You’re So Vain: Why Most Brand Stories Fail Before They Start
Marketing Unfiltered 67 → Is Your Brand the Hero (When It Shouldn’t Be)? The #1 Storytelling Mistake 👀
Welcome back everyone, thanks for reading my 65 leadership tips and Harry’s look at year 2 of the AI Super bowl.
This week we have Paul Thomas’ first serving of Marketing Unfiltered, offering lyrics, nostalgia with a main of smart guidance.
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You’re So Vain: Why Most Brand Stories Fail Before They Start
Listen, I get it.
You work for massive Brand X, zeitgeist start-up Y, or you have built Tool Z that is going to change your sector.
You might be proud, quietly battling imposter syndrome, or under pressure from the CEO to “mention the latest fundraise”.
Your product may well be brilliant.
Your business model might be revolutionary.
Your AI genuinely next level.
Your pricing extremely competitive.
All of that may be true, but until I understand the problem you solve for me, I don’t really want to hear any of it.
I have seen, and made, this mistake more times than I care to admit.
One extreme example came when I was a music buyer for Tesco and I almost inadvertently got an EMI account manager sacked. His label boss was furious because I dared to read a newspaper during a retailer playback of Radiohead’s Kid A.
“But this is art, why isn’t he paying full attention to their genius?”
Brilliantly, the account manager replied, “I think Paul can read and listen at the same time.”
Oh, and by the way, he is the customer.
I have also staked my own credibility getting Samsung HQ’s accessories team in front of EE’s top brass, only for them to burn 80 per cent of the meeting showing SKUs that were only relevant to the Korean market.
And don’t get me started on Apple keynotes.
Which begs the question. Why, when we get the chance to tell our story, do we so often make it about us?
To try to kill this particular disease, I am on a mission to make the lyric
“You’re so vain, I bet you think this song is about you”
stick permanently in the part of your brain that lives on Spotify.
Because it is the fastest way I know to avoid the five most common mistakes in brand and marketing storytelling.
Roll the Top of the Pops theme.
5. Putting the “what” before the “why?”
“We use the latest AI tools to drive our CRM platform.”
“Snack brand X is sourced from sustainable ingredients.”
Those things might be impressive, but I don’t need to know how you do something until I have decided what you’re for. Start with the problem you solve, not the machinery you have built.
4. Being boringly predictable
This is a particular danger at the “we’ve cracked it” stage.
Rinse and repeat marketing, meeting agendas and opening lines creep in.
Reliable can be reassuring. Predictable is dull.
When audiences feel they know what is coming next, they stop paying attention, especially when what is coming is still mostly about you.
Ironically, this is the moment when even successful brands need to think like challengers again. Call out the problem, highlight where the status quo has drifted, and remind people why you exist. If you are the incumbent, even better. You get to fix it before someone else does.
3. Completely forgetting the customer
“Look how much money we have raised.”
“Look how clever our CTO is.”
“Here is our new brand campaign.”
Sigh.
Even Apple, to be fair, usually tries to anchor this in “our customers tell us…”, but better still is “in the last 12 months our customers have saved money, time and stress because of what we do”.
Or the timeless “You said. We did.”
Which KFC lovingly parodies each Christmas by refusing to sell turkey.
2. Too much content for the attention span
Whether it is cramming extra copy into an OOH ad or turning up with 30 slides for a one hour meeting, forgetting the context your message lands in is a classic error.
It is not about what you feel you need to say.
It is about what the other person is likely to take away.
Less is more, especially when attention is scarce.
1. Supplanting the customer as the hero in their story
I heard a great analogy recently. If companies told the story of George and the Dragon the way they go to market, the hero would not be George, or even the dragon. It would be the Dragonslay 3000, milled from space grade titanium to slice more smoothly through troublesome reptilian scales.
That is peak You’re So Vain behaviour.
Brands are not George.
They are not the dragon either.
They just sell the swords.
When you make yourself the hero, you push the customer into the role of spectator, and spectators don’t buy.
So there you have it. Let’s all be less You’re So Vain and more It’s All About You.
Paul Thomas
Connect with Paul on LinkedIn
» Paul is a Fractional CMO and The Sound of… keynote speaker, combining business thought leadership with pop music to help teams find their growth rhythm.
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Danny & Harry