Today I want to speak about building a brand.

In fact, piggyback brand building.

A brand isn’t your logo. It’s what people feel when they think about you.

But building this up from scratch is tough.

Luckily, there’s a hack you can use.

Let’s start with your future customers…

The folks you want as your customers aren’t new to shopping. They already spend thousands of dollars on stuff online. You don’t need to convince them to shop. It’s a built-in behaviour in our society.

If you start out, it’s your job to find the brands your customers already shop at (and/or look up to).

You just need to remind them of the brands they already love. Then deconstruct them.

What you’ll find is that successful brands look like other successful brands. And that’s not a coincidence.

I have a few examples for you:

Why do you think luxury brands often carry a horse in their logos?

Ferrari, Porsche, Hermes.

Because equestrian is associated with elegance and power. (The word “equestrian” alone is pure elegance. Way more beautiful than “horse riding”).

And why do brands with a romantic sense often carry European city names?

Paris, Milan, Venice.

People love each other in Dürrbach, Germany as much as they do in Paris. (I hope).

Shein stealing from Gucci has a reason:

Two luxury brands having a similar logo doesn’t happen accidentally:

And Hermes and LV both sharing a very similar shopping bag color is also not a coincidence:

But let’s move away from luxury for a bit.

This is Amazon’s homepage:

And this is Walmart’s:

Kinda the same.

It starts with your audience.

What do they love; what do you offer; how do you want to make them feel?

You don’t have to reinvent the branding wheel.

Play with the rules and you’ll find success.

I also have two examples of brands that played with the rules. You’ll be surprised…

​Carolina Lemke Berlin​

Carolina Lemke + Berlin

German name + German city

Germany is being associated with craftsmanship and accuracy. And Berlin is associated with a vibrant lifestyle.

They successfully associated their products (eyewear) with relevant feelings.

More so, Carolina Lemke isn’t a real person and it’s an Israeli brand, not German.

But it works. It’s not a scam. It’s a story, a brand, a promise.

This is what you should strive for.

But I also have a negative example for you…

​Filippo Loreti​

Ohhh Italy. The country of elegant arrogance. Gotta love it.

Filippo Loreti sells watches. And if you look at their designs and how they promote the company, this is pure italian flavour. The hand drawings look beautiful and you get a sense that they actually needed them, which of course they didn’t. It’s a mass product.

They name their watches Italian city names, design them like real luxury watches and create a beautiful impression of their brand.

But, Filippo Loreti isn’t a real person. And it was founded by two Lithuanian brothers, not italian. That’s not the problem with Filippo Loreti, though.

The problem is they broke their promises. Often. Way too often…

Brand is a promise. A promise to an emotional state. If you deliver on your promises great things will happen. If you fail to deliver and consistently over-promise and under-deliver, this can happen.

There was a massive backlash, people refunded a lot and complained massively. Great marketing can’t save cheap products.

Today even their founders deleted their FL experience from their LinkedIn. Couple years back they wore Steve Job visionary turtleneck shirts and gave interviews lol. They betrayed people and probably regret this.

Branding is beautiful. It’s a service.

And it’s available to you. It doesn’t matter to your customer if you’re dropshipping. What matters is the emotions you can create.

I think you can do that.

Hope you enjoyed it.

P.S.: Can I ask for a tiny favour? Please reply to this email if you liked it. It helps tremendously. More than you think. Thanks, my friend.

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