$5 billion. I think they said$6.4 billion in this report I'm looking at now by the end of the week. Um, and it yeah, it wasn't because of the product quality, it was because of the night identity misalignment. And so I think that this is the thing that we need to be looking at now, is why I've obviously moved into this space and have been for the past few years now, is looking at like building brands and evolving brands to to align with where we're sitting now. I think when I started to talk about this stuff five, you know, three, four, five years ago, probably not five years ago, maybe at least three or four years ago, it was it was really in like bits and pieces. And I start as I started to identify things going on, and obviously I I studied human behavior and I went to uh to uni and was studying consumer behavior and behavioral neuroscience and all of that stuff that dives into behavioral economics and which is basically just economics on emotional economics and how we make choices. And the way that I would explain that to someone is would you ever spend$500 on a bottle of water? And most people instantaneously turn around and go, no way. And I'll say, but what if they've got a loved one held ransom? And then people go, oh, you know, because then once you put the value of what that then means, you're you would happily spend that money in order to keep a family member safe. So it really, you are willing to spend money on certain things when there is an emotion there, and that's something that people need to take into consideration, and it's why economists notoriously cannot predict what happens in markets. They can go by past behaviors, but no one's ever gonna know what's going to happen because people are unpredictable. And you we can't, that's why you see mothers lifting cars off babies when they're in, you know, they've had a car accident or, you know, because they're adrenaline and human behavior just does really weird things. Obviously, that's an extreme, but this is what we need to be, this is the depth of what we need to be looking at. Now it is so much more than, and unfortunately for most people, so much more than just putting it out in a newspaper and being like, buy from us. It's now so much deeper. And so we're in the identity economy now. Love this, it's so my wheelhouse, where people don't buy products, they buy mirrors of themselves. So they need to see themselves reflected in your brand. And if they don't, they simply will not buy or associate themselves with your brand. So when you subscribe to Disney Plus, you're not paying for their content. You're saying, I'm the kind of person who aligns with what Disney stands for, and that's why people go to Disneyland. It's the happiest place on earth and it represents fantasy and story and happiness, and now that's kind of got a tinge to it. It's really interesting. And what happens when that, I guess, uh an identity contract breaks is that people will leave, and they usually become the loudest people to then oppose your brand because you've done them dirty essentially. So I guess there's like if you think about there's like three identity triggers that you should probably understand. So there's status signaling through consumption, which is that your customers are using your brand to tell the world and themselves who they are. So every purchase is a public statement, every cancellation is too. And the Disney boycotts weren't just leaving the streaming service, they were publicly declaring their values. So this is something that's really important. It's the same way as I would always say why someone would buy a badged car or a luxury car, because it's a symbol of that person and what they represent. So that could be a symbol of success, it could be a symbol of wealth or whatever it is. Two don't always go hand in hand. And it is, or it could be an ego thing. You they want to buy something because other people can't. It is, there are a lot of different reasons, but it is a symbol. Otherwise, we'd all just have the same car. And then we look at identity protective behavior. That sounds really weird, but it's basically when a brand takes a stance that threatens someone's self-concept. So they don't just disagree, they literally divest fast, loudly, like I said before, it's not rational, it's like community-based, it's almost tribal. And we're wired to protect our sense of who we are, and brands that threaten that trigger immediate rejection. Like immediate rejection. It's like immediately no. Have you seen that meme? And that is when people will be really pissed off and get online and tell their friends, and that's when the bad news spreads. So that's when you'll see some really horrible things happen. And it's usually this stuff is usually. This stuff usually like it's like a stepping stone. It kind of chips away, chips away, chips away. By the time that the owner of the business or the senior management are aware of this is of this happening, it's like these little subcommunities have already built these little, you know, conversations where it's almost unattainable to switch them back because there's been nothing done in the process of letting that fister. And so you really need to try hard to bring that back, which is why I always say to everyone, you should be constantly messaging and emailing and asking for testimonials. Because if you're not, these conversations will just run wild. Whereas if you're like figuring out these little things as you go and people are telling you things and you're actioning them to essentially put these little fires out, then the fires stay small, they're manageable, you can get rid of them. But if they blow out of the water and too big, like and if it this Disney thing was an in that was too big to manage, you couldn't little fire that out. That was just a massive decision that obviously had ramifications. But I'm talking smaller brands, more you know, like everyday brands, are able to manage this like long scope, unless you do something like an abomination that that goes out and completely destroys everything. But these are risks, right? If you believe in what it is that you're doing and and you risk losing people, there would be things that I would do at the moment that would risk me losing people, and I'd be fine with that. So long as you're okay with that and it aligns to your values of a business, then so be it. Whatever that may be. Um, yeah, it is a very touchy subject, but people will say I don't get political, but business is political. Business is political. Everything that happens in the world from a business standpoint, it is directly correlated to the political landscape, policies, internal culture, you know, award rates on how we pay our staff, the right to disconnect laws came in, all of these things, the way we speak to people, our language that we use, all of these things are tied. And so the more that people start to realize that this system is all connected, that the easier it will be for you to understand how to how to communicate and and connect with your audience. But then there's also the new brand loyalty, which is value alignment. We've talked about value alignment for ages, but we're not just talking about a list of things that get stuck on the fridge and for everyone to go, yep, these are my values. Like you need to live and breathe these values. For instance, I knew the direction that I wanted to take your one and only in. And that meant that I had to kind of weed away from uh a previous audience and move into a newer one, which meant the language had to change. It meant that the way I showed up had to change. It meant that the way that I uh presented myself had to change, not necessarily in terms of the way I look, but more so where I was positioned. So what stages I wanted to be on and what rooms I wanted to enter. And with that comes a new phase of trusting. It's like that next level of business when you grow and you need to be in different rooms to meet new connections in order to expand your network. It's that. So it meant that there was a tough period there for a while. And I'm so glad that I stuck that out because as of this month, it is the most successful month I've had in business with you one and only in the whole nearly nine years of being in business. And I was getting a bit worried there, but we had a big, big couple of clients come through this month, some really super value-aligned clients. So not only are they ava are they value aligned in terms of um, you know, our budget, they're value aligned into who they are as a brand and how we're going to be working with them. And it's just, it's like tick, tick, tick. It was such a a great feeling to know that all of that hard work paid off in the end. But this is what we talk about with traditional brand loyalty is that I buy it because is good is dead. So it the new loyalty is I buy it because it reflects who I am, and research shows the annualized churn rates for streaming services averaged 30% higher. But Disney's was only 17% until values misalignment spiked it by 436% in one week. That is crazy. So they went from being like above standard at 17 when the usual is 30, and then to 433. Uh 436, sorry, correct. But obviously, that's obviously the game of average where you have one incident and it spikes, but that'll throw your average out. But well, that's them, that's done. But what does that mean? So if we're looking at, I guess, from a holistic point of view, is everyone always used to assume that their product was their brand, and it's so not of being trying to explain to people that product branding is almost its own thing. Your product is a brand, your person is a brand, your business is a brand. There are so many different categories that uh sit within the branding space, and that's pretty much just I putting an identity on things that that matter. So your brand isn't competing on features anymore, and you're competing on identity alignment. And so the questions that you need to ask yourself is what identity does buying from you signal? What does not buying from you signal? If you made a controversial decision tomorrow, would your customers defend you or would they abandon you, leave you for dead? See you later. Sayinara. Do you know what your customers believe they're saying about themselves when they choose you? Do you actually know that? But there's another one. Do you actually know what your customers are saying about you behind your back? That's huge, right there. Saying you know and what they say are two very, very different things. And this is a really important thing to understand. The way that we fix these fires are through these ongoing asking questions, fixing problems, and making sure. One thing here is that I'm always really, really trying to be over-communicate communicate the the can't speak, can over-communicate in order to make sure that I eradicate, because obviously things go wrong. I am not um, you know, a human error. So when we fix things up, we make sure that we try and fix that to the best of our ability. It's a classic peak end rule, right? They remember two parts of the experience. It's usually somewhere in the middle or a climatic experience. So something really good might have happened. It might have been when we came up with the inside or when they opened the package when it came in the mail or whatever it is. And then the end rule is the very end of that experience. So if you're working with someone uh on a service and you've asked them to give you something and you deliver that, that's when they will remember remember the final handoff, or it's when they buy, like when they've bought from you, it's like that end experience. Like, was the experience what they wanted it to be? And if it was something wrong, that's when they're going to, they're the things that people will remember. So it's really important that you understand that. So we apply our D3 method, which I've spoken about many times, but our framework, but people are starting to talk about it now, which is great. So I thought I would break it down a little bit, which in my way is the way that I've always done branding, but I didn't really have it written as a framework. It's only been the last two years that I've like, oh, this is what I do and I've documented my things. It's just kind of been put into a pretty visualization to say this is what goes on inside my head. And so we break that down into three core parts dissect, DNA, and design. And so dissect is what is the analysis part. It's the consumer behavior, it's it's market viability, it's the landscape, it's customer psychographics, it's all of these things that are driving emotion to purchase. And when we're looking at, I guess, what identity groups are you serving? And what do they believe about themselves, and what threats do they perceive to that identity? All of these things are the things that build out the identity because when you know about the customer on such a deep level, then you know how to market to them and not sleezily either. I'm talking about ethical marketing. Like if you are selling, as you've heard from a lot of good salespeople, selling is a good thing if you're selling them the right product. If you're selling them something shit, then don't be grub. Make sure that your product is good. And if you believe in your product, there will be like I have no issue putting a risk, like a guarantee risk on what we do because I know that what we do is good. So if someone isn't happy with it, then obviously we will give them their money back. I'm that confident. And so there is stipulation on on whether your product is good or whether it's not, and people will tell you that. And so there it but there is a difference, right? It's understanding um how people feel about it. Is it needed? Are you selling them something that they don't need? I always get really concerned when people sell to vulnerable people because we already know that they're in a state of flux. And to me, it's like they're not in the right frame of mind. You're selling them this dream where in order for them to successfully do the thing that you're selling them to do, they need to be in the right headspace. And I just think that there's some, there's a lot of things going on at the moment that um yeah, I think that there's a vetting process that needs to happen. I'm very ethical in the way that I approach the way that we sell, so I'm a little harder on other people. But yeah, it it is it is a game of um integrity, and I think that that's something that we need to consider. So when we do sell to people, we need to be genuine. Like, don't go out and pitch this big emotional story and tell someone that you're there for them and then turn around after you've got their money and just ghost them. Like, that's just not on. And if you are building a community and you have a community and it's something that you're trying to build, you need to be there 24-7 and nurture that community, or they're gonna talk about you. It's that's this stage of the of our project is really community building. And we will even jump on Reddit threads, we have Google Alerts set up, like all of these things to gain access of the conversations people are having. They're not always having them publicly now, too. This is a thing. We're looking at people moving into private chats and group chats and you know, little sidebar groups and and these subcommunities that are really starting to blow up. And then we've watched this happen with the drop rate of engagement on social media, all these people with vanity metrics like that are dying, but we've just had the biggest month and our vanity metrics are low. Like, you know, and and so I don't care what our numbers are, so long as our Instagram is sending to our website or our LinkedIn sending to our website, whatever it is, whatever the thing that I want them to do is that they're doing, and that's happening. So people will look and go, um, you know, 17 likes. It's 17 likes, you think about it. I only need one person to buy. Um, and that's one project that I get to work on with that person. And I think people really start looking at these stupid numbers and like, one, our engagement rate, even though it doesn't look like it has a lot, is still up at like five something percent, which is above standard, not the best, but above standard. And when you put effort into that and you grow that and you build that, then people will come and engage, right? So it's always about understanding what the intentions are for your brand and your marketing and making sure that you're tacking into that behavior. What behavior is it that you want to drive and who are you targeting there? And then that's when the dissect part pulls apart the competitors. What are they saying? Who are they targeting? And you dive in and you figure out who it is of that market that you want because not everyone is the same. So you look at skincare brands like uh Clinique and you look at GoToSkincare, they do the same thing, but they're very different in terms of their brand personality and who they're targeting. Therefore, they're going to get different, different people within the market. And that's fine. The market is massive. You know, no one is no market is oversaturated. Rihanna skated on through with Fenty into makeup, the most oversaturated space in cosmetics, and is now a billionaire because she simply added shades both ends of the spectrum in light and dark and became an inclusive makeup brand. So it really is just about, and all of that right there stems down to emotion. Who's left out? Who's not being included? One thing that we're big big on here is inclusive marketing. So it is figuring out uh who we're trying to talk to. And when you talk about inclusive marketing, some people go, Oh, I can't be here for everyone. It's like, so what you're really saying is that you're there for these people who are predominantly like, you know, within the space of exactly who you think it would be. And so when we look at diversity, it's not who you think it is. It's if you're trying to, when someone says I'm trying to talk to everyone, maybe expand your language to include some people that may be sitting on these outskirts that still sit within your target market, but you're just you're just not there yet. You just are so close that you could capture this whole outer ring that you're missing because you are refusing, not saying you, but you know, because people refuse to simply change and evolve. And so that's something that I've talking about on LinkedIn at the moment is the ability to be more inclusive into understanding someone's mind. We're in a very different state at the moment. So this is still in dissect, by the way. This is consumer behavior. We're understanding how people think, how people act and behave. And when you're highly strung, you make very different decisions to if you are relaxed and you are calm. And so that is up to you to know who is your audience and where are they sitting right now in the world and what do they believe in? Because you may have two very different audiences that have very different belief systems, and you need to kind of figure out who it is that you want to try and target. Doesn't mean you have to completely eliminate them, but the way that I see it at the moment is that we're subcategorizing even more, we're getting more micro with the way that we're trying to target audiences, and so I put it in the consideration of music. You say used to be we like music, great. Now it's well, I like rock music, which is a subcategory of music, and then it's I like pop punk. So you're going music to rock music to pop punk music, and then you've got multiple, you know, multiple genres of of rock music that you can then, or subcategories of rock music. And once you get into those little pockets, then you hit the dynamite. As I said, LSKD have done a really brilliant job of this in terms of fitness, where they at the top it's the brand of LSKD, and then they have the subcategory pockets. So, and Nike do this as well and any big, you know, fitness, but I find LSKD are doing this, LSKD are doing this really well from a from a community standpoint, from the everyday on-the-ground consumer standpoint. They literally have shoes on the ground and from their stores, from people walking in. They have their yoga group, their lifting group, their crossfit group, their running group. You know, there is a whole range there that they're targeting. And within the brand itself, they then have these little specific pockets or niches that they target that sit within it again. So it is really clever the way that they've done that. And then they've obviously got their brand personality, the way that they show up, the way that they're very inclusive, the way that they show diversity. And that's what people really like. It feels like when you're buying from them that you're buying into this, you're buying into a hug, essentially. It's like a fitness community that feels welcoming and warm as opposed to, and then you can kind of see that. So that's one thing that I've always really liked about LSKD is their approach to community-driven marketing, and they listen. I'm in one of their online groups on Facebook, and they listen to consumer feedback, um, their customer feedback, and they're very active in nurturing that community. Um, and yeah, I think that they deserve all the success that they've had, and now they're becoming a case study. So it is it is really interesting to watch the behavior because it will really dictate the next phase, which is DNA. DNA is your strategy development, it is your brand identity. Now, a lot of people have their brand identity, but it it needs to evolve. So, in my standard brand identity, we have, and not visual identity, that's design, that's next. In the brand identity, we're talking about moving on from the dissect phase, which would tell you who your audience is, where the white space is, in terms of white space being on where you sit in the market, where your gap is, so that you own that category, or you own that space, not necessarily the category, and win. And so when you know who you're targeting, where you sit, what you're doing, how you need to show up, it's much easier for you to rock up and be present because you have a plan. The strategy is what gives you the objective. This is who we are, this is what we do, this is what we're about, this is what we're here for, this is what we stand for, is a really big one. And we live and breathe everything that we do. Ones like um, you know, challenge the status quo is is is a huge one for us, is says something else, but it's that's essentially what it is. And it's like speak hard truths. That's that's what it is. Speak hard truths. It is to open the dialogue. Uh, we want to have discussions, hard discussions, ones that make people feel awkward. But also we want to make sure that the discussions that we're having are helping to make change and make good change. And the the clients that we work with are doing things that enable change. And so that's when we're being a little bit more selective now on who we work with, because we're not just about helping anyone make a buck. We actually really want to help people that are trying to do good things. That doesn't have to be something, you know, outrageous. It was our lingerie client who's using sustainable products to build a sustainable lingerie brand, or our Hackerlily, our uh Laura and her hip surfer, and the brand that she stands for is about like for everyday mums and like breaking down what being a mother is today and providing products that help to alivate the stress so that you can do the things without the expectation. And there is so many different things that we're working towards. Breaking down stigma of sexual wellness with women's health is another one we're working with with uh Jen from the Wellbeing Curators. And we're currently working with Richline who signed on with us yesterday. We're really excited, and they are creating accessible homes uh through building and construction. And so it it really is just about we're putting our values out there. So we're attracting those people that have the same values, and they're also neurodivergent. So I'm neurodivergent, it's win-win-stitch. Good luck. It's gonna be great ideas happening all over the shop here. And I think that that's the thing. When you start to talk about the things that you, who you are and what you do and what you're about, you will bring in the people that that associate and are like you. There is a value alignment bias. When people share the same values, they are more likely to like you and connect with you, obviously. It's interest-based. So anyone that says, you know, don't be likable online, like it's not about being likable, yeah, it is. Yeah, it is a lot. Uh it is. Um, people are not gonna buy from you if they don't like you. It's it's actually that simple. Um, so obviously there are other mechanics that are involved in it, but I see so much bullshit advice go out online. I saw something the other day about um, I'm gonna get ranty. Am I gonna get ranty? I saw something go out the other day about what not to say, and you shouldn't be saying this and you shouldn't be saying that. And I was like, well, it depends, right? So it was like, don't whinge about things that are going on. And I said, I'm thinking, well, it depends what you're whinging about. And if the thing that you're whinging about is a common shared pain point with your audience, then whinge about it because it means that you're building a like-minded, as so long as it's a solution that you're not just gonna become like a rant page, but if it's a genuine point of discussion and you're inviting conversation on a topic that is going to trigger a response with your audience emotionally, 100% talk about it. So yeah, I'm like, there are too many nuances involved in people that are stuck in the old way of branding and that what we're doing now is really shifting. And so, yeah, I've just been watching this change. This was one of my biggest breakthroughs was earlier in the year when I did the presentation for the comeback conference with the digital picnic, and that was um the new the modern day consumer, and we were talking about culture and the modern day consumer, can't even remember what I called it now, brand identity in the modern anyway, but basically it was speaking about the evolution of where we are today. So, you know, these things that have happened over the past couple of months, a couple of months, the past decade, have been huge for societal change, huge in behavior change. We're talking Me Too movement, you know, big, big changes there. We're talking George Floyd murder, we're talking about COVID, we're talking about Israel-Palestine, we're talking about the what else happened recently? Oh, whatever's happening in America. All of these things are behaviors that are that trickle down, right? They they trickle on through and they they spark change, they spark discussion, they spark rage, and they spark emotion, or they spark sadness and empathy. And all of these things that people are talking about are things that that means something. Another thing to add to that list was the rise in neurodiversity. And it wasn't the rise of more people being diagnosed, it was just that more people became aware of their neurodiversity because of COVID kept everyone inside, and it's st it's like very much aligned to the environment that you're in. Uh, huge things, like huge things have happened. And so when you realize these things, like even working from home changed. How you buy, where you interact, the way that your day now runs is changed. And also the stress that people have been through over the past 10 years has sent everyone's central nervous systems into overdrive. And so now we're stressed, so we're overwhelmed, so we make different decisions. All of these things impact the way that even working memory is impacted by that. Oh, we could go on for ages, but this is the thing that we need to take into consideration. So you have your dissect stage where you're looking at the audience's psychographics, what it is that they stand for. Then you move into DNA. So we're talking about the development of the brand identity. So if you were to talk to one of your friends, all of that person is like their brand identity. So who they are, their personality, what they stand for, everything that they do and believe in. It's like if a friend of yours went and did something against what you thought they were, like they did something and you didn't think that they would be like that. All of a sudden your perception of them shifts. You know, if they're in an abusive marriage, for instance, and you go, oh, okay, did not think you would be like that. Or, you know, they cheat on their husband and you didn't think that they would be like that. Like, or they align or say something to someone that you think is derogative or racist and you don't agree with that. These are the things that are happening right now, and they're dividing people, and and and this is, I mean, for good reason, but we look at these conversations on how people are situated, what they're hearing, who they're hanging around, all of this stuff is correlated. And so it's important for you to know where are they hanging around, what are they doing, what is it that they like, what is it that they don't like, because if you're not diving into those micro reasons, you're going to miss out because people are just so individualized now. So it's really important to dive even further into the psychographics. When you know that, you align the brand that you have and what it is that you do with the people that were more likely to buy from you. And so then you get in alignment there. The design phase is the last phase. I mean, depends. If you want to talk about the whole thing is a design, it's all design, you know, it's constructing. But the design in terms of the visual design comes last. It's like if I said to you, hey, let's go out and you say, Where are we going? And I say, To a wedding, you go, Great, I know what to wear. But if I haven't told you where we're going and oh, and and I say just get dressed, you're not gonna have a clue what to wear. So these people are creating these identities and focusing too much on their logos and not enough on their actual brand themselves that they're not understanding why they're not selling anything and it's because everything that's baked underneath the hood is empty. And so this is the thing. The visuals are not cutting it like they used to. People are wanting the messy middle, they want to know the process, they want to know the people, they want to know what you stand for, they want to know what you do, they want to see the action, they don't want to see you putting your values up and then there be no action. If you're gonna say you're inclusive, or you're going to say that, you know, um you well, let's just say inclusive, and then you go and do stuff that is not inclusive at all, or people don't feel included in the things that you're doing, then you're not inclusive. It's or you know, I have integrity, and then you go and do something that does like people will then go, nope, and then we go back to the distrust that we saw before. And people will not refer you. They will not share your stuff, they will not refer you, word of mouth will die, and you will lose all visibility. This is this is why this stuff matters at the moment. Design helps to paint the visual aesthetic. So if you're going to a rock concert, let's bring that back up again, you're more likely to wear attire that would fit within a rock concert. You would look a bit weird if you dressed up in a cocktail outfit and went to a rock concert. So it really is about looking the part for the audience that you're trying to attract. It's why when we go to business, we wear business attire so that we look like we're stepping into business. I wrote an email on that not long ago about breaking the conformities there. But the way I break conformities is I wear a blazer with a statement shirt and some sneakers. We're seeing that happen with that changing as well. So the design is there's so much involved in just that aspect alone. Colour psychology, font psychology. So I don't know if you've heard of the BB Kiki, Boboa, and Kiki, sorry. I've mentioned this a couple of times in past episodes, but we talk about the sound of boboa. I think it's boboa, bobo, something like that. But it sounds rounded, so people were more than likely to do rounded shapes. And when they said Kiki, they were more likely to do sharp shapes like triangles and pointed edges because the letters sound or the sounds were were sharp sounds. And also you probably assimilate the the letter shape itself, a B versus a K. And so it is it is without even realizing we have these stored memories of expectations and generalizations and stereotypes that are just naturally there. And the way I say environmental, for instance, is you would think of green because naturally we think of the environment. And the environment has trees, and trees are green, and it's just the way that we think about it. So green's used for environment. It would be really weird to see something about the environment being in hot pink. And so that's what you call a heuristic, like your brain shortcut. It naturally assimilates green with the environment. And this is so many, uh, this is like a whole kettle of fish. And we talk about this from, you know, if you're trying to be a reputable and professional brand and you use like a Comic Sans, no one uses Comic Sans for that reason, that has its point, but you know, if you use this comical kind of, you know, cartoony font, then it's not going to align with like high luxury. So it there are all of these like assimilations and associations that you need to build into the visual represent representation to make sure that the brand looks the way that you're wanting it to appear and perceive to people. So the design builds the systems that consistently reinforce the identity your customers, you know, that you want your customers to see about you and that you want to project. So that every touch point, every decision, every piece of communication should say you belong here because this is who you are. So the bottom line is now in 2025, almost 2026, what the hell? Brands have discovered that they're not just selling products anymore. We've seen this shift. I don't know if you've seen it. I've been watching it happen. I've been trying to warn everyone that I know, and everyone goes, no, it's gonna be fine. And then they I've noticed people are slipping back in, asking questions. I'm like, I've been trying to tell you. And yeah, they're selling an identity, and that is so deeply aligned to people behavior, which is why I studied that because it is a it's a it's like a social experiment. And when you break the identity contract, even once, it can cost you a shit ton of money. So over the next, I've decided to get my shit together, and all of this stuff is uh coming on out, but yeah, it's going to be really consistent with what we're talking about. This is something I've been building for a really long time, but we're going to be talking more about the psychology of um, you know, how people are buying and using their decisions to buy. Um, and this Q4, we're talking more about like the psychological gold mine of um, you know, what people are doing and how they're making decisions and why they're buying and all of that type of stuff. So if you want to know why your brand is not hitting, or if you're trying to find the white space I was referring to before, and what your actual brand identity signals, then you can jump into our show notes. I've put popped a link in there for our brand gap finder session. So, um, session, it's a download. It's basically a scorecard for you to go through and just assess yourself to see what you rank, and then there'll be an email that comes through that gives you a link that you can go and have a look at where you ranked and what you can kind of do from that point. And it'll show you exactly where your identity positioning breaks down. It's pretty cool. So the Brain Lab is also going to be accessible soon. I have been finalizing some mini touches on that. So I know that a lot of you were on the wait list for that. So I will shoot an email out for that. Secret Squirrel Business, if you actually download the brand gap finder, it's at the end of that. But that's a big one. It's all about consumer psych, how people make decisions, how you can build that in, and that will be rolling on out very, very soon. But until then, be very cautious of what's happening. Make sure that you're looking around at the conversations. Uh, set up some Google alerts in the spaces that you're in and see what the news is saying. Um, I think that that's the best way to kind of get ahead of the game, but also just to be wary of what's happening. It's just to stay in the know, especially when news is just so quick to change now. And, you know, what happened yesterday is old news by lunchtime today. So that's it for this week. I hope you enjoyed. As usual, if you would like to have a chat, slip into our DMs on your one and only, or you can slip into my DMs on LinkedIn or my personal Instagram. Totally up to you. Until then, I will chat to you soon. Did you like that episode? Hope so. Because if you did, why don't you head over to whatever platform you listen on and create any review? It's much appreciated and helps others know what we're about. If you want to follow us, you can find us at you want to underscore AU on Instagram or head to www.ywananonly.com.au

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Tara Ladd

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