Matthew Fey, Creative Director
Working with catalogers and marketers of all kinds in all categories all across the country, it’s amazing how much a recurring theme manifests. No matter what they sell or who they sell it to, at some point in our creative collaboration, some version of the following questions arise:
“How can we be more like the BRAND X?”
“What if we did what the BRAND X catalog is doing?”
“We saw BRAND X doing this, can we do that?”
I hear it all the time. And it’s fine. It’s OK to keep an eye on the competition. You should. Obsessively, even. Request their catalogs. Sign up for their emails. Go to their retail stores. Follow them home. Set up 24/7 surveillance. Hell, go through their garbage.
While you’re rummaging through other brands treasures and trash, here’s another question you might want to consider, “Why do you want to be like BRAND X?”
The answer? David Bowie. If you really want to ch-ch-ch-change your brand, turn and face the strange and let David Bowie light the way.
In early January, the world lost a creative visionary. A singer. A musician. A performer. An actor. A writer. An artist. An iconoclast. A creator. David Bowie wasn’t one of these things. He was all of them. To us, mere mortal humans that we are, his influence spreads eternal, not just across pop culture, but across all culture.
And in the light of Bowie’s immortal influence, we can find a spark … a valuable lesson in igniting creativity and inspiration. A lesson in not following. A lesson in being your own brand.
You know what’s better than being like BRAND X? Having all those other brands (be they BRAND X, BRAND Y, BRAND Z or BRAND-every-other-letter-in-the-alphabet) say, “We want to be like YOUR brand!” You want to be the imitated, not the imitator.
Which brings us back to Bowie. He was, without question, one of the most creative human beings to ever walk the earth. Innovative and original, his vision stretched across the musical spectrum, crossing genres and styles. His influence shaped the path for hundreds of musicians. They all wanted to be like Bowie.
Is there anything wrong with that? Not necessarily. You could do much much worse than follow in the footsteps of the Thin White Duke. But that’s not how Bowie shaped his own career.
He didn’t follow the trail, he blazed it.
He didn’t imitate, he innovated.
He didn’t push boundaries, he pushed through them.
Yes, Bowie was a product of his influences, as are we all, as is your brand. It’s how he applied those influences that shaped his art and made him a pioneer, a visionary. He pulled from the magic of film, the realm of art, and unexpected musical dimensions to invent each new face and facet of his career.
That’s the lesson. Absorb the world. Don’t focus solely on what the competition in your industry is doing. Look beyond. Don’t try to be like those competitors. Evaluate what it is that’s missing from your brand, or determine what you want to accomplish with your brand and forge your own path. Like Bowie.
Start small. Look for inspiration in unexpected places:
– Pour through magazines (print and online) for design inspiration.
– Listen to music to find songs to soundtrack your brand
– Turn to TV and films for emotional hooks and storytelling techniques.
– Look at comic books for sequential layout and pacing and density.
– Strive to create something you have not seen other brands execute.
And these are just a few ideas. Don’t limit your creativity. Take all these influences and mold them into a unique experience that only your brand can present, then bring it to life in your creative, online and on the page. No longer ask, “How can my brand be like other brands?” Become the brand of envy. Become the brand that everyone else wants to be.
Don’t take this as a “copy Bowie” lesson, though. You can’t be Bowie. No one can. Nor should you try. But you can apply the lesson of his career to shape your own creative vision. Embrace your uniqueness. Turn and face the strange.
“Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”
David Bowie, 1947 – 2016 – Immortality
Image featured above by Hunter Desportes via Flickr under Creative Commons License.
