Reading Beneath The Brand Surface

When the market feels off and the metrics look 'fine,' something deeper is usually broken. In this episode, I dig beneath the surface to show how stressed consumers, shifting identity, and fast-moving tech have quietly changed the rules of branding (and why a new logo won’t save you). You’ll also hear why brands like Tupperware, Kodak, and Blockbuster tripped because they misread the behaviour change. 

If you’re ready to step off the treadmill, reassess with honesty, and build a story that fits the moment, this one’s for you. 

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Transcript

Host Intro & Setting The Tone

SPEAKER_00 0:03

You're listening to Brandon Butter, for straight talking, occasionally in your face, no BS, branding podcast for modern marketers and business owners. For those who want to understand the influence and power of branding and how caring associations with consumer behaviour and design thinking can impact what people say, think and feel. I'm your host, Mara Ladd, is sometimes funny, sometimes vulnerable, and often unapologetically blunt. Founder and creative director of Brandon Design Agency, your one and only. Hey, hey, welcome to Brandon Butter. This week is a good one. I've got, I've gotten very deep on my thinking lately. And it's really interesting because I give this advice to other people and thought I'd take it upon myself. Where there was an element of my thinking that I was holding back. And I don't know whether that I was questioning that or whether I didn't think people were ready for it, but I've decided just to go for it because I feel like what I'm talking about is of deep importance and a lot of people need to be understanding the connection to it. I feel like so many people are skating on the surface and they're not realizing the nuance in a lot of the change that we're going through, not only for brand and consumers, but for just general society and the narratives that are around that, which impact how we buy things. They impact our identity and the way that we see ourselves in the world. So today, what I want to talk about is reading beneath the surface. So I want to dirt go. Dirt go. I want to go about eight layers. Eight layers, I cannot talk today. Oh, and I don't edit this out, so welcome to my true self. About eight layers deep. This happens when I've got five conversations going in my head as an ADHD, and I'm like, try and say the word, but my mind has gone six conversations in front, and my mind, my mouth is still trying to catch up to what my mind was doing. Anyway, coming back to the story, thanks for taking thanks for coming to my TED Talk. What I want to speak about is that so many people are trying to address a problem. So obviously there's something that's going on, or you can feel it, like there's a vibe, right? The vibe is off for a lot of people. Even when you're doing well, you can't control the consumer market. And regardless, even if you're doing well, like all of the other things are still going up. Inflation's still crazy. So now there's uh another war in the Middle East, you know. Thoughts on that on another day, but we're going to see probably petrol prices jump through the roof. So all of these things will be a knock-on, a direct knock-on effect to consumers. That's me speaking from a privileged state. Anyone in these worn-torn countries are going to be experiencing so much stress and anxiety on top of the ones that already are in these places. And that's a whole level of extra conversation that I have on my personal page. However, on this podcast, what I want to talk about and specifically talk about is consumers and the way they're spending and brands and the way that we need to appeal to them. Because it is all correlated. Because if we are living in a very stressed environment, we spend accordingly. If everyone's holding their money, everyone's going to hold their money on everything. Same in business, same as at home. And it the same thing is you've they're not in that place that we were in pre-2020 when everyone just used to buy stuff because they could. Everyone's had to like really pull back and spend in the places that matter. So what I want to do is just give you an idea of where we should be spending our, well, not necessarily spending our money, but where we should be investing our time to find the right problems so you know where to invest your money. It's essentially risk mitigation. You know, if you know the problem, you're not going to spend all this money that you don't have on things that aren't going to fix the problem. It's like sticking a band-aid on an open wound when you need stitches first, right? Fix the problem, then add the patch. Was that a bad analogy? Probably. Anyway, so yeah, what I what I want to talk about, because it's a really common thing, is that so many founders keep coming to me like, I just need to do this, I just need to fix my logo, or I just need to fix my offer, or I need to just find out where I fit. And it's like, I mean, that one's kind of right. But what it really buckles down to is a repositioning strategy. And a lot of people don't want to talk about that. So when you feel that something's off, this is what we want to talk about today. So we're going to be naming the things that feel off and trying to, I'm trying to break open, you know, the elements that are within a brand so that people can understand that. Because a lot of people put the pressure on the marketing, but the marketing isn't going to work if the brand is broken. The end full stop. And a lot of people think that once they've done brand, that that's it, it's done. And they might change, you know, their logo or update that, but that's not actually a rebranding strategy or a repositioning strategy, so I should say. Uh, to give you a difference, repositioning is that maybe the market's changed. It has. And so this is where I find a lot of brands need to be right now. So what you were saying, even 12 months ago, needs to be updated because we're moving through such a fast moving time that the way people are feeling emotionally are aligning to the way that they're spending their money. So if you are not paying attention to that, you are going to miss out because what will happen is that burying our head in our in the sand and trying to fix other problems is simply going to make you stagnate. Because what happens there, and I know because I did it, I had to go really deep in to realign your one and only after COVID, mainly not because of COVID, but because of all of the things that happened. If you're new around here, my firstborn son was born in 2019, had a liver transplant, smack bang in the middle of COVID. So I was dealing with that hospital stays. I fell pregnant again at the end of 2020. It was on purpose, by the way, it wasn't bad. We were going okay, and it seemed like everything was fine. And then Delta hit. So phase two, stress, anxiety, and all of that was on top of the pandemic, all of that was on top of inflation and everyone stopping spending. It was just, it was a lot. It was a lot. And so I actually really had to go back to the drawing board on what it was that I wanted to do with the business. Now, what we stand for as a brand has remained the same. I've actually gotten stronger on what we stand for. So we were always about not putting shit to market, ever. I put that everywhere. That was on my post-it note. What do you want to do? Do not put shit to market. And so ever since then, it's just been about really finding my feet on what I wanted to talk about, what I wanted to do as the business, what oh as a brand, and what I wanted to specialize in. And it got more niche, more specific, more directed. And now we're in a really good place because with that came lived experience and it came growing with the market, growing with the expectations, and growing as a person. That process was so freaking hard because I actually had to look within myself and find my weaknesses. No one wants to talk about their weaknesses. They will continue to do all the things that work, but refuse to do the things that are broken. And with that, unfortunately, most times comes a hit to the ego. So you really need to be strong and resilient enough to know what's broken, listen to the negative feedback, unfortunately, or the feedback that will help you grow. Because once you fix that, that is when you can move. So what I will say is let's break it down. So I'm trying to riff it out with you so that you can do do some good thinking here. So what I want you to try and do is name the frustration before you've said a word. So, you know, pick one or two to have an idea and write it down. Like if you've changed your messaging, do you think that that's it? You know, is it that you're not getting any money? Is it is it that you're stressed out or you feel like you're running a hamster wheel, which was my issue. And figure it out, right? Like, so when you can name the that's a pain, right? It's a pain point. And everyone will say, find what your client's pain points are. Half the time we don't know what our own are. And what I was finding out is is there's two things that I think that a lot of people really need to understand, and that there's metrics that no one really takes into consideration. And well, there not that no one does, but it's it's just put this simply, right? You either spend time or you spend money. And a lot of people think time is free, but but it's not. So when you have no money, you spend more time, and you're more likely to buy things that are DIY or consume things online that are free. When you have no time and you have money, you're more likely to invest in people to do the work for you, or getting someone else, you know, into consult. That's when you'll hear privileged people, unfortunately, um, that will say to you, go and spend money, if you're not in the in a if you're not in a good space anyway, go and spend money and get someone else to do it for you, and you'll save so much time. And it's like, well, that's great, but I don't have any money. And so you go, that's where the differences are, right? So every single person that has an employee buys buys back themselves a day, essentially. So if you have an employee that works for you for three days, that's three days of work that you don't have to do. And so you're spending money, but you're buying back time. And the same thing happens if you are by yourself. And so, really, what I would say is how much is your time worth? Because it comes down to, and everyone that obviously is successful knows how to outsource their time. So there's a big difference between micromanagement, macromanagement. Obviously, if you don't know what that is, micromanagement is you having your fingers in every single pie that goes through, or macromanagement is trusting everyone around you to be able to do the things that you need them to do, and therefore you can delegate easier. Again, that comes with time and money, and that's when a lot of the privilege kind of really comes through. But not only just privilege, it actually comes down to really good. I and I hate using the word discipline because I as a neurodivergent person that really makes me it triggers me because it's it's not an indication of of working harder, if that makes sense. Because I find that discipline, everyone thinks that you just need to try you try harder. So I actually want to take that back because I don't like that word at all. I think it's just a case of uh delegation and understanding how to map and plan. Again, falls into bad. So anyway, if you're an ADHD or and you find that really hard, that's when we need to look at completely different extra load a mental load management. So how do I go and manage this when I'm dealing with this? And then that's that's the stuff that people don't think about. So you have to do two extra steps in order for them to just do the one. And that's where I really don't like the thinking. So if it was me, what I did was map out an outline. So I think when you have um, when you're someone that needs a meticulous plan, it it also really depends on what it is that you do. You I have an outline that I can talk to because sometimes I go rogue and I just need base got base boundaries around my strategy. So this is the strategy for the month, this is the strategy for the week or whatever it is. Um, here is the or here's the strategy for the month, here's the outline. And then what you actually want to try and do is just write the content or create the content for that piece or you know, whatever the marketing is. And if you don't know what your brand stands for and you don't know who you're trying to attract, all of that will go to shit, like really, really quickly. And so who you what you put out in terms of marketing is what you are going to get back in. So if you've got marketing going out and you're getting views and you know, likes and whatever, but the people that are coming through the doors or people that are inquiring are not good caliber, your marketing's still broken. What you're actually ticking is a vanity metrics box and not a proper conversion, you know, uh good lead box, whatever, you know. So, what I would say is that you need to really understand who the brand is, what makes you different, how to amplify that message. Essentially, how do you tell people more about it? Why should they go to you? Because if like everyone at this stage, there's so many different people doing what it is that you do, unless you've got some like banging creative, innovative space that you've managed to nail, which is very, very rare, by the way. Um, you will be competing with other people in your space. And so the thing that it comes down to is price if you have not created a strong enough differentiation for them to want to choose you. And so people will then blame the client or blame the lead or whoever it is that's coming in and say, oh, they don't want to spend the money. Um, which sucks, to be fair. It does suck. But what it really does come down to is that there's a messaging break. And the messaging will break if you don't know how you're positioned and you don't know who you are in the market. Or more importantly, the audience that you're talking to doesn't know who you are in the market. So one thing that we did over the past three years was really nail down on who we were and what we wanted to achieve. So nothing has changed about us as a brand. In the whole eight years, that strategy is sound. But what has shifted and moved is the way that we conduct business. So who we're working with, why we're working with them, the messages that we actually want to be talking about. So our brand narrative, what we're aligning to, what our values stand for. Um, and they have stayed remotely, well, not remotely, it's not the right word, but they have stayed relatively the same. But we've focused more on that um well, just doing things in terms of better inclusivity, being very open that that's what it is that we stand for. And again, that has aligned a lot with where culture was at. We were we built off the foundation of DEI, which is diversity, equity, and inclusion, plus A, accessibility if that's your space. And obviously, as someone that's neurodiverse or neuro has neurodivision is I've figured out that neurodiverse is not the right terminology. It's I am a neurodivergent uh with two neurodivergent children. I've had a kid that's had a transplant, so we've been through the disability space. You know, there's a whole bunch of things that stack up that puts through lived experience of having to work through these systems. And so I felt really drawn to these spaces, wanting to give back after what's happened. You know, we were transplant, we I have a transplant recipient in my house, which means that we that that feeling I've always wanted to give back. And so for me, it's like doing pro bono, having a having a business that's able to get good money to do good things. So if I can do amazing work and I can live my life, then I can donate to other brands or do pro bono work and not have to waste, you know, worry about time or or money coming in because if we're making enough of it, then I can allocate my time to those people. But anyway, what I would say, right, is to most brands diagnose at the top level. They're not actually going deep enough to find the real problem. And so they spend six months fixing the wrong problem. You know, you go and you're like, yeah, it's just it's the way that we execute our videos. Let's go and make 50,000 different videos, and then you go and do all these videos and you might get a few views and visibility, a few leads might come through, but you're still not making that connection. The issue is that the reason that people will connect with you is community and belonging. And a lot of brands I've noticed um can't take feedback, um, and or they won't take feedback, or they're just a bit blinded by feedback. And what it does is that they pick and choose and cherry-pick, confirmation bias, uh, what they want to listen to. And with that means that they will miss, and this is this has been for almost a lot of the people, and look, I've got people that have come in and they're amazing, they just listen. I mean, but they're dream clients. There's always the people that have to sit down and be like, look, I really know that this is what you think you need, but it's actually this over here. And sometimes they will get to the point where they're like, no, no, no, this is what I need. And I'll be like, okay, you do your thing, and I just give up because I can't convince someone to change. That's not my that's not my job. I can put all the feelers out and I can give them the information, but if they're not ready to make that change, I can't make them do that, unfortunately. So I do the best with what I can and what I've been given. So what I will say that if the most the biggest thing that people will come to, I actually turned away a client earlier in the year. Well, they turned away me, but I kind of made it so that they would. I wouldn't do just a logo for them. So basically they came and they said that they wanted a logo designed and that they'd created their strategy through Chat GPT or something. And when I looked at the strategy, it was so half-baked that I was like, I cannot design you a logo based off this because it's not right. And they were look, they understood they respected my opinion, but I felt that I may have offended the partner of the relationship who had used Chat GPT. And I was like, look, there's nothing against what you've done here. But what I am saying is if you're going to spend money, spend money in the right part first. Putting alert, we just need to start business, they said. I'm like, I know you do, but you don't know who you are. So what are you going to do here? The money should be spent on finding out who you are first. You could whack together a logo, and here I am saying this, you could, you actually can whack together a logo with aerial font and you know a circle if you really wanted to, uh, so long as you're not infringing anyone's um trademark. But the point is, what real what brand really is coming down to now is all of the different pieces that that make the brand a whole. So you could have a bit over there that's a visual identity, and the bit that's the messaging, and the bit that's customer service, and the your product, and then where you're placed, and visibility and authority. And so all of these things are part of the puzzle piece, also called associations, and they create the brand perception. And if you're coming through and saying, oh, something's wrong, something's broken, I just need to fix my visual identity, that's not gonna fix it. It's going to roll a shit in glitter, is what I say. So it's pretty much just like someone got dirty out in the street and you just go and throw a new pair of clothes on without washing them. Like it doesn't, you know what I mean? It's like the person could change, but that you're not, you're not actually changing the person within. You're only just changing the outfit. So what I really need people to understand is is the fast moving traction that we're seeing at the moment with how people are changing emotionally. There is a lot of shit happening in the world, right? Geopolitically, I literally every week I say this, and I it's it's because I keep jumping online and everything that I see through my feed is so generic, it's so surface-based. I'm like, they are they are not going to get it. And so last week in the email that I sent out, um, feel free to message me and I can send it to you. I spoke about brands that have gone out of business. So I spoke about Tupperware because they didn't update their distribution chain. So they relied on, you know, women coming together at parties and sharing amongst their friends, word of mouth mentions, and everyone would have a few drinks and buy themselves some Tupperware for the kitchen. Couple of things wrong with that. One, no one has any bloody time to meet for a party anymore. Two, everything's so damn expensive. Why would you get it there when you can jump online and get it half the price? Which, you know, that's a conversation. Um, three, is they still consider that a gender norm. So, you know, women don't necessarily want to align to being in the kitchen and, you know, buying, you know, anyway. So there were so many different things wrong with that. And then by the time they realized that people were going online to do their shopping, because that's the way that society worked, they were too late. They thought that their brand would carry them through and it did not. And they stagnated and they went out of business. The same thing happened with Kodak, who invented the digital camera, thought film would outlast, didn't. They did the same thing with Blockbuster, thought video shops would outlast, didn't streaming took over. Ironically, Netflix pitched their streaming services to Blockbuster and they declined. So we're seeing this now. The same, I keep saying we are in the same pattern. GFC, COVID. Inflation, you know, we're seeing that happen post. We're also seeing the fact that we went through a different technological advancement. So we saw Web 2.0, which was the social media rise, and then we see we're seeing now the rise of AI and Web 3.0. And so that's where we're at right now. So we're it like patterns always repeat. This is why people that have been in the game for a really long time will be able to identify these patterns and just apply a different logic to what they're dealing with at that time. Without that base of understanding, you can't think of a different form of innovation on top. So if you know the base, the base being being able to identify that pattern, and then you go, that's the problem. Let's try different ways on top of this problem. Everyone's still going to be fit trying to figure out what the problem is. So if you're plug an AI and you don't know anything about past experience, or even the first thing of knowing how to prompt that, and which most case most people wouldn't even prompt that, you're then going to start fixing the wrong problem because the actual identification of the of the baseline hasn't even been solved yet. And so this is where people really come in. So fixing the copy, fixing the logo, all of that stuff is good when you already know what the brief is that you're designing to. Otherwise, you're going in blind. It's like building a house and saying, What color are you going to design the front room? And you're like, I don't even know who's going inside it yet. The building hasn't been done. And for all you know, there could be a different form of light that comes through the front front window and it projects a different light into the room that changes the colour. So yeah, there's all of these different things that we have to understand. There's Also, bias. So when we're too close to our brands, we are not in a right state of mind to be able to make a choice. We need someone to come in to be able to call out that bullshit. Now, a lot of the times we're going to make good decisions, that's fine, but we will also make bad ones. That's why no one's rich in a day. And so it really is that process. And I think we're losing that as well to AI. Like everyone's just outsourcing the process and not sitting with the thinking and the resilience of building that space. And that's where we really come up with new ideas. We're trying to cut time, right? There's the thing again. Cut time to make more money. And really what we're seeing here is everyone's like, oh, we can be just like these big guys, these big millionaires, these big agencies by using AI because we don't need people. Sure. Yes. But at the same time, we're also making them richer because we're feeding in our ideas and they're now extending them further. Anyway, that's a whole different conversation for another day. But the founders' blind spots are usually the biggest problem. Or the senior leadership. Everyone has bias. That's why team communication is always really good. You know, if you've got a team, always get them in on big decisions and don't and let them talk. Right? Let them talk. So I think what people think versus what's actually true, right? People assume that most uh problems live at that surface level. And so I've already kind of had this conversation, but it it really does come down to being able to sit in that hard space. And when you know where that hard space is, you will start to identify it. So the biggest thing that I would say to people is that most brands aren't broken at the moment. They're not. It's it's really not about um them doing it wrong. It's just that things have moved. And if your job is to do whatever it is that you do well, you're not expected to be able to see these shifts. Like I am online and reading and studying, and this is my space. I have all of the industry things coming into my inbox because this is what 20 years of data collection has done. That is my job. It's not your job to know my job. It's like if I go to, I don't know, to the gym, right? My personal trainer, I want my personal trainer to know. I thought I just saw that because my trainer was on the screen. I want my uh personal trainer to know more than me in what it is that I do. I don't want you to know what I know. I want you to know what you know in that space. My mechanic, I don't want to go to a mechanic. Yeah, I want my mechanic to know how to fix my car. I don't expect him to be an A-grade marketer. In fact, it actually devalues. I've could see, you know, a lot of these uh builders that go, you know, I've made, and I'm in building at the moment, I have building client, but they'll be like, you know, how I made my business at$100 million. And I'm like, aren't you a builder? Like, why are you promoting that? And then and then that to me, that's like a different perception. Anyway, that's like a whole different thing. So what I what I do want you to try and identify is the real problem. What's missing? What's what's what are you feeling? What's the frustration? Name it. When you can name the frustration, it's like for me, it was like I knew that I needed to do something, but I didn't know what it was. And so I had to list down and I actually had a really good conversation with a couple of people, but one of them was my mate Kent King, who's Kent Cultivate, if you follow him online, and we were riffin' for ages, and he was able to pull out all of these things about me. And I remember him having a conversation, and at the end of it, he goes, Do you know what I see you as? And I said, What? And he said, A trailblazer. And I was like, hmm. He's like, Everything that you're saying is not coming out in your content, and I said, That's it, and I was holding back because I knew that my thoughts and my what I wanted to say would rock the boat. And look, I've never been afraid of rocking the boat, but they were gonna really rock some boats, and so now I've just been really open. I'm very, very opinionated on my personal brand page, and it comes out so naturally because it's what I want to talk about, and so I found it really hard to talk about that on your one and only because I felt that it was going through a filter, and so I read a really good quote yesterday that said every decision is easy when it's hard is because you care about it, and I was like, uh, and I and I mean or you know, it's you care about whatever it is that you you're doing, and I found that really important. So I guess what you can do right now um isn't to overthink everything because we're always trying to solve a problem, it really is to kind of go and try and name the feeling, figure out what's going on, work with someone, riff with someone, try and have that conversation. Um, but in order to go forward, I've realized especially, we actually stripped back a whole heap of clients and we I let my staff go, unfortunately. Um, love them, still in touch with them. But yeah, I really skinned back to the bones to start again because I knew that I didn't want to build on a on a fragile base. I actually wrote about this in a much deeper conversation in terms of identity as who we are as people on my Substack, which you can find in my personal brand bio. Um, and probably in this in the show notes somewhere, I think I've put them down there. But yeah, it's it's much deeper than that. We're talking about where we are versus how we were supposed to be or what we were promised and how society is now isn't what we were promised when we were younger, me being a millennial. So yeah, it's a really good identity switch up, but yeah, it ties into a lot of other people because a lot of other people are feeling like that. I thought by this age I would be here because this is what they said, and so we feel like failures in our business if our business hasn't gotten to where we want it to be. And when you actually figure out a lot of this stuff, you realize that there's emotion coming through what it is that you're doing, and you have to redirect that. So what I did was went back to studying. I love human behavior, so I studied psych science. I'm not telling you to go do a degree, that's just me being ADHD, like obsessed. But that's what I went and did, and it really helped because I felt this new power of learning something that made me feel so, you know, excited to tell people about what it was that I was learning. So now I've started Substack because that dives into a much deeper conversation. But yeah, so what I would say, listen to me, going off tangent. I even have an outline here to follow and I've so gone off track. But I guess if this is the one thing that's been circling, you know, what I would do is understand what a brand system is. It's not just a visual identity, a brand identity system is who you are, what you do, what you're about, who you're here for, the way that you then extend that out. So the brand extension and you know, the brand application, which is how it's actually applied, and then the brand extension is to where it goes out. Um, the brand touch points, the brand experience, like there's so many different elements of brand that I don't think people understand. But when you really do get into those areas, you start to find the clarity that's been missing, and you really start to find the things that you should be speaking to. So there, oh God, take a breath, Tara. So, what I would say is um, yeah, understand what the problem is and figure out what the process is and don't always rush to the solution. I know that is so problematic, but I think that within the society that we're living in, with everything needs to be now, now, now, now, now, now, now is that we're running on this treadmill, and it's like when you step off, the treadmill still goes and everything else goes slow-mo, and you're able to see around you. That treadmill is society right now. It's everyone telling you that you need to perform. If you don't do this, you're left behind. If you don't, and I've really tried to not use that language now because no one's getting left behind if we all stop. And I think everyone just needs to take a break because these platforms that we're all on they award performance, they award this fast-moving culture. And we've we were out of it, COVID happened and we went back into it. And so, yeah, it really is just about reassessing and setting and identifying. And yeah, I guess that's today's episode. And if you liked that, please um don't forget to rate and review, which there's a little thing that will tell me that in a second. But yeah, just jump in and ask any questions. If you have any, please feel free. I am always around to have a conversation with someone. I love to do it, I love to help. Um, and aside from that, 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 you wanna knownly underscore AU on Instagram or head to www.youwananonly.com.au