Brand and Butter

Visibility To Memorability: What 2025 Taught Us

• Tara Ladd • Episode 86

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In this episode, I'm chatting about something that's been on my mind: why are brands spending more on visibility but becoming more forgettable? I share my thoughts on the psychology behind consumer behaviour and how storytelling makes brands memorable. If you want to know how to connect with your audience in a more genuine way then you'll like this one. Listen to see how you can make your brand more memorable.

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SPEAKER_00:

You're listening to Brandon Bolo, 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 healthcare and association, consumer behaviour, design thinking, can impact locate the thinking field. I'm your host, Marlone, is sometimes funny, sometimes vulnerable, and often unapologetically full. Welcome to this week's episode of Brandon Butter. I want a bit of a gripe today. And not that it's not at anyone is at the centre of this gripe, but it's more about the behaviours that I'm seeing at the moment and I guess the general conversation that's surrounding it. I just don't feel like it's deep enough for where we're at. And so this is something that I want to is as I'm clicking about with points because I get off track. I want to talk about. So things have been bugging me all year is that everyone keeps talking about visibility. And in 2025, we've seen more people spend money on visibility than ever before. And the absolute irony is that in that is that more people or more brands are becoming more forgettable. And the interesting thing about that is they're not failing at marketing. And this is the this is the conversation. You're not doing this, and you should be doing this. And look, I've been guilty, I've said stuff like that before. But it's so much, it's so much deeper than that. And I often wonder whether the conversations that I want to have are too deep for where people want to meet me, which is the knowledge gap. So I'm trying to stitch together the this is my whole point. Is that it's not that I don't know what to say, it's that I need to kind of say it in a way that people can understand it. Because I can go to I'm that I'm that person at the party that will go deep into discussion that it feels like inception. You're like, how am I getting out of here as you climb your way out of like the stairs? So what I think brands are failing, if anything, is to understand the fundamental role that they play in shaping reality. You're probably like, what do you mean? Well, let's well let's take a look at Coca-Cola. They basically, in case you didn't know, invented the modern-day Santa. So the red suit, the jolly face that we all know. That was literally a soft drink company reshaping culture so fundamentally that we don't even question it anymore. That is the level that we need to be thinking at. So let's start with what's actually broken. My answer well, it's not that it won't surprise you, but it will talk about the things I think that a lot of people aren't really touching on at the moment. And I'm hoping that in some way or another you go, oh yeah, like that to me is a win when you go, I didn't think of it like that. Let's have it. I want conversation, I want people talking. Because what I think that brands are still failing to understand is consumer behavior at the fundamental level, which is why I'm learning all about it because I love psychology. So for those that may be jumping in for the first time, I've studied behavioral science, behavioral economics, you know, neuroscience, and currently enrolled to do a grad cert of business psych. And I I just love this conversation of decision making so much because it really does come down to our own realities and how we are brought up in the world. So basically, when I talk about the fundamental level, I'm talking about brands are constantly fixing surface issues. By that I mean updating logos, refreshing websites, posting more content while completely missing the deeper reality. And I've seen people that have absolutely nailed, you know, their past content really struggle at the moment. And that's not that they're bad, it's that we're moving so quickly now that people need to be on top of it. And that shit is stressful. So, what I mean is technology is moving really quickly, that people behave the people behavior is completely you know rocked. It's it's shifted as we know it. And technology adapts, behaviors change, and with that comes shifts in pop culture, information gathering, diversification of consumption, which is just a really you know glamped up word of just saying different ways that we consume content, different channels. You know, we've got so many of them now. Our attitudes change, belief systems change, and community, which you'll hear harped on about left, right, and center. But most brands still market like it's pre-2020. Except today it's about understanding belonging and how people identify themselves. So we're talking about connection from a people, like identity system point of view, not from, oh, I like this brand and I'm gonna go buy it. You need to, you need to know your people. And now anyone that's been following what I've been talking about for a while would know this. And congratulations, you're probably ahead of the game because of the things that we're talking about are really coming to the front now. It's kind of one of those things where I've been talking about, I'm like, oh, finally, validation, right? You can be on the track to something, but if no one's talking about it, you're like, am I wrong? Or is it like, am I the trauma? So let me give you some context. COVID locked the world down. Now I talk about COVID because COVID was a massive shift. A lot of people want to bury it away and forget about it, but this literally rocked society to its core. Most people turned to what they knew they could do at the time, which was basically consume the whole internet. Right? They were online 24-7. What else can you do? This caused a massive shift in how people changed on a much wider scale. So we saw both harmful and helpful content, mind you, which helped to help or not helped, depending on which way you're framing this, shift the way people consume and how they see themselves. So then came the fatigue. There is too much online consumption, and people are overwhelmed, they've had enough and it's enough. So the overloading of AI now has seen some people now mistrust brands. And it's not just because of AI. What comes, what has trickled on from AI is the ability to potentially cut down processes of the thinking process. If I think in the way I look at it, is if you were an experienced in what you do, it'll be amazing. AI has been amazing for me in terms of consolidating my thought process and using it to systemize. Because I'm just like, blah, here's all the thing. It's like, now here's a little pretty order that you can talk about that in. And I'm like, yes, thank you. That helps the audience in terms of communication to process a flow in the way that I talk, rather than me just going, here's an idea, here's an idea, here's an idea, now what do I do with all these ideas? It's helped to formulate a system. So I've been saying AI has been really helpful for framework-building systems and not to sell them, but to follow them internally. The reason why businesses work and they sell in the long run, if someone wants to buy a business, is not only because the product is good, but because the way the business is run, the system that it's run on and the way that they do things. If you've got really rock solid systems and processes, which so many people miss, which is also customer experience, this is what can help shape your business. However, a lot of people have been using AI, AI, uh uh, AI, artificial intelligence, to generate their thinking. So much so that people that I know that have been using it, like you can tell that they're using it and they've lost their own voice in the process. And it kind of sucks in that sense because you know they've it's like a hamster wheel, right? The world's moving, you know you need to do something, everyone's jumping on. What do I need to do? They're doing this over here. Let's go over here, let's jump on, run, run, run, run, run. And then all of a sudden you've lost the whole premise of why you've started business to begin with, or the whole reason why you differentiate yourself to begin with. This is why I've gone a little bit quiet with your one and only. I'm very loud in my stories on Tara Lad, because I've got pinions left, right, and center. But there's no structure there. Your one and only needs a structure. And everything that I've loved to do free-flowing has needs needs some kind of balance. And this is where I've been struggling because I don't like to adhere to doing things because everyone else is doing them, or what's and and this is the problem. I'm like, I so I'm so PDA. For people that don't know that, that's like pathological demand avoidance, which means if I'm going to do something and someone is like, you need to do this, I will be like, Well, I'm not doing that now. It's a problem. Anyway, there are a lot of people like that. And I find that with AI, it's just regurgitating the same shit. And I think everyone's aware of this now. So it's happened a lot faster than I thought it would. Thank thank you. Great. The way that I'll look at it is like a seesaw. If you have a seesaw and any kind of thing that's evolved in technology, it's the bell curve of the tipping point. I don't know if anyone's read Malcolm Gladwell. I'm at this stage I should be getting royalties off this book. I mean, there's all there's also, you know, you can counteract arguments of the book, but what I really love about the explanation of the tipping point is the bell curve of early adoption to innovation, to trends and it dropping off, which is basically how pop culture runs itself. And you could look at it in the case of using social media. You know, when it first started, you had to adopt a whole group of people onto it. Once it was on, it just became normalized. Hit the top of the bell curve, it just be, you know, drop off. You're like, I'm on social media, like great, so is everyone else. It's not a it's not a special thing. Anytime there's a trend or something new or a technology that comes out, it's the early adopters that will test it. And it takes them testing and talking about it and figuring out whether it's going to work before the general mass public will jump on board and adopt this technology. So if you're in business, you're probably seeing AI more than the standard person who works a nine to five. They may not use it as much because they don't need to. And so it feels like it's everywhere for you because you're using it more. But we're kind of that early adoptive stage, right? You'll see the people that have completely reshaped their businesses around it. Interesting. But it's a tool. It is a tool, and it will always be a tool. And to give you some back history on this, and I think I've mentioned this before, but when plastic was invented in the 60s, I believe, might have been before that. But I remember in the 60s, in one of the books I was reading, they mentioned that people thought they were going to be building houses out of out of plastic. Now they definitely wrapped furniture in it. I don't know if throwback to anyone that remembers that. But we that didn't happen. That didn't happen. So everyone has these big outlandish ideas of AI taking over the world, and look, it can be problematic. But at the end of the day, there are people also there who adapt and evolve, and it's called neuroplasticity. So this is why there's always a generational shift in thinking, because the younger generation have evolved into the world that we're we are living in now. Birthright versus the older generations who have had to adopt these things. And it happens, it's a circle. It's you know, it's a cycle of of how things work. Gen X caught the back end of the internet kind of adoptive, but you really saw millennials, hence why they're called millennials, is because that also known as Gen Y, by the way, they grew up with the internet introduction. And when I say grew up, I mean most of us were teenagers. So we're still developing our prefrontal cortex and the way that we shape our minds, whereas most Gen Xs were in their 20s by that stage. So opinions and realities, ideologies, and thought processes that have really already been established. Whereas we were still in that learning curve of understanding and being nurtured. So that's why that's really important. Gen Z, again, born into this. And then you see the older generations of you need to go outside and play in the grass. And it's like, but the world is just not like that anymore. And some of the people that I see on their phones when I'm out and about, the older generations are the biggest culprits. I see the younger generations are have actually got a bit more balance with how they use their technology. Anyway, so much for structure, I just completely went off there. But coming, let's come back, let's come back. So most people turned to what they do during COVID and you know consumed online content. Again, this caused a massive shift in how people changed on a much wider scale. You see that as I just spoke about the generational, you know, shift. But the fatigue came hard, and AI has contributed to that because it's almost like it doubled down on the same shit that was already being produced. Good ideas that haven't been thought out yet haven't been established. Therefore, AI hasn't got that down yet. Like it's going by preconceived information. Good new ideas, innovation hasn't been developed yet. That comes from people and experience and emotion. And the fatigue from online consumption has created like this inauthenticity and connection. It's causing friction and hesitancy in the way people buy. So getting them to buy is taking longer. Now, add to this the economic climate and high inflation. People are, you know, they're pinching their pennies if they have any of those. And we're in a time where people are spending what they need to. There's been such a drastic change, you know. When things like this happen in the market, it goes up, it comes down, it goes up, and it goes down. But this has been like this for a really long time. And so people then start to get really stressed out. So their emotions are really exacerbated. Stress levels are high, it's overwhelm. These things then ricochet through through the way that they buy. Like how you buy when you're stressed is very different to how you buy when you're not stressed. And this is the thing that people need to understand. This has created a scarcity urgency and consumers feeling pressured in a market that feels like panic. I spoke about this briefly last week. Briefly, it was like a whole podcast episode, but it I spoke about that specifically with Black Friday. But so from that, people are feeling really disconnected, and the brands that are doing well are the ones who showcase the real stories and the real people. It's almost like ad-libbed. It feels feels ad-libbed, but they're bringing in that real life connection. So if you were to meet them in person, that's who you would see. It's I cannot be and this is what I've been trying to figure out how to do it. What's my way of doing this? Because I'd naturally do it on my stories, but that has no structure. So again, this is where it gets really confusing and what I've been really trying to build. AI adds fuel to the fire with people feeling like nothing is real. And there's even like the the younger gen are now even saying that's AI when they think someone's saying bullshit. And I think that's hilarious, like in real life terms. So if you're spitting bullshit, like making up a story, they're like, that's AI. And I find that so hilarious that this is now part of the the communication that we're using. Younger gens are also very savvy and they can pick that shit up a mile away. Like I will look at something and go, I'm not, I don't even know. And I consider myself to be someone that's quite tech savvy. I am online 24-7. And these kids just get it. So it gives me hope slightly. I am one of those people that champion the younger gen rather than put shit on them. Anyway, coming back. So people feel like nothing's real. And with this, we've seen a spike in real life connection. Yay! Touch the grass, we say. The problem isn't that you need better content. The problem is that you don't understand how brands actually work in shaping perception and reality. So here's where it gets interesting. Let me tell you a story about Coke and Santa. So let's come back. Because this perfectly illustrates what brands don't understand about their own power. And yes, even the smaller brands. I think if anything, smaller brands have huge power because their risk is less. Anyway. So let's let's go back, right? I did a whole case study on this when I was doing marketing at uni. Anyway. So before 1931, right? This is how we're going way back. Coke's a legacy brand. Remember that. Santa Claus appeared in many different ways. I did a reel on this like two years ago. So if you feel really happy to go back through a feed and find it, go nuts. Might even post it in the comments, but I'm gonna talk about it now, so there's no point. So Santa, Saint Nick, whatever they want to call him, was displayed in so many different ways. There was like tall, he looked like an elf, um, sometimes stern, dressed in different colours, so he's like in green, there was red. So red wasn't just invented by Coke, but he was in a bunch of different colours. There was no signature look. But during the Great Depression, are we noticing an alignment, by the way? Coke commissioned an illustrator, Hudden Sunblum. God, if I've said that wrong, shoot me. But he reimagined Santa for their Christmas campaign. Now, what they created wasn't just an ad. They created what we now see as cultural reality that is so deeply embedded in our consciousness that we cannot imagine Santa any other way. The jolly, red-suited, rosy cheeked figure. Yep, that one is brand psychology so powerful that it literally rewrote culture. Culture. Culture. This is what I mean when I say brands shape reality. So we buy badged cars to represent status. We wear Gucci or Chanel signatures to showcase wealth. And these aren't just products, they're perception tools. Obviously, not everyone can buy those things, and that's exactly the point. This is the core of the brand that everyone is only skating the surface of. People don't realize emotion comes before logic. I had a comment saying this exact thing that's clocked well over 900 likes now within a week. Because I don't think people realize this. What resonates with well, it's because it resonates with what people intuitively know but can't articulate. So the psychology here is about narrative bias. So our brains are wired for stories, which is why storytelling is so important. But when it's presented in a narrative, well in the narrative format, hence me trying to restructure all of my content, the information becomes more memorable and impactful. Coke didn't just advertise, they embedded themselves into the cultural story of Christmas itself. Now, 2025 revealed that consumer attention and trust operate on completely different rules. So attention fragmentation is that the average person encounters or comes across like ten thousand plus brand messages daily. The trust erosion is that post-pandemic, I guess the spec skepticism and you know, the distrust plus AI saturation means that authenticity signals feel unreliable. Decision fatigue means that consumers use cognitive shortcuts more aggressively. This is why brand reputation matters and why consistency is key with how you speak about your brand. So if your brand requires mental effort to process, you've already lost. Make it easy. So to give you some real examples from the year, I guess you could have a look at Black Friday. So the brand that people actually remembered weren't the ones with the deepest discounts, they're the ones with the strongest memory structures. So visual distinctiveness, emotional association, cognitive fluency, which is just basically an easy way of saying it's easy to remember, it's easy to process. There's no fuckery in the middle of it. Consumers couldn't tell you who had 70% off, but they could instantly recall brands that made them feel something. We've also seen the rise of boycotts. So consumers are using their money to prove a point, investing their money where their values lie. Conversations are happening in group chats, Reddit threads, forums, and DMs. So online behavior has changed with how people connect on social platforms. Now we saw this with Tesla. We've seen this with Target. This happened with the Target ad, not the Target ad, the Gap ad. Um, with the girls from Cat's Eye and created that nostalgic. That was a positive, by the way, nostalgic versus Tesla and Target being negative. Actually, I might dive into that. Tesla, we all saw why those um that slumped, but then we saw uh Target, they in US anyway, massive slump in sales because they decided to eliminate a DEI policy, which they had performatively promoted prior to a policy being able to be dropped post-new administration, and it created a shift in the consumer's mind who used to buy from them by saying, We thought you were this and now you're this and I'm no longer supporting you. In contrast, we see brands like Gap who have brought back a nostalgic feel and brought a modern version in to redesign or recreate, which was Cat's Eye, which is a put-together band from Netflix, which they're amazing. And they're very on hot on trend at the moment to create something that they did years ago to bring back nostalgic vibes. So there's ways to do things and there's ways to not do things. And these are obviously big topics that people have been talking about this year. But the importance is that we're seeing the next generation's buying behaviors change. So from those before them who obviously think very differently into the way that the next generation have changed, it always happens, but it's happening quite quickly now because we're exposed to different things based on, again, the communities that we're in, and social media has exacerbated that. Not all bad, some very good, especially in regards to inclusivity, diversity, and understanding people, which I don't see as a bad thing. Actually, it's pretty much the premise of what our business has been built on for built from. So, with that, the younger gen are more politically aligned, they're environmentally conscious, and they're aware of social injustices. And all of this will trickle down into the great wealth transfer, which is like 64 to 82 trillion dollars, it's like a really massive number over the next decade. So boomers handing that wealth to their kids, that's the transfer. And so when values shift, when value shifts, when the values shift, go, I couldn't get that sentence out, so does the financial shift. So where people value, money will go. And if you're seeing money handed over to a completely different thinking generation, the money will be put there. So what needs to change? And I'm gonna be really blunt here. Brands need to stop saying what do we do and start asking, how do we want to be seen? The goal is to align your brand to the perception that you want to set. So go out and lead with intention and then back it with action. So you need to understand the type of client or customer that you want to work with or align the messaging to connect with them. And that will repel the ones that you don't want. You need to stop asking how do we look and start asking how do we register. This shift requires well it requires you to step outside and look in as an outsider. And this is where biases come into play. So you've got to be able to step out, get external feedback, because sometimes the thing that's blocking us is ourselves, and in most I can say it's 90% of that. Ego, fear, all of these things, routine, stagnation. So how do we register? The shift required from visibility to memorability, from clarity to distinctiveness, from presence to psychological relevance, big one there, from aesthetic consistency, so the way you look, to cognitive consistency. So it's not just the way we look, it's how are we being retained. This is something we've always been really big on with you one and only. It's why we don't always go for trends. Trends are important, obviously, but we're all about how what is the easiest way for us to communicate this language to our audience to create the right message. This is why we do what we do. This is why it's so important for us to understand the psychology. And from what do we want to say to how does their brain process us? Because businesses need to be in full alignment with who they are and what they do from internal right through to the external, which is why culture matters. The brand that you build in-house ricochets externally. If your staff are unhappy and the processes that you have internally are broken, that will carry out. This applies to smaller brands right through to, you know, large corporations. The culture of the business is what people are looking closely at. And I don't believe a lot of them know what theirs is. I will talk to people from a founder's perspective in group settings, and they will be talking about having issues with hiring, and they will be talking about having issues with staff. And in that moment, I almost want to say have you thought that it's a leadership issue? Because it's not always the per look, don't get me wrong, there are people out there. But we need to also understand that we are the culture we create as leaders. If we create, and people are always going to take advantage of that. I am making sure that I'm devil's advocate here. It's not always a one-sided thing. But an internal culture, if you've got a really great place that you've set up to work, there's incentives going around, there's rewards given, people are heard, they feel like they belong, there's a way for them to discuss things, you have an open area for them to come and talk to you and not feel like you're going to just shut them up or talk over them. They will tell you the things that you need to know. And the people that tell you those things are the ones that you should be respecting the most. Because a lot of people don't give a shit. But these ones are the ones that can help you to change. Now, people will watch what you do internally even when you don't think that they're watching. They watch how you treat staff, they watch the conversations that you have, they watch how you build the culture, they watch how you treat people, they watch how you treat certain people. And I watched this in my old agency, and every micro detail is a message. So this is where action really comes into play. The culture of the business is what people are looking at. Business owners and C-suite execs believe it's their leadership, which I agree with, and it's true. But it's also, as I just mentioned, the collection of associations, employees, inclusivity, policies, custom service, value alignment, and action. Micro details. So you can say all this shit at the top, but unless that's met at the micro level, it's just performative. This goes to leave, the policies that you have around leave, the I guess the skills and learning capabilities that are available to people within the organization, how you pay them. I have always paid my staff well because I want them to feel valued. Again, it's a leadership thing as well as implementing the processes to create the micros. So before any brand decision, you need to ask what is happening in the consumer's brain when they encounter this, or the customer or the client, because consumer can sometimes feel sterile. If you can't answer that, you're guessing. Because I can guarantee I could list off 10 people right now that think they are absolutely nailing it, and they're not. And I will say and try and hint, and they will source the information that will confirm their own bias. So let's talk about this a bit more. This isn't an attack, by the way, if you're feeling attacked. When you actually understand this, when you solve brand confusion at the cognitive level, everything changes. So brands feel aligned. The content flows because it's coming from a place of clarity. A lot of the time it connects all of the missing pieces. So that one issue fixes the mountain more that they thought they had. It's kind of like the domino effect. My website's broken, or my messaging's broken, or you know, I can't attract these people, or my content's broken, and my visual identity is out. Did I just say that? Whatever it might be, you may go, oh, this is because we need to be focusing on this now. Oh, that means that we need to be in this place. Oh, this means that we're attracting this type of person, and this is the pain that they have. Crap, this now changes the messaging. The messaging is now centralized around this. This impacts the way that we show up and look visually. This means, you know, and it's like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. The problem is everyone's doing all these surface level things, and the real issue is like three steps backwards. So let's put it down really simply. For instance, I'm trying to articulate. The assessments on repositioning may find you a gap. Let's put this in a more structured way. And finding that gap in the marketing that you're unaware of, this then changes the direction of the business, which changes the placement messaging and the visual identity and the conversation points to sell the product or service. When it becomes authentically aligned, that's intuitively intuitively felt, the the the choking on my own tongue, by the audience, therefore builds trust and compounds to loyalty, which is when you will get the word of mouth. Getting people to do word of mouth is a direct correlation of what they think of your brand. If no one is sharing the word, it means that there's an issue with trust there, or it's a correlation of what your brand means to them. People share what they're proud of. That's important. So then once you've got this all aligned, you stop competing on the visibility front. You're not fighting for attention, you're already occupying that mental real estate, the recognition. They remember you. You're part of the consideration set. Your marketing becomes more efficient. Every touch point reinforces the same psychological position. Less waste, more impact. Capiche. Price then becomes secondary. When a brand is psychologically relevant, customers stop comparing on price alone. I know this because we had this shift. I noticed at the beginning of the year it was still very price conscious. Towards the end of the year, which we weren't even too much on social media, by the way. I was active on LinkedIn, very active in email, very active in podcast. No ads. Not saying you that's on my list. But it came from the reinforced long-term messaging, long-form content. You still need socials to bring them to that, but that's where a lot of it came from. A lot also came from in-person experience. So when I spoke on stage, people had conversations with me. That's when they got to know who I was, and that's what trickled through to the rest. We are in a really good position right now. And I can happily say that all of that hard work that I did over the past two and three years of sitting in this stock has paid off. And I'm feeling so alive, so recharged. And so I guess if you're feeling a bit stuck at the moment, just know that that feeling comes back when you're feeling that clarity. And everyone around you feels that as well, which is also a direct correlation of, I guess, the visibility factor. When you're feeling great, everyone else can feel that too. It's your aura. Word of mouth does work. People can describe you then because you're easily memorable. They know how to describe you. So the ones who become easy to explain become easy to complete. In other words, they can sell you because it's easy for them to sell you. If you can't sell yourself, they're not going to be able to sell you. So I guess here's my hot take. Might ruffle some feathers, don't care. Saying it anyway. 2025 saw values come to the front. Go back through any of my go back through any of my content. I say this. It's been happening for the past few years. But aesthetics were switched with authentic, unpolished takes as consumers want real people and real representation. Brand experience was at the front and center. Meaning that we're watching brand building become a big metric as opposed to a hard tactical marketing approach. Again, what I've been saying. What I say to people is that brand strategy and brand itself is the long game. What you do in between is the tactical. Put it into marathon terms because it's my easiest analogy, is that the marathon is long. It takes lots of training, lots of planning, lots of time for you to hit the goal that you want. You can't do that in a month. But what else is really important is watching someone do that, watching them change, watching the identity shift. That is the real learning factor of it. Nobody wants to do that. This is throughout everything. Weight loss is a prime example of that. Now, this isn't any hate on anyone that needs to take weight loss meds. Not at all opposed to that for health. Big health fan over here, big medicine believer. However, any other person will try any fad diet to lose the weight quickly, not understanding the base premise of health. And this is the issue. They would rather the quick fix than the long-term change. However, the long-term change will keep that weight off. We also talk about this in terms of marketing. The process of going through the shit helps you to know what works, what doesn't, so you can apply that moving forward. Again, we could bring AI into this, and if you're using AI to help to cut that process down, you're actually not learning the process at all. You're hoping to have that answer you. So you're never going to be able to enhance what you did because the process of learning has been cut through a cheat code, I guess. I mean, to be fair, there are some things with AI that have enabled my thinking to shift, but not to the extent of really getting in there and figuring it out. And if you can't do that, hire someone who can, and I know that if money is on the line for you, that's where it's kind of the time versus money thing. So I guess, as I said, 2025 saw values to the front. People screaming for authenticity. We're watching brands need to know who they are in order to build that connection and trust. And this is where the brands will win. It's, it's put, it's, we've already, I've seen this. In me, in my clients, I've seen this. And we're working behind closed doors. You know, this isn't even loud and proud and shown to the world. So the brands that will fall out will be the ones that refuse to see this shift in the market changes. And they will stay headstrong in their approach that they think that they know what they're doing because they may have had previous success. And they won't do the deep reflection work that's needed. I always say the business will only go as far as the founder will grow. Obviously, that's not going to work for a corporation, but in most instances who we're speaking to, we're working with that, you know, the founder is still a big part of the process. And if there is a C-suite, then it's the same thing, but with the decision makers on the board. That's why you always see big changes when procurement comes in or it gets changed. And they're like, right, we're making changes, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, and whole wee, the whole corporation changes. There's restructures, there's ways of doing things, and it's the same thing, just on a mass exodus level. 2025 didn't kill bad brands. It just made the psychology visible. The brands that failed this year were always failing. We could just finally see it. So the quick fixes and the quick wins and the easy way to market to consumers, it was easy before. I can hands on heart say that, easy before. But now we're just, it's just visible. It's open. We're watching people that know what they're doing shift and they're doing it quickly, and you know who is good at what they do based on that. Now, you could still be good at what you do, you're just stuck. You just need to find the key to get out. But that is what I'm talking about with learning growing self-reflection. So Black Friday performances told us everything we needed to know about a brand's psychological position. If you won on discounts, you haven't built a brand. You've built a price comparison point. I guess you can, well. No, I'm gonna stick with that. I think that that's true. I think we also need to take into consideration the market that we're living in at the moment. But if people are expecting to see those discounts, that's they're gonna hold on. If you want to build that respected brand, that's why Apple don't discount ever. You've got to know what it is that you stand for, you know, so people will spend the money when you release those amazing new products front of line. They're two different consumers, by the way. So if this is hitting home to you and you're sitting there thinking, shit, this is us or this is me, good. Because recognition is the first step. And I want you to know where your brand is failing to register. How do you do that? Lucky for you, I've created a brand gap finder. And I did this because I was watching this happen. So it'll take you like 10 minutes, 15 minutes. It's free. It will show you the cognitive gaps, so the mental gaps that you can't see. And it requires you to ask people things. I'll drop the link in the show notes. But for now, it's really diving into understanding the why, how things are changing, and then asking yourself, are you shaping reality or are you just adding to the noise? So that's today. Big deep one. Again, if you have any questions and you want to chat, please feel free to slide on into the DMs because this is a big conversation that is about to roll out, and I don't want you to be stuck there trying to figure it out on your own. I'm happy to help. But in the meantime, I will chat to you next week. 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 an review? It's much appreciated and helps others know what we're about. If you want to follow us, you can find us at Yuanonly underscore AU on Instagram or head to www.yuananonly.com.au

Head Shot

Tara Ladd

Host