Frank Zappa once described improvising a guitar solo as being “me against the laws of nature.”
He didn’t know exactly what he was going to play.
He knew how long he had to do it.
As he put it:
“You have a piece of time, and you get to decorate it.”
I freaking love that.
Breaking the Assumptions No One Questions
What Frank said is remarkably close to how I approach branding.
Except I’m not given a piece of time.
I’m given an opportunity for change.
And the first thing I question is everything we’ve been told that opportunity is supposed to look like.
- Why these parameters?
- Why this language?
- Why this category?
- Why this shape?
- Why this audience?
- Why this assumption?
- Why are we solving this problem when there may be a much bigger one sitting right behind it?
The Trap of Microscopic Differentiation
Most predictability begins with an assumption nobody bothered to challenge.
Someone decided what the boundaries were.
Everyone that came after them simply stayed inside those lines.
That’s how industries end up speaking the same language, making the same promises, showing the same imagery and calling the microscopic differences between them “differentiation.”
Because predictability sucks the life out of things.
Unpredictability Puts the Pulse Back In
So when I’m brought in, I’m not particularly interested in decorating the parameters I’ve been handed.
I want to know whether they’re the right parameters in the first place.
- Should the canvas be wider?
- Should the problem be bigger?
- Has something important been excluded because “that’s not how our industry does it”?
- What variables haven’t been considered?
- What assumptions have hardened into rules?
- What could this become if we stopped using what’s already been done as evidence for what’s possible?
Because I wasn’t invited to make something prettier.
I was invited to make what existed before impossible to settle for.
Rising Above the Noise (and AI Slop)
Zappa was given a piece of time and got to decorate it.
I’m given an opportunity to help minds discover something new. Inside the company as well as outside the company.
Opening eyes and minds (since a mind is like a parachute: it works best when it’s opened, another Zappa quote), converting client retention into brand loyalty.
Because when that is done boldly and without restraint, new opportunities open up that were never ever considered.
And when you and I work together, we get to do something amazing: redefine what’s possible.
If you’re reading this and recognizing your brand could use a jolt to escape the escalating world of repetitive AI pitches and other customer turn-offs, the next step is a conversation.
There is nothing that gives me more pleasure than helping you open your eyes to what’s possible. I invite you to secure a time and lock in your spot here.