Okay, this is a heavy one..
There’s a pic of my wee kitty if you read all the way to the end 🙂
The people getting enraged about what Kanye said are right.
His belief in an international Jewish conspiracy is nonsense and is dangerous. It’s a lazy attempt to find an easy answer to complex problems. What he’s said should be challenged in the strongest terms at every opportunity.
I also know no one who thinks he’s in the right.
So am not here to scream about him in a newsletter he’ll never read (and if I wanted to preach to the converted I’d become religious..), what I’m here to talk about is why folk are pissed at Adidas.
Y’know, the founded by Nazis, Hitler Youth supporting Adidas.
The reason branding is important is because we can’t help humanise brands. We treat them like friends in our lives. We follow them online, take their recommendations, wait for their new shit to drop and give them our hard earned cash (cash a lot of people won’t spend to support their real life friend’s art/band/companies).
So when Adidas (y’know, allegedly internally racist, sweat shop using Adidas) didn’t immediately drop Yeezus, people were thinking, WTF?! how could my friend do this to me?!
Adidas are in this sitch because their brand teams have done a great job of embedding the company in our lives. We know they’re flawed but we continue to buy from them. Just like we know our friends are flawed but we continue to love them.
For years they’ve chosen the part of their story to tell and we’ve ignored the rest.
This time they crossed our moral line and that was about to effect their bottom line so they did as all good capitalists do and pretended to care.
*Get back to the point Orwell, you’re losing them..*
So what can we learn? Apart from anti-semitism leads to horrendous things.. (If you’re only just learning that you gotta read more books.. or watch the History channel on a random Tuesday afternoon).
Most people don’t care enough to research your backstory. If you tell you brand story well enough they’ll believe what you tell them on face value.
Kid Rock isn’t a hick, he grew up with rich parents..
The Sex Pistols weren’t a grass roots punk band, they were put together by a manager (just like Take That!)..
Ziggy Stardust was actually called David Jones..
(there’s too many link in this email already, Google that stuff yourself.. 😉 )
You can tell *your* story, the one that feels right to you – that’s what branding is.
If a sports shoe company set up by Nazis, who has their products made in sweatshops can act like they have a moral conscience because they drop one (admittedly influential) anti-semite, you can confidently tell a brand story of your own without sharing every flaw and failing out of some sort of duty to the truth.
If you want help defining your brand story (without apologising for all the mistakes you’ve made on the way) don’t click the link below!
Let’s be clear who this is written for..
I write for freelancers who are trying to be more confident in themselves and their work. People who, through life circumstance, haven’t been acting on their best instincts for fear of what other people might think. Who want to believe more in themselves and take decisions confidently.
I do not condone lying about a heinous past for financial gain.
As promised, here’s a pic of wee Vito being cute..
