- Growing Viral
- Posts
- How Do You Create A Brand?
How Do You Create A Brand?
Everyone uses the term brand, but how do you actually create one? A real one, that people love. Here's my two pence...
Niall Ratcliffe
August 10, 2025
In partnership with
Morning!
I’m sitting on a Northern Rail train on the way back to Burnley. The weather is slightly too hot, my body slightly overheated, and I’m in my notes app cranking this out on my phone.
It’s surprising how disgusting Northern Rail trains actually are. We’re all crammed in like sardines, the seats are disgusting, and honestly, I have no idea how they’ve charged me £9.15 for this train. Daylight robbery.
On that note, it ties in quite well with a question I’ve been thinking about a lot this week: “What actually creates a brand?”
Every company thinks it’s building a brand, but very few actually get it right. Some have no brand at all and others end up like, well… northern rail.
Like last week, I’m giving myself 1500 words to answer that question.
Let’s see how we get on!
BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY
This week, I walked out of my room, where my partner’s drawers were already overflowing with gym gear, just as she walked in carrying yet another delivery.
Clothes again. Not just any clothes, but more gym gear.
“It’s only some little bits from MyProtein. They’ve just dropped a line with one of my favourite influencers,” she said.
That’s brand.
Isn’t it interesting though? That people will buy from a company not because of the quality of products, not because they needed them, just because of the brand?
Take SULT for example. If you haven’t been following their journey, Milly and Henry (the co-founders) have built a cult-like following around their new electrolyte brand. They’ve sold out twice in a row.
But as much as I love what they’re doing, let’s be honest… their bootstrapped formula is never going to deliver the same standard of hydration of a brand like LMNT who spend tens of millions every year perfecting theirs.
Yet thousands of people would still rather have a packet of SULT electrolytes than LMNT. And honestly… me too.
That’s brand.
But while it’s easy to see a great brand and compliment it, it’s much more difficult to actually create one.
So how do you? How do you create a real brand that people genuinely love?
Well, let’s clear the obvious rubbish first.
A logo isn’t a brand.
A typeface isn’t a brand.
A viral ad isn’t a brand.
A revenue milestone isn’t a brand.
A new colourway on your bottle isn’t a brand.
Of course, these can all play a part. But individually and even together, they amount to nothing. Brand is one layer deeper, less of a look and more of a feel.
So what is a brand, in practice, when you strip the noise away? From where I sit, sweating on this overpriced train, five things create it.
First, you need a sticky story.
For example, if a social media agency has no sticky story, it’s almost impossible for it to spread by word of mouth.
“Have you seen that social media agency called ‘Upload’?”
That’s not a brand. It’s just the name of a company. Now imagine an alternate scenario.
“Have you seen that social media agency full of kids that is apparently controlling the internet?”
The second example is a story and it’s sticky. It also happens to be the premise that Social Chain exploded with.
This isn’t a new concept. Back in 1951, David Ogilvy launched his infamous “The Man In The Hathaway Shirt” ad for Hathaway. It’s an ad that has lived on long after Ogilvy died, and the main reason for it is that it has what Ogilvy calls “Story Appeal”. A man in a shirt is forgotten, a man in an eye patch is memorable.
(Fun fact: the model didn’t need an eye patch, Ogilvy told him to wear it for the ad)
But more key than having a sticky story attached to your brand, it’s about which stories are attached to your brand.
Social Chain became known as the kids who controlled the internet… that defined social chain as a brand more than any brand colour or logo could.
Which brings me on to the second element of brand - a distinctive look and feel.
Because no matter how much I joke about the fact that a logo and font isn’t a brand, the look and feel of a brand does play a massive part in it - and the more distinctive the better.
McDonald’s is one of the best examples of this. The McDonald’s logo or brand colours aren’t necessarily the most distinctive things ever. But when you look at McDonald’s stores (especially the early stores in America,) each and every one had a key feature that made them stand out - the big golden arches.
It’s those archers that burned the fast food chain into everyone’s brains. Of course, the speed and quality of McDonald’s food played a massive factor. But more than anything, they had something bold and distinctive that made them stand out too.
Monzo did the same with their bright orange cards. Tiffany did it with a single square of blue. If I covered your logo and showed your ad, a deck, the website, or storefront, could I still name you in two seconds? That’s brand.
And it’s not only visuals. It’s everything your company does. The tone of voice in your decks, the office set-up, the adverts, the website.
It’s honestly tough to describe what being distinctive looks like, so just know that you need your own form of golden arches. A look and feel that people remember you for.
Third, you need an enemy.
Humans are naturally attracted to conflict. It’s why wars are always on our TV and why every man on their dog knows the Harry and Megan Markle drama.
And nearly every great brand in history has a clear enemy.
Apple built a cult following by being anti-corporate tech and computers. Making endless ads mocking traditional PCs.
Oatly burst onto the scene by going up against “Big Dairy” and calling it out directly.
Dollar Shave Club did the same by attacking brands selling overpriced fancy razors.
It doesn’t need to be another company you fight against. It can be a norm, a standard, a way of life. But on the other side of hate, you also need a core belief.
This is the mission. The vision. You’re “Why”. You can’t just hate something. You also have to be trying to do something.
Patagonia’s environmentalism isn’t a slogan. It’s the brand. Nike’s “anyone can be an athlete” isn’t just a slogan. It’s the brand. Harley-Davidson’s freedom narrative isn’t just marketing. It’s the brand.
Now I honestly think if you nail all 4 of those, you’ll probably have a pretty good brand. Yet I think there’s one more thing that can be impactful, and that is “Ownable IP”.
Language, phrases, ideas, images, and even characters that you own - not necessarily legally, but socially.
Compare The Market is an easy example in the UK. When you think of Meerkats, you think Compare The Market. As I type this, I can hear a little meerkat in a fancy robe saying “Simples” too. Compare The Market owns both of those in my head. They own an animal. Which is crazy to think, yet true.
That meerkat is what you call a fluent device - a recurring character, phrase, or symbol that shows up in campaign after campaign, year after year (and most importantly, gets remembered). It’s instantly recognisable, it makes the brand easy to spot, and it works harder the more you repeat it. The device becomes the cue that triggers all your previous memories of the brand.
Aleksandr Orlov isn’t just a mascot, he’s an asset that Compare The Market has been compounding for over a decade. Every ad, billboard, and social post that features him layers more memory, more recognition, and more brand equity. By now, they barely need to show the product, the meerkat does the work.
That being said, I’m not saying an animal is the solution to your brand problem… that’s not the only way to go. Language is another great option to look at.
Daniel Priestley did it with Key Person of Influence. Before him, nobody used that phrase in business circles. He packaged it into a book, a programme, and a framework, repeated it relentlessly, and now the term is socially his. You can’t use it without invoking him, consciously or not.
James Clear did it with Atomic Habits. Two everyday words, but together they’re unmistakably his. He took common language and made it proprietary in people’s minds.
SULT are now doing the same with this idea that you need to “Season your water”.
Owning IP like this is such a pow moat. You can’t copy it without looking like a knock-off, and the more you repeat it, the stronger it gets.
…
We’re 1421 words in now. 79 to go. Wait, only 68 now. Have we really to a conclusion of what actually creates a brand?
I think we’re close.
By now, you should know that a brand isn’t built from a logo, a campaign, or a brand pack…
A brand is built by being something or someone - and owning it.
You can’t be everything to everyone. You have to be something to someone.
That’s brand.
It’s 9:30 pm now. I’m back in Manchester, two Northern Rail trains later, and hopefully I won’t be on another any time soon.
Right, that’s all I’ve got.
Until next Sunday.
— Niall
WAIT… BEFORE YOU GO
Rate this week's essay |
BROUGHT TO YOU BY
Real News for Real People — Not Partisans
Feeling like you want to get off the rollercoaster of polarizing politics? Read Tangle — an independent and nonpartisan political newsletter recently profiled on This American Life for helping to bridge the gap between politically divided families. Each day, the newsletter unpacks one important news story, examining it from all sides of the political spectrum.