Brands Are Built Today By Those Who Know What They Want To Be Known For Tomorrow

Great brands don’t just have it easier. Great brands have already had it hard. Now, after they’ve done the work to build their reputations, they get the benefits* that come with the territory.

Disney can sell more superhero and princess costumes because of all the work across media that came before.

Netflix can put out Tiger King because of the structure they have in place for content development and discovery.

McDonald’s can experiment with their menu because customers know whatever they order, it will be held to a McDonald’s standard of quality and speed of delivery.

Maybe we don’t want to build a brand at the scale of these household names, but whatever sized reputation we want our business to have, we solve for the future by what we do today.

Disney has another story to curate. Netflix always has something curious in the queue. McDonald’s has a quick-moving drive through with cheap prices.

We start building a brand today when we start doing the things we want to be known for tomorrow. If it creates value, meets some demand, and is worth talking about (and therefore sharing), let the snowball roll.

I highly recommend this blog post by David Sacks, “Your Startup Is A Movement,” and/or his interview with Christopher Lochhead, “Movement Marketing” if you want to go deeper on these ideas.

*and the risks, and the costs, and the…