What's with the French rooster? | STFO 🤘
|
After Monday's peek at the rebrand's before and after and yesterday's email about why I made it happen, I want to explain why I've picked a French rooster as a mascot. It's funny how brands love attaching meaning to logos and colors. Like, “We must pick this horizon blue to show we’re super chill,” or “Let's go with the saber-toothed cat as our logo to show we're agile yet relentless about success." Research about how our brain works shows that we don't buy things based on the meaning of a brand. You don't hire FedEx to deliver a package because their logo has a hidden arrow. You don't buy chocolate bars from Toblerone because the yellow mountain is actually a bear. And you won't hire me because of Roger The Rooster: You see, we pick a certain category or brand because a specific context—like where we are, who we're with, or what we see—reminds us of them (and not because of some deeper meaning). To navigate the world, we rely on our network of connected neurons to make good-enough decisions. HUGE lightbulb moment for me: Forget trying to stuff meaning into everything and seek "meaningless distinctiveness" (to quote Byron Sharp) across a neurologically diverse set of assets. When the need for a brand refresh was evident, I challenged myself to apply this meaningless principle as best as possible. I wanted to be very deliberate and intentional by doubling down on assets that I knew were working while developing others that had huge potential. I ended up picking the following assets because I believed they were highly distinctive in my industry:
Yes, yes, Roger is a French rooster, so it's not totally meaningless since it connects with my nationality. BUT!, it's not directly related with what I do for work, which makes it very unlikely that anyone else in my category will use it. Meaningless >>> Meaningful. (Big up to Martin Ollivere for turning my weird ideas into a brand identity that slaps.) |