{"id":10863,"date":"2026-03-12T18:48:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T00:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/?p=10863"},"modified":"2026-03-12T18:48:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T00:48:29","slug":"brands-that-win-are-clearer-not-louder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/?p=10863","title":{"rendered":"Brands that win are clearer, not louder"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I\u2019m sitting in the Las Vegas airport writing this. Looking around, I see a familiar sight \u2014 people trying just a little too hard to project youth and status. A woman with too many plastic surgeries wearing clothes designed for someone half her age. The guy next to her has a bad hair dye job, fake tan and is wearing a status-symbol shirt \u2014 Gucci.<\/p>\n

In college, I learned about signal theory. Signal theory says that every action a company takes sends a signal to the market, and customers interpret that signal to judge risk, credibility and intent. <\/p>\n

These two people I\u2019m low-key fixated on are clearly sending signals to the world. They want people to see them and say, \u201cLook at that beautiful young woman,\u201d and \u201cWow. That guy must be a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

But if you\u2019re a little judgmental like I am, that\u2019s not what you think. You may say it to the person because, to quote George Costanza, \u201cWe\u2019re living in a civilization here.\u201d But what I\u2019m actually thinking is: these people are desperate.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the problem with poorly constructed signals. They communicate the opposite of their intention \u2014 and that matters enormously for marketing.<\/p>\n

Intentional communication is the bedrock of effective marketing. That\u2019s what novice marketers miss. They are like this man and woman, chasing youth, relevance and status. But to their customers, it reads as desperation.<\/p>\n

Pizza crashes and burns<\/h2>\n

Take, for example, perhaps the biggest marketing mistake in the history of DiGiorno.<\/p>\n

In 2014, #WhyIStayed became a popular hashtag on Twitter among domestic abuse victims following the Ray Rice scandal, which brought domestic abuse front and center into American culture. The tweets shared by victims and their supporters were raw, emotional and vulnerable in a deeply personal way. It was a human discourse on abuse.<\/p>\n

Amid this deeply personal dialogue came an ad for frozen pizzas. DiGiorno\u2019s marketing team wrote: \u201c#WhyIStayed You had pizza.\u201d The response was swift and vicious. Within seconds, they got thousands of responses ranging from mockery and criticism to outrage. DiGiorno deleted the tweet seconds later and issued a blanket apology. Then they spent the next few hours personally apologizing to abuse survivors in their mentions, one by one. But it was too little, too late.<\/p>\n

This is the problem with novice marketers. They want to be the life of the party, regardless of what kind of party it is. This leads them to do things for attention regardless of context. Sort of like asking for the open bar at a funeral.<\/p>\n

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Life of the party<\/h2>\n

When I was dating my wife, there was one group of people everyone seemed to know. These women all lived in the same house and there was always something going on there. At first, it seemed like a blast, until I realized something. These women didn\u2019t really stand out. Everyone knew the house, but couldn\u2019t tell you much about the people living in it.<\/p>\n

My wife was different. She wasn\u2019t throwing parties. She wasn\u2019t chasing social standing. She was just herself \u2014 and that made her impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the difference between being the life of the party and actually standing out. One is a performance for everyone. The other is a signal to the right people. That\u2019s the distinction only expert marketers fully grasp.<\/p>\n

Dance to your own tune<\/h2>\n

Louis Grenier is the host of the \u201cEveryone Hates Marketers\u201d podcast and author of the book \u201cStand the F*** Out.\u201d Making a good impression is kind of his thing. On his show, he\u2019s mentioned several businesses whose marketing does a great job of dancing to their own tune.<\/p>\n

Grenier gives criteria for what it takes for businesses to stand out from the crowd. It has nothing to do with witty gimmicks or how (in)expertly a marketing team takes advantage of a cultural moment. Experts don\u2019t chase the moment. They don\u2019t need to.<\/p>\n

They engineer the signal. Grenier puts it simply: if you can swap your logo for a competitor\u2019s and nothing changes, your brand doesn\u2019t stand out. It\u2019s just the third violin in the orchestra, not the featured solo artist.<\/p>\n

Winning brands and marketing strategies don\u2019t get loud. They get specific, more exclusive and commit themselves to being 100% authentic. Especially if it alienates some people. Because those probably weren\u2019t the right people in the first place.<\/p>\n

Engine Gin<\/h3>\n

Gin is a hotly contested space in the alcohol world and differentiation is difficult. In a world of delicate glass bottles and decanters, Engine Gin went the opposite way. Their bottle looks exactly like an old motor oil can. It\u2019s not subtle and definitely not trying to appeal to everyone. It\u2019s a signal to the type of person who finds the sophisticated gin drinker persona pretentious. Engine didn\u2019t chase relevance. It\u2019s not even on their KPI list.<\/p>\n

Fast + Light<\/h3>\n

Fast + Light is a marketing agency for ecommerce brands. Their tagline is \u201cthink of us as revenue mechanics for your ecommerce business.\u201d Wherever they go, they wear branded mechanics shirts and stand out. Because who\u2019s the guy the target customer is most likely to remember? Another guy in a suit or the guy in a mechanic\u2019s shirt?<\/p>\n

Basecamp<\/h3>\n

Most B2B SaaS companies sprint toward bigger deals with bigger companies. They want to wallpaper their website with Fortune 500 logos. Basecamp went the other way. Their copy says, \u201cMost big software companies fight over Fortune 500 companies. They can have them.\u201d They capped pricing at $299\/month regardless of company size. They stand out because they\u2019ve rejected the whole category playbook. They\u2019ve created an army of loyal customers who gladly spread the good word.<\/p>\n

The paradox of relevance<\/h2>\n

None of these brands are chasing relevance or using copycat marketing. They aren\u2019t sending signals other than \u201cthis is who we are\u201d and \u201cthis is what we do.\u201d They don\u2019t care whether everyone hears the signal. They just want the right people to hear it.<\/p>\n

The woman in the Las Vegas airport and the man in the Gucci shirt are sending signals, too. Just not the ones they intended. Expert marketers understand that the goal isn\u2019t to chase the next viral hit or mimic the latest trend. Chasing relevance is the fastest way to become irrelevant. They just need to be unmistakable to the right people. Build that signal, and you don\u2019t have to chase customers. They come to you.<\/p>\n

The post Brands that win are clearer, not louder<\/a> appeared first on MarTech<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m sitting in the Las Vegas airport writing this. Looking around, I see a familiar sight \u2014 people trying just a little too hard to project youth and status. A woman with too many plastic surgeries wearing clothes designed for someone half her age. The guy next to her has a bad hair dye job, … <\/p>\n

Read more “Brands that win are clearer, not louder”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"medium":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"large":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"inspiro-featured-image":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"inspiro-loop":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"inspiro-loop@2x":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-thumbnail":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-thumbnail@2x":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-masonry":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-masonry@2x":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-thumbnail_cinema":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-thumbnail_portrait":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-thumbnail_portrait@2x":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-thumbnail_square":["https:\/\/martech.org\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/semrush-one.webp",0,0,false]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}