Hi Reader,

Welcome to my first cult brand mail👋

Let’s get the awkward bit out the way first: this might not be for you.

If building a cult brand with an insanely passionate community isn’t high up on your list of priorities, stop reading and go straight to the end of this email and hit unsubscribe. No hard feelings🙏

First rule of cult brands? They’re not for everyone.

For those that want to stick around this will be where I share my 2 obsessions

1) Building cult brands with purpose and meaning that customers lose their shit over

2) Learning how to communicate these incredible experiences and make people care without being another brand putting more noise into the world with corporate voice. And importantly, learning how you can do that EVERY DAY.

I feel bad for clients who spend £10k on a brand guide that only includes one page on content pillars and one on tone of voice. Almost better to pay less and leave it out.

You still face the daily challenge of working out what to share and how to keep it fresh and engaging. I know how hard that is.

My mission is to bridge that gap.

‘What’s a cult brand?’ you are (hopefully) asking - that’s email #2!

This one is about one of my favourite brands - Hiut Jeans

I made a change to my schedule recently and every Friday morning I spend 2 hours looking at brands I like and working backwards to see what makes them work. I sign up to their newsletter, read their blog posts, dig out everything I can.

You could argue there are many other things I could be doing to grow my knowledge, but this exercise has been invaluable.

Slowing down and learning from smart people who have invested a ton of time and money in figuring out what works can save you a lot of pain in the long term.

Real world experience beats marketing blog post theories every single time.

I will share some of the best brands to follow for ideas/inspiration in future newsletters.

Scanning them for just 30 minutes a week will fill you with ideas and inspiration instead of staring at a blank notebook.

Show don't tell

So...Hiut Jeans, you may know them.

Quick one if not - they revised the dying art of denim making in Cardigan, Wales and sell high-end jeans to the likes of Meghan Markle (and me). Here is their about page story which is often held up as a textbook example of brand storytelling:

Cardigan is a small town of 4,000 good people. 400 of them used to make jeans. They made 35,000 pairs a week. For three decades.

Then one day the factory closed. It left town. But all that skill and knowhow remained. Without any way of showing the world what they could do.

That’s why we have started The Hiut Denim Company. To bring manufacturing back home. To use all that skill on our doorstep. And to breathe new life into our town.

As one of the Grand Masters said to me when I was interviewing: “This is what I know how to do. This is what I do best.” I just sat there thinking I have to make this work.

So yes, our town is going to make jeans again.

Here goes.

You’re already intrigued and feeling a connection to them and Cardigan, right?

The brand storytellers of this world tend to just focus on that part of communicating - the big stories. It is a great story but you can’t bang on about that alone every day. And this is where Hiut goes that extra step.

They’ve taken two of their principles - creativity and being the best you can be and taken it to a whole new level.

They don’t just talk about brand principles, they do them. That’s the hard bit!

There’s so many cool non-jeans related things they’ve done

👖If you sign up to their newsletter you get a 45-page guide to creativity. Absolutely packed with value on every aspect of living a better life. In fact one of the most value packed freebies I’ve ever seen. If you take one thing from this, download that and see what giving value around something bigger than your product/service looks like. You’ll definitely learn a few things too.

👖They send a weekly newsletter that focuses on anything they find interesting around creativity and optimising yourself. Someone once said ‘people don’t buy your product, they buy your process’ and that’s a great way to share it - all the bits that make you and and your brand utterly unique. In turn that makes the person buying them show their uniqueness to the world at the same time being part of a community who share the same values (very cult brand)

👖Their blog takes these ideas and goes deeper into them with a serious amount of interesting articles there

👖They ran a ‘makers and mavericks’ live online event with 18 speakers discussing interesting subjects around, again, creativity and being the best you can be

👖They even have a print book ‘One Percent Better’ all about how to improve yourself 1% every day (and a limited edition £6k version of that - don’t ever discount rich people who are suckers for exclusivity)

Why it matters

That’s how you take a brand and make it about so much more than just the product. Revealing the principles and values that drive it.

It’s how you build a community of true fans who love you because you stand for the same things as them and you don’t give a fuck about those that don’t.

Humans want to follow other humans, not brands.

Ultimately it’s how you become a cult brand - creating a world around your values that goes beyond just being a product/service

If you’re buying Hiut, you’re saying you too are a creative person who seeks to be the best they can be and want to be part of that exclusive gang.

TAKEAWAY: just because you’re a food business or whatever, your business is based on the values and principles you created.

So take 10 minutes, write out those values/principles and have a think of ways you can deliver them by doing stuff beyond another post talking about the ingredients of your dish, range of jeans etc
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​PS - I really miss networking IRL and am feeling a bit disconnected at the moment. So I’m doing 4 free mini strategy sessions each month with brands I find interesting. Everyone is so overwhelmed and reactive with the constant changes, I find being able to take a step back and have a think about what you want for the longer term has been really useful. If you’re up for it then book a slot here: https://calendly.com/dannash​