One of the biggest misconceptions in marketing is that growth comes from doing more… More content. More campaigns. More products. More channels. More customers. More followers. More every-fucking-thing.
But some of the fastest growth I’ve ever seen came from doing the opposite.
It came from getting clearer.
Years ago, I had the privilege of working with the founders of Threebyone, the business behind Neuw Denim, Rollas and Abrand Jans. Looking back, one of the biggest lessons wasn’t about denim. It wasn’t about retail. It wasn’t even about marketing.
It was about culture.
On paper, all three brands sold jeans. In reality, they occupied completely different worlds.
Neuw was built around individuality, creativity and self-expression. It attracted musicians, photographers, designers, agency folk and people who generally didn’t care much for fitting neatly into boxes. The jeans weren’t really the product. The product was identity. The stories, scars and experiences that make us who we are.
Rollas occupied a different space. There was still an Australian spirit to it, but it felt more relaxed, nostalgic and effortless. There was music, there was romance, there was a little rebellion, but there was also accessibility. It felt like a brand people could see themselves in.
Abrand played a different role again. Younger. Louder. Faster. More trend aware. More social. More connected to self-expression, belonging and identity formation. The products changed faster. The culture moved faster. The audience expected something different.
Three brands. Three audiences. Three cultural spaces.
And that’s where most businesses get growth wrong. They think growth comes from reaching more people. Growth usually comes from mattering more to the right people.
The best brands I’ve worked on weren’t obsessed with demographics. They were obsessed with understanding the role they played in people’s lives and the culture surrounding them. That’s a very different exercise.
Which brings me to trends.
Marketers bloody love trends. #Obsessed
Soft girl era. Clean girl era. Quiet luxury era. Whatever era TikTok decides to invent next week.
The problem is that most people confuse trends with culture.
A trend is simply the visible expression of something happening underneath. It’s the symptom, not the cause. The real opportunity sits beneath the trend.
// Why are people gravitating towards softness?
// Why are people rejecting hustle culture?
// Why are younger generations dressing, behaving and consuming differently?
// Why are attitudes shifting?
That’s where strategy lives.
Not in the trend itself, but in the tension and cultural shift driving it.
The best brands don’t chase culture. They participate in it. They contribute to it. Sometimes they help shape it. But they don’t stand on the sidelines desperately trying to borrow relevance because they saw something trending on TikTok.
Culture isn’t a costume you put on for a campaign.
It’s a community you belong to… and the strongest brands understand exactly where they belong.
That’s why I often think growth is less of a marketing challenge and more of a clarity challenge. Most businesses don’t have a content problem. They don’t have a social media problem. They don’t have a performance marketing problem.
They have a meaning problem.
They don’t know who they’re for. They don’t know what role they play. They don’t know what makes them distinctive.
So they end up doing more. More content. More activity. More campaigns. More noise.
When what they actually need is more clarity.
The brands that win aren’t always the biggest. They’re the ones that understand people better than their competitors do. They understand the culture they’re participating in, the role they play within it, and the value they create for the people they serve.
Everything else is just execution…
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PS: Clarity is easy to talk about and surprisingly difficult to create. If your team is currently navigating complexity, competing priorities or strategic drift, I’d be happy to have a chat.
💀🖤
Cheers,
DANIEL JACOBS
http://bjornfox.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/denialjacobs/
Melbourne, Australia
THE CREATIVE STRATEGIST 