The Law of Focus 🔎 🔭 EBH
Your brand is a filter.
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Law #2: The Law of Focus
What’s the difference between Coke and Pepsi? Or Nike and Adidas? Or Ford and Toyota? Or Kate Spade and Coach?
These choices, removed from their brand associations, aren’t really choices. The difference between Coke and Pepsi boils down to one being slightly sweeter than the other, but not in an obvious way. The difference between Ford and Toyota mostly boils down to which side of the car the fuel tank lives. Can you say for certain that the Kate Spade bag and the Coach bag were not made in the same factory by the same people?
Branding originated as the world moved from local agrarian economies where you knew the blacksmith and the barrel maker and the guy who sold you a horse (whatever one calls that job). You may have known these people your entire life, as you and they grew up rarely moving more than a few miles away from your birthplaces. This meant, you knew their parents and you knew their kids. So if they sold you a bad horseshoe or a sick horse to put it on, it was in everyone’s best interests to find a solution. If the blacksmith didn’t make it right, the entire town would know in a heartbeat. Their reputation would be destroyed. Thus, they were incentivized to create quality goods.
As the industrial revolution moved through, suddenly you didn’t know the man who made your barrel. In fact, it was a team of nameless unknown folks in a factory who built it. So since you no longer had any connection to the people who built a thing, how do you know it will be good?
By applying a brand to their work, the company was saying, “If you bought this before and liked it, you’ll like this, too.” The brand was their reputation.
But as brands become prominent, brands were not just indications of quality, but an indication of perspective. Buy my horse if you want the best and are willing to spend a little more, buy their horse if you don’t need a top-of-the-line horse. The brand indicated for whom the products were built.
Brands became filters. If you were the sort to keep up with fashion, buy their shirt. If you don’t believe in unnecessary decoration, buy my shirt. If you support the monarchy, read this newspaper, but if you support a more democratic regime, read ours. You choose the brand that best fits you and ignore the brands that don’t align with your needs and beliefs.
In employer branding, this means communicating who you are for. Are you for the salesperson who likes to work autonomously or the one who likes to collaborate as part of a team? Are you for the recruiter who prefers a high salary and small bonus or the one who wants a smaller salary and a much larger potential bonus? Are you for the developer who has to work on the latest and greatest, or the developer that likes working in an environment where you are encouraged to do thoughtful, elegant work?
Some people would rather work at Patagonia than Koch because of their beliefs. Some chose Tesla and Twitter its leadership, while others avoid it for the same reason.
Your brand is a filter to candidates: this is the reason you choose us or don’t choose us.
That filter works in both directions. As it provides a reason for people to filter the company in or out of their consideration set, it also filters people into or out of the company.
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***This Newsletter Contains No ChatGPT***
-James Ellis [LinkedIn] [Website]
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