Why we matchmake brands and authors
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The heart of brand is personality
The heart of personality is inimitability
Copy is fungible; literature is inimitable
1. The heart of brand is personality
"Brand personality is the set of human characteristics associated with a brand."
(From "Dimensions of Brand Personality")
Jennifer Aaker Jennifer Aaker
Like Jennifer Asker, we believe that all other functions of brand - sales enablement, recognition, reputation and more - flow from that first anthropomorphism.
To be recognized or trusted, a brand must be something rather than nothing, and when we think of what we trust, bestow a reputation upon, believe to be kind, clever, funny or self-effacing the only thing that houses these qualities is personhood.
2. The heart of personality is inimitability
"At bottom, every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvellously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time."
(From "Thus Spoke Zarathustra")
If brands are people, then what we know so simply of people is also true of them.
What makes you you is the ineffable, intangible, microscopic, uncharted, inconsequential, profound, subtle and stark modulations of voice, meaning, intent, humour, seriousness.
What makes you you is that you are not someone else.
3. Copy is fungible; literature is inimitable
“Copy is fungible; literature is inimitable"
TWA Hivemind
Copy’s value can be drawn on a scale between fungibility and inimitability. Or copy that signals a brand that could be any other brand and copy that signals a brand that could only be itself.
On the former end, we have the type copy that be turned out by Chat GPT or the AI-ousted content mills of the 2010s.
On the other, we have the kind of copy turned out by masters of the trade: poured over, revised, differentiated and pitched just right, hewn and pruned just so, just like that, for the client, the brand - the personhood.
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We say you can go a step further. We say A Bird Came Down the Walk is less like anything else than Ford’s copy is like Volvo’s.
We say in the realm of language, writers have always been better smiths of personhood than copywriters.
It’s in the love of language, the desire to explore idiosyncrasy, the investment in the work of so much of yourself and the desire to move, entertain, frighten and overall connect with the reader as only two people can.
That’s why we say, we don’t write copy; we write. And that’s why we matchmake brands and authors.
