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PAUL WORTHINGTON
EP.85
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Paul Worthington
How will a braver brand grow your business?
In Episode #85, Ross is joined by Paul Worthington, President of Invencion
Paul has been in the branding business for over twenty years, led major branding programs across 4 continents, lived in two, had his words published by the likes of Fast Company, and won multiple awards along the way.
Previously head of strategy and client principal at renowned branding consultancy Wolff Olins, he now runs his own little-known strategic branding firm, Invencion, because his family matters more to him than long plane-rides.
Ross and Paul discuss how oversimplifying your audience will bore and repel them, how bravery is a prerequisite for growth and impact and how critical it is that the decision-makers understand branding and marketing when selecting and resourcing these functions.
Highlights
The idea of authenticity is a nonsensical thought because what is authenticity, right? We can be authentically fake all the time. Folks are really, really good at building these worlds of artifice - Like Ralph Lauren, who has been doing it forever, with Polo, for example, which is a completely invented world that he associated with the brand. When you build these worlds of artifice so well that you can't see the cracks, they become quite compelling as places to hang out in and be a part of as consumers. - Paul
We fundamentally believe that if you invest in your brand, you can create a business asset. If you activate your brand in the right way, in the right channels, it should be a revenue driver for the business. There's a disconnect between the organisational structures or where the power sits and bringing that to life. The chief financial officer has grown in prominence and power in organisations and to good effect because they understand the finances of the business and how to control those, but there's also your chief marketing officers and I'm not sure if they've achieved that same level [of expertise and control]. With lot of the clients we work with, the marketing team is sometimes somebody who's given a promotion from the front desk or moved sideways - These are not professionals who've built an entire career around this kind of stuff and they can't argue in the boardroom to the same quality or level as the other people can. - Ross
One of the big reasons why people think they need a brand is obviously to talk about how to stand out, how to be different, how to get people to notice you. We had a conversation around distinctiveness versus differentiation. You were talking about Apple, where people saw that it was different, then they just copied them because they thought that would make them different too instead of thinking, “How do I be distinct in my category, how do I stand out among all these other people?”. - Ross
Every single piece of technology hardware in the last 20 years has been directly influenced by Apple's industrial design. Every single one of those people that's copied Apple's industrial design has copied the wrong thing because what happened is, in the late nineties, early two thousands, when Johnny Ive designed the iMac, it was to stand out against this sea of beige boxes, where every other computer looked exactly the same and this thing was in another universe. That was the thing that people should have been copying, which is: When everything else looks like X, we're going to make it look like Y. - Paul
Our job is not to look like the rest of the category. The job is to stand out from the category. The value proposition isn't to be like everybody else, unless we've got some other reason that gives us a benefit. My experience is that the strongest brands are the ones where the core source of differentiation is inherent to the business systems and cultural norms of that company. - Paul
One of the reasons that the marketing services, creative agencies, etc. have found themselves in a bit of a pickle in recent years is there are a lot of snake oil sellers in our business. So, if you're making a decision, the first thing you have to decide is who you are being advised by and how you know these people really know what they're talking about. The second thing is you should do a little bit of your own due diligence. If you are ignorant of how brands work and how marketing works, it's not hard to dig up information on this subject. Look at what people like Byron Sharpe are saying. Look at what people like Dan Ambergast Institute are doing. Look at what people like Mark Ritson like to talk about. Make sure that you're not being sold a bill of goods. - Paul
More about Paul Worthington
Paul has been in the branding business for over twenty years, led major branding programs across 4 continents, lived in two, had his words published by the likes of Fast Company, and won multiple awards along the way.
Previously head of strategy and client principal at renowned branding consultancy Wolff Olins, he now runs his own little-known strategic branding firm, Invencion, because his family matters more to him than long plane-rides. Once described jokingly by a colleague as “The Rainman of Branding,” he’s adopted that persona wholeheartedly. Having worked with everyone from massive global corporations to the smallest of startups, he’s developed a keen nose for the smelly stuff that passes for thinking in the branding business.
To help others see through the bullshit, he writes Off-Kilter; a no holds barred weekly email newsletter dedicated to finding the signal in the noise of branding, marketing, and design. Paul is currently in the process of writing a book for CEOs on how brands act as economic moats, driving competitive advantage and higher valuation multiples.
Originally from the Shetland Islands in Scotland, these days he’s more likely to be found in the NYC ‘burbs.
Find Paul Worthington here:
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