Strands of Genius: Subject to Seasonality, Brands After Vibes, Integrative Brand
Strands of Genius: Subject to Seasonality, Brands After Vibes, Integrative Brand
Plus: Screen-prints, circus, toxic nostalgia 'member?
WRITING FROM | Chattanooga, TN
WORKING ON | clear eyes, full hearts, not losing
LOOKING AHEAD
Oct 29 - Oct 31 | Chattanooga, TN
Oct 31 - Nov 5 | Beersheba Springs, TN
Nov 5 - Dec 21 | Chattanooga, TN
Dec 21 - Jan 2 | Isla Mujeres, MX
:: WHAT’S NEW & WEEKLY GRATITUDE ::
Hello darlings, let us both embrace you in a hug sandwich, this week feels like a lot already. Double HUG!
Look fam, we all know what’s going on and it’s getting noisy and messy and will continue to be so for a while. Touch (or other verbs) grass and keep calm and all that. And if you’re in the USA, please do vote, we promise it will make you feel better. But for the next few minutes, we’re going to help you think about other things.
Last week Faris reviewed and gave feedback on presentations about Nike for VCU students (shout out to the instructor, our friend, Faris’ former coworker, Andrew) and was inspired to see some strands of brilliant thinking from some students who will make excellent strategists or marketers or… some other job we’ve yet to invent :)
Rosie took Faris on an art date and we did screen-printing (❤️). Super fun, not quite Warhol yet.
[Faris’ squaring the circle orange tote]
Our friend Kim, founder of Ladies Who Strategize, came to visit for the weekend, which has been delightful.
And on Saturday we went to a very impressive party/performance hosted by the Chattanooga Circus Collective [Thanks to Jenny&Beck et al]
And - as Faris & Kim rested - Rosie rounded off the weekend at a baked potato party.
This week, we’re especially thankful for:
Kim, Jennie, Abbie, Bria, aura photos, and photo booths in general, Milk&Honey, painkillers (Faris scraped a thin sliver of pasta that had welded itself to the sink with his newly trimmed thumbnail and forced it under his nail. He maintains he now understands why this was used as a form of torture and is grateful for ibuprofen, and paracetamol / acetaminophen/ please send in flintstones chewable morphine), pistachio croissants, pottery lessons, wanders around town.
Hi! Thanks! Appreciate you. Maybe share with a friend if you like what we do, no worries if not. All treats, no tricks.
:: THE LINKS ::
SUBJECT TO SEASONALITY
Faris’ column is about Halloween…and Easter…and seasonality of sales and planning and that. “We live in the future, constantly working for the next season or one after, like attention farmers planting branded seeds…
Since strategy is inherently competitive, decisions can often come down to a simple choice — do you do what everyone else in the category does or not?” (Mediacat)
BRAND AFTER VIBES
Since brands in the grandest conception are emergent abstractions, we rely on metaphors to describe them. We do this all this time, often without thinking about it. We speak and even think in metaphors, there are even Metaphors We Live By [Lakoff]. We are taught that a simile is a comparison - this is like that - whereas metaphor is a statement of being rather than comparison. It uses a literal meaning applied directly to another thing. Time is like a thief vs time is a thief.
As Pinker has pointed out, we also use them all the time in everyday speech without thinking of them as ‘metaphors’ - if you feeling down or your mood has brightened, for example. We use a variety of metaphors when we talk about brands and all of them impact what we think and therefore how we act. Importantly this effect is “covert: people do not recognize metaphors as influential in their decisions” but they are. [PLOS ONE].
”Brands may indeed be vibes today, which got us thinking about a few different ways that brands have been thought of historically. We can go through these quickly, more as thought starters than a complete review.”HT Matt @webcurios (Substack)
INTEGRATIVE BRAND MODEL
Since we’re on the subject, there’s been various strands of discourse about brand’n’CX or brand informed transformation or internal branding that the holy algo has surfaced to us recently, which led Faris to share the most recent version of our Integrative Brand Model/Canvas/Approach/Slideware on LinkedIn.
We think:
- A brand is a belief about the world and how it could be different.
- A company is a tool for creating that change, which generates value, and therefore makes money.
Those beliefs inform what it sells, what it makes/provides and how, how it acts, who it hires, how it treats employees, how it serves customers, how it does customer service, and how it communicates.
(LinkedIn)
Want to chat, comment, question, compliment?
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:: ‘MEMBER 2016? TOXIC NOSTALGIA AND NOW ::
Faris wrote this in late 2016, pulling together various strands of cultural observation into a warning of sorts. Since we are in another very important ‘Janus moment’ upon which much will turn, it seems very relevant still. It considers the firehose of falsehood, media normalization of the expanded Overton window of discourse, Trevor’s Axiom, how toxic nostalgia is being used as a cultural propaganda vector for a political agenda that is inherently reactionary and quite disturbingly so and various other things. Rogue One. In-group vs out-group conflict over resources that seem scarce. Cultural fragmentation. Closer by The Chainsmokers. You know what he’s like.
The word is about, there’s something evolving,
Whatever may come, the world keeps revolving…
They say the next big thing is here,
That the revolution’s near,
But to me it seems quite clear
That’s it’s all just a little bit of history repeating.
If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
rockON,
faris & rosie | your friends over at geniussteals.co
(still want more? @faris is still “tweeting” while @rosieyakob prefers instagram stories)
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It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.
Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. We have a distributed team ourselves, an accounting team is based in Tennessee where our company is registered, our admin extraordinaire is based in Playa del Carmen, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.
Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)