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the most UNDER RATED marketing weapon of all time
Dan Pope
June 06, 2025
it wasn’t obvious to me. but I couldn’t see it. hiding in plain sight.
hiding in the mucky, opaque back waters of my rushing and frothing and swirling mind.
but
when I saw it. and told my friends. and they told their friends.
everything changed. everything clear. everything easier.
the link between brand culture <> customer was always so obvious.
the link between brand culture <> customer <> marketing was less obvious.
Okay brands see culture as a Job.
Good brands see culture as an Inside Job
Great brands see culture as an Inside-Outside Story
Great brands know culture = story.
Culture is the constant dance between INTERNAL STORY <> EXTERNAL STORY
INTERNAL = Your Team, Your Customer Service, Email Copy, Wifi Password
EXTERNAL = Your Customers, Your Customers Friends, Your Customers Colleagues
Culture is the sacred umbilical cord linking you and your customers.
Culture is the shared story and language between you and your customers
When they dance, a marketing superpower blossoms.
When they dance, you fuse your brand story world with the customers story world
When they dance, the highly fused story spreads through word of mouth.
When they dance, your brand grows.
But, first, my wonderful Daaaaaaarlings
Please take a pew.
Have a biccy. Or two.
Let us, hastily, promptly and properly define the difference between Okay, Good, Great challenger brand cultures.
Okay brands: “Culture as a Job”
Get Chat GPT to crap out a list of values and inane motivational quotes “Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail” sorta-nause
LITERALLY every challenger founder in Soho House, White City…
“MATEEEEEE, we take our product seriously, but don’t take ourselves seriously, okay I’m being serious and don’t tell anyone that secret, seriously!!”usually print out, crapped out Chat GPT inane motivational quotes and stick on the office bogs door… “Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail”.
**ohhh FFS, I need to Slack Gilroy in accounts…”Gilroy mate, I’ve forgot the bog roll”
Good Brands: “Culture as an Inside Job”
get team buy in by hosting a values and culture off site
write the internal code with the CORE team buy-in
actually use the values as a rudder to make decisions under pressure
managers use the culture + values to inform 1-2-1 meetings
use values + culture as a tool to incentivise employees
Great brands: “Culture as an Inside-Outside Story”
Great brands do all the above and go further.
Great brands turn internal culture into astory, this story fuses with customers. Alas, Ideas spread.
Great brands turn internal culture into external marketing weapon
How?
Will Storr wrote a wonderful book “Story is A Deal”.
Will’s also been a guest on the poddy. One of my fave episodes we’ve ever recorded. Check it out below.
Will discusses how humans are Homo-Nagans. The storytelling species. Humans crave stories. Humans want to share stories.
Stories are our oxygen.
We read kids bedtime stories, stories are ingrained in our DNA.
Price is a story.
You are a story.
Will says:
“The war for memory can be won with story, but that story must make us feel something”
“Story is the interface that allows human brains to fuse together”
Great brands understand their internal culture or code becomes a story when it fuses fuses with the external customers world.
Now, introducing the GOAT Marketeer
Seth Godin is equally as obsessed with storytelling.
Seth’s 1st Rule of Marketing = solve a problem.
Seth’s 2nd Rule of Marketing = create shareable story around that problem, help people share that story.
How, though?
How do Good Brands become Great Brands?
It all starts with founders writing down their internal code (or story)
Founders, like the Founding Fathers scribed The Constitution in 1787, must fastidiously write their INTERNAL BRAND CODE.
Greater time spent on UNIQUE INTERNAL BRAND CODE = Greater UNIQUE IMPACT on customers = Greater UNIQUE FUSED STORY = Great chance of word of mouth marketing blossoming.
Think of Nike for a second…
How does that make you feel…
Just Do It is a story.
A fused story-between an internal brand world and external customer world.
Now look at their internal brand code (story)
Great Brand Culture goes beyond internal.
Great Brand Culture goes beyond “this is how we do things around here”
Much bigger than that.
Great brands see themselves as a story.
Something bigger than a physical product and packaging.
Great brands understand that the story must fuse with the customers story.
Like Jospeh Campbell’s famous “The Heroes Journey”
Make your Customer The Hero of your Brand Story.
Magic happens.
Ideas spread.
Toodle Pip xx
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