Tell Tale Signs Your Brand Isn’t Working – Herdism

Nicolas Ruston

Nicolas Ruston

Nick is a creative director and branding expert best known for making complex ideas sound simple and memorable. He's done it for some of the biggest brands in the world including Jaguar, Diesel, SKY, Barclays and Virgin.

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I’ve identified some common mistakes founders make when building their brand, and so you can avoid these mistakes I’m going to take you through them.

Herdism happens when isn’t clear what differentiates you in the market because you’ve copied brands that are already successful.

It’s a common mistake to see another brand that’s doing great and look to them for inspiration, when what you should be doing is focussing on what makes you unique – whether that’s your idea, your method, your ethos, the technology you use, the way you behave or the way you present yourself.

The first thing a lot of founders do when trying to create their first brand is look to other brands in their sector. They’ll look at their websites, their social media and their email marketing and see if they can mine it for words, phrases, images and graphics, anything that might be useful to mimic and pass off as their own.

I call this Herdism and it’s a quick and relatively simple way to create content, but this approach is riddled with problems.

It doesn’t exactly scream ‘look at my exciting new brand’ or ‘look at my incredible idea that’s going to change the world’, instead it signals ‘I’m the less popular choice than the other brand I stole from’.

Is your brand irresistible?

One of the biggest killers of startups is their ability to market and sell the product they create. An irresistible brand is the magnetic forcefield that attracts the ideal customers, partners, investors and talent.

Answer 20 simple questions and I’ll send you a free personalised report with tips on how to improve your brand.

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