This one’s a short one folks.
Recently I’ve been spending a bit of time thinking about brand and what to include on our forthcoming landing page.
As the founder of a mission-driven business, articulating brand purpose is really important to me - and that’s maybe why it’s quite so damned difficult.
I did some research on best practice and want to share some of what I found.
Most are insincere, boring or non-existent.
Others are well intentioned but make lists of loosely connected statements, which come across as little more than word clouds of platitudes, or at best might serve well as individual posts on Insta.
The best brand manifestos to me are those that sum up what they do with a core belief articulated in plain language.
Here’s a few extracted highlights.
North Face: ‘The equipment we rely on is more than our tools. It is how we transport ourselves from who we are to who we will be’
Moleskine: ‘We believe in the timeless power of handwriting as an essential expression of human civilisation’
Nike: ‘If you have a body, you are an athlete’
They pack a punch.
These brand manifestos hardly make reference to what the business even does, but their beliefs are unmistakeable.
And when those beliefs pop up visibly in the product itself - it’s even better.
Here I want to shout out to Hector, Founder of Unplugged.rest. These guys provide off-grid cabins for short stays, and they quite literally lock your phone away so you can rest and recharge.
Rok is about a lot of things - social connection, mental headspace, mind-body connection, ritual, developing courage, tolerance etc - but filtering it down to one core belief is not easy.
I’ll get back to working on it and come back when I’ve found the words.