Don’t hide – look for your brand’s flaws and win storytelling gold

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Your brand is flawed.

It doesn't matter who you are or what your company does. The character of your brand is flawed. Brands behave badly in ways large and small. Even the most well-intentioned branding efforts go wrong.

Elon Musk appears to have acted intentionally to devalue X's brand value. Bud Light had a bad brand year in 2023 with a flawed marketing campaign. Even innovative startup OpenAI inadvertently created a branding problem after firing and rehiring its CEO and co-founder Sam Altman.

Of course, brand character mistakes also happen in smaller and less catastrophic ways. There is probably at least one email in your inbox from a company addressed to the address or that tries to sell you something that you have already purchased from the brand.

As a marketer, you hope to avoid these situations. But here's the thing: companies, organizations and brands are made up of people. People make mistakes and people do bad things. Every one of your brands will falter at some point.

However, in all of these situations lies a lesson for your role as a brand storyteller.

Understand your brand’s shortcomings

Stephen R. Covey, author of “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” once wrote, “We judge ourselves by our motives and others by their behavior.” As humans, you continue to make this fundamental attribution error when comparing your actions perceive those of others.

Typically, you know the clear intentions behind your own actions, but guilt can cause you to double down when someone demands your response. You know it was an accident when you parked the car. But when that driver zooms up next to your vehicle, flips the bird and screams from inside his car, you do a double whammy, flipping him the bird and shouting, “Oh, shut up!” I didn’t do it on purpose!”

You know you worked hard on that customer activation email campaign. But when a mistake becomes apparent prematurely and you are cynically called out on social media, you react badly, which only fuels the mistake.

Bud Light's campaign featuring Dylan Mulvaney is a perfect example. As I wrote, the beer brand's biggest mistake wasn't the campaign, but rather its response to the backlash and, more importantly, its lack of preparation for the backlash.

Identify the potential for weaknesses in your brand stories

When something goes wrong, you most likely blame the situation and remember your intentions. But your perception of the behavior of other people – and other brands – is different. You don't know their intentions. Even if they express them, you can ignore them. They most likely interpret their behavior as a flaw in their character.

Recognizing this tendency toward judgmental responses is an important lesson for marketers. This makes a strong argument for a more comprehensive approach to brand storytelling than just talking about your products or services.

Historically, brand messaging architectures must be idealized, perfect and unassailable – a passionate voice striking the ideal tone in an imperfect world. Your brand is the solution to all problems. You develop reasons for this belief, a focus and a value.

They pay little or no attention to exposing weaknesses and deficiencies.

But you should. Every great hero has flaws. This makes her strengths and her story so understandable. Luke Skywalker has a dark side. Barbie initially lacks self-confidence. Even George Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life – the perfect father, brother and friend – has self-esteem issues.

In storytelling, the hero's mistake lays the foundation for the story's conflict and forces the audience to engage with it. Isn't it ironic then that as a marketer you want your brand story to be as uneventful and conflict-free even though you know that will never be possible?

Embrace imperfection