Issue #151 Reader The curly hair market is barreling toward $5.6 billion. We told them to stuff it. Shelves are packed with the same three promises: definition, moisture, frizz control. Every brand riffing on the same tired script, having a pissing contest over who's the shiniest. A color technician with 40 years of working knowledge came to me with a business getting swallowed by the noise. I flipped her business model on its head. Curly hair and all. Instead of joining the circus, we...
3 days ago • 1 min read
Issue #150 Reader McDonald's showed up with a billboard that had no logo, no slogan, and cowboys wearing French fry fringe. One image. Three seconds of looking. Instantly, my popular "12 Best Billboard Ads of All Time" article was suddenly one fry short of a Happy Meal. ;-( Western jackets stitched in McDonald's red and yellow. Belt buckles hiding Big Macs. Leather strips that, when you look twice, are golden fries. No headline explaining the benefit. No copy telling you what to feel. The ad...
10 days ago • 1 min read
Issue #149 Reader Han Solo just explained branding better than most agencies Harrison Ford was just presented with a Lifetime Achievement award. Forty-plus films. Six decades. $9 billion at the box office. And he didn't talk about his action films. He talked about ideas. Empathy. Imagination. The guy who made a whip and a blaster iconic spent his entire speech describing what brand building actually is. Not the mechanics of it. The soul of it. "I found a calling," he said. "A life in...
17 days ago • 1 min read
Issue #148 Reader There’s more polished, professional-looking sameness in the market than at any point in history. And, it's killing your business, way more than a rude insensitive salesperson ever would. For one simple reason: Average has become an epidemic. The actual problem? AI is pumping out content at industrial scale. And templates are masquerading as strategy. And it's not because people suddenly got lazy. It's because looking good became cheap. And the result? An ocean of businesses...
24 days ago • 1 min read
Reader Here's your Monday Morning Bonus: This weekend, Swatch released a $400 watch with luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet. And people lost their damn minds camping outside stores for days. Riots in Paris.Chaos in Mumbai.Police in Times Square.Nineteen U.S. stores shut down to avoid mayhem. All for a plastic watch. That’s the obvious story. The Real Story: Swatch understood something most brands miss: People weren’t buying a watch. They were buying access to luxury culture they normally...
29 days ago • 1 min read
Issue #147 Reader Most brands in crowded categories make the same mistake: • More noise.• More claims.• More clutter. When I rebuilt the Simply Snackin' brand, I did the opposite: I stripped away all excess. And that's why I wrote today's article, showing you this dramatic rebranding of their product: Inside, I show you: → The 4 traits that separate exceptional brands from forgettable ones→ The strategic insight that unearthed, "Nature's Original Protein Bar" nailing their killer distinction→...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Issue #146 Reader AI just made average look world-class. AI just handed the keys to the castle to people with no strategy. That is the real danger. This is today's new article. Because now:• Bad positioning can look polished.• Weak strategy can sound intelligent.• Forgettable brands can publish faster than ever. Most companies think they’re “keeping up.” They’re not. They’re automating irrelevance. Here’s the uncomfortable shift happening right now: Before AI, mediocre brands at least looked...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Reader Here's your Monday Morning Bonus: Most mission statements are corporate word salads. Truth: customers buy from someone who speaks like a human. Instead, if you're like many companies,you’re writing language committees approve of. Not language customers remember. The proof: Oatly called the dairy industry liars.→ $10B valuation Liquid Death made water feel illegal.→ $1.4B valuation Gentle Monster built stores so wildpeople forgot they were buying glasses.→ Lines out the door None of...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Issue #145 Reader People ask me, "What are you wearing when you email the Saturday morning editions of Do This Instead?" "Not much." This new portrait is entitled, "The Man and His Robe" That's right: Just a robe. Some conviction. And a red pen. Because what if I told you the fastest path to growth is... deletion? Not adding. Not expanding. Not "more." Less. I'll explain:LEGO was 90 days from bankruptcy in 2003. Losing $1 million per day. Their fix? A red pen. Axed clothing lines. They killed...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read