04 | How a Brand Sounds

and what happens when it grows.

I spent nine years at the fizzy drink company thinking about the editorial voice that would guide our content and perfectly ladder up to the brand’s purpose (giving wings). We also thought about how that voice needed to be distinct from the tidal wave of content Red Bull put out in the world, from Holy Shit trick videos to longer form films.

That thinking was knocked out of me within a year of joining Apple. Not like in a gut punch, writhing on the ground way. But gradually, in anonymous Cupertino office parks in front of polite but befuddled colleagues who strained to understand my decks filled phrases like “storytelling voice”.

The brand — worth $1 trillion at the time — already had a voice. It resembled the products: elegant, parsed, premium, with little extra. And when it strayed beyond descriptions, ad tag lines or the like, the tone couldn’t change. The reason it didn’t do much smaller-scale storytelling (my colleague John Agnew and his crafty team heading up the IG channel as an exception) was rooted in both maintaining that voice, and ensuring that it wasn’t misapplied in cheap audience wins on social or other platforms.

My education led to a final exam of sorts (sure, let’s just continue this teaching metaphor) on one of my last projects. Today at Apple Creative Studios was a teaching program in our major stores focused on under-represented creators. When we began building a content strategy for it, we ran screaming from the top-down approach I’d practiced at Red Bull, which would’ve been along the lines of “Apple bringing you powerful stories of marginalized creators”.

That risked appearing exploitative: a trillion dollar brand telling stories of tough lives and overcome obstacles could’ve prompted a series of questions (So what ARE YOU doing about it?).

Our shorthand for how to spotlight the young talent — 18-24 year olds from 13 cities from Chicago to Paris, to Beijing — was show, don’t tell. We sought to elevate them and the projects they worked on, in the process validating them as creators. We kept the logo small and made their voice big. Their voice, not ours.

Of course, tell THAT to the hundreds of direct to consumer brands launched into the social universe in the last decade, hawking makeup, razors, water bottles, sneakers …. Most were founded by savvy marketers who knew that the right tone (and visuals, and partnerships) on socials meant the difference between converting customers or not … sinking or swimming. So they crafted tone strategies that appealed to their desired demographic on IG, TikTok or whatever (snarky, quirky, relatable, flexible). But did it scale when they started appearing on shelves in Target, or partner platforms?

Voice work should start at home, clearly defined for a brand’s owned channels, with enough flex and personality to play along with those seemingly endless conveyor-belt trends on socials. That helps enormously when you scale or decide to take on Big Topics like mental health or climate change. After all, voice and tone are crucial traits of any personality, and what personality doesn’t grow over time?

👇🏼 some nice examples

AWAY 🧳 I’ve spent the last couple of weeks wondering why I bought an Away suitcase. It’s been fine, yes, but when we bought them before we moved here, we didn’t even think much about other brands. We went to the store, picked colors, and that was that. A trip through their site and socials this week gave me a sense of why: they’d roped me into feeling like I was one of their tribe. A pioneering DTC brand, their first post on IG in September 2015 (I scrolled, so you wouldn’t have to) was a fast edit of travel photos. Their voice and tone since has been consistent: confident, witty, insightful, empowering. They animate the world to travel (especially together), serving up classy shots of their colorful suitcases in stylish locales, with the occasional departure into first-person “travel journalism” (R.I.P Here magazine). Always encouraging, always aspirational. Sometimes with more words, often with less. They don’t have the innovative legacy of higher-price point competitor Rimowa, so they don’t lean into talking about materials and construction. They’re a venture-backed brand with a decent-enough origin story — “My luggage broke, there were no good options” — launched by founders with backgrounds in marketing and operations. Yes, they’re hitting the same headwinds as other DTC brands: vanishing VC investment, and increased costs of reaching the digital customers that made them big. But they seem to have made hay while the sun shone (shined?) and built a brand that serves to celebrate the wonders of travel, and a grooved, hard-shell suitcase’s “transformative” role in making it seamless. That’s what they’ll lean on when they start showing up at a Costco near you.

Tony’s Chocolonely 🍫 The popular Dutch brand started by a crusading journalist looking to eliminate the scourge of child labor in the cocoa industry could’ve carried the earnest conviction of its founder (the “lonely” referring to the way that crusade felt to him). Instead, it balances the real talk tone of its origins with, well, an exuberant love of chocolate. You’ll see it flow consistently from its slightly more preachy (and very busy) home page to the socials where it dutifully memes and trends along with the rest of the Brand Pack, but preserves its angle. It’s there you’ll see serious CTAs (getting out the vote, etc) with Tony’s inspired cookie recipes. Why doesn’t it feel schizophrenic? Likely because their context set the tone from the very beginning. They feel like your smart activist friend who has an unchecked chocolate obsession. Tony’s has more to say than the average candy brand, and so why not mix in a bit of the medicine as long as you don’t lose sight of the fact that chocolate is a source of joy. And they accomplish all this, despite a logo that looks “like a casual dining restaurant operated for and by clowns.” And, well, the most important thing really - the chocolate IS quite good.

🐬 Flotsam & Jetsam ⛵️
Random links from this week’s haul

💻 Coming up with the right words to ask AI-assisted software is a job now. And a well-paying one at that, apparently. Here is an interview with someone who does it … but for how much longer?

🏔️ As the risks and altitude get higher, the world’s best extreme skier takes stock. Especially insightful: The difficult dance between the ambitions of extreme athletes and the brands that profit off of them.

🎧 If you’re obsessed with the different ways creative people spin sound and stories, this Five Radio Stations project (thanks to friend-of-the-letter Rob Alderson) is a feast. Simmer in the calming banality of local news bulletins on Infraordinary FM while you work.

Hey, what is this?
BRAND NEW STORY highlights smart strategies and good stories told by brands and humans. It’s penned by me, Andreas Tzortzis (or, simply, Dre) and draws on insights from my career at Red Bull, Apple, and in my own brand consultancy Hella. Every week or so I write on a theme and curate links of brands doing it well, along with just great stories from the worlds of culture, tech, and, um ... humanity. Sign up here.