Branding for Tech Companies 101: Future Mythology
How Tech Companies Can Start Fixing Their Messaging Problem
👋 Heya to 2,207 climate buddies 🌳
Climate is not a technology problem but a story problem.
Delphi Zero is a consultancy and newsletter about the narrative potential of climate.
For the longest time, I wanted to let climate buddies in on my brand consulting secrets. The time has come to repackage it in an essay series:
This series, will kick off with basics, move on to advanced concepts, and eventually give you a front-row view of how to dissect and improve the brands of existing climate tech companies.
It’s story time!
Branding for Tech Companies 101: Future Mythology
By Art Lapinsch (illustrations generated via Midjourney)
All of my clients tell me a variation of the same.
Our tech is ready but we have a problem.
Our employees don’t fully understand what we do and our clients are not 100% sure why they need our product.How do we fix this?
They all have a messaging problem.
Brand(ing): “Our brand doesn’t appeal to Zoomers.”
Narrative: “Our narrative doesn’t communicate what we stand for.”
Marketing: “Our marketing strategy doesn’t fit the new stage of our business.”
In this essay, you will learn the necessary fundamentals to solve your messaging problem.
It all starts with mythology.
In Search for a Better Mythology
The first myth that pops into my head is the story of Icarus.
It goes something like this:
🏝️ Icarus and his father, Daedalus, are imprisoned on the island of Crete.
🪽 To escape, Daedalus crafts wings made of feathers and wax.
☝️ Daedalus warns Icarus not to fly too close to the sun.
😈 Icarus doesn’t give a f*ck and ignores his father’s warning.
🌞 Icarus flies higher and higher until the sun melts the wax on his wings.
😵 Icarus falls into the sea and drowns. He dies. The end.
Why do I remember?
This myth is meaningful
This myth is easy to remember
This myth is easy to share
Myths are like tiny mind viruses. They encode and transmit something from one person to another. And as such, the myth of Icarus has been used over centuries as a cautionary tale about the dangers of hubris. It encoded cultural values and transmitted them broadly.
On a side note, it’s amazing that this story is literally thousands of years old but still resonates with people today.
Real-Life Example: Nike
To understand fundamentals - brand/branding, narrative, and marketing - let’s look at one of the biggest brands in the game: Nike ✔
Brand (essence): Everyone's an athlete.
Branding (representation): The swoosh logo; the products; etc.
Narrative: You are just one step away from becoming a better version of yourself. Just do it.
Marketing: Nike video/print ad; sponsored athletes/teams; Nike retail spaces; etc.
Nike has created a mythology where every consumer is the hero in their own athletic journey.
It is meaningful, easy to remember, and easy to share. And the best thing about it: You can replicate this for your own brand.
In short: Stop looking for a better brand. Start searching for a better mythology.
Strap in, get comfy, and let’s take flight!
Why Mythology Matters in Tech
High tech, deep tech, frontier tech - whatever you call it - is in the business of introducing radically new ways of doing things.
Mythology can help with two common challenges of being a technology company.
External Challenge: Thriving in an Adaptive Environment
People are afraid of change.
“This hasn’t been done before.”
“This will never work.”
“This will fail.”
Tech companies have to build magical tools that users love (technology challenge) and get users to know about it (distribution challenge). Within that context, tech companies have two external challenges.
First, you have to go with the flow. The author’s of “Kellogg on Branding” have put it well in their “Chapter 11: Branding in Technology Markets”:
The ephemeral and fluid nature of product categories in technology markets makes it difficult to closely associate technology brands to a specific product or even a specific product category. While Tide has been associated with detergents and Colgate has been associated with oral care for decades, technology brands are rarely associated with specific products.
While CPG firms focus on branding the product, technology firms focus on branding the company. … The driver brand for most technology firms is the corporate brand, and not the product brand.
Branding the company gives you flexibility for when a business model pivot is needed.
Second, tech companies need to get the market ready for products and services that have never existed before. You can call it pre-market branding or you can call it thought leadership.
Either way, you have to show them the promised land and tell them why it’s worth exploring.
Sounds like mythology, doesn’t it?
Internal Challenge: Coordinating the Team Behind the Dream
Building new tech is not only a tech/distro challenge but also an organizational challenge.
How do you align and motivate people over long periods of time to execute in unison?
I described this in an older piece called “Keeping the Climate Tech Promise”
Stevie J. - the founder of some kind of fruit company once said that "the most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values, and agenda of an entire generation..."
Is this quote overused? Definitely. Is it still helpful? You bet!
I like it because it summarizes the true impact of stories and allows us to isolate the three core pillars of great narratives:
Why (Vision) → Save our land from the evil force 😈 → Makes people care.
What (Agenda) → Take the fortress 🏰 → Makes people understand.
How (Values) → Fire arrows at the fortress 🏹 → Makes people act.
Once a story is out in the wild it replaces the storyteller. The true power of good stories is that it gives power to the people to act on their own. They know why, what, and how.
This blurb describes “alignment.” It helps to set a clear vision of what’s ahead and inspire courageous souls to take the right steps towards the correct goal.
The Basics of Brand, Narrative, and Marketing
Let’s nail the basics.
Brand: The Meaning
A brand is a promise. If the promise is kept, it’s on brand. If the promise is not kept, it’s off brand.
Think of a person you know. At the core, that person has certain values, traits, and behaviors. That’s their brand. Their essence.
If you meet them, you expect them to talk, behave, and act in a certain way. These building blocks are the various elements of the brand’s branding.
Next, you need to understand Semiotics - the study of signs/symbols and their meaning.
In semiotics, a sign/symbol is split into two parts:
Signified: The essence of the symbol → Brand
Signifier: The representation of that essence → Branding
PSA: I know this terminology (signifier vs. signified) is odd at first. It took me a while to wrap my head around it. But if you roll with it, I promise, it’ll have a huge payoff. Pinky promise.
In mythology, a story can be interpreted in a literal sense and in a symbolic sense. It’s like looking at something on a surface level vs. diving into the depths of it. This, my friend, is semiotics at play.
In storytelling, the brand is the underlying idea. The branded elements of that idea are the words, the characters, and the trees of the imagined world.
In corporate branding, the brand is the underlying idea of that company. The branded elements of that idea are the logo, the colors, and the invented corporate language.
To summarize: A brand is the (symbolic) meaning of something and branding is the (literal) representation of that essence.
Narrative: The Glue
Think of branding as a loose collection of elements: A | B | C | D | … | Z
Narrative is the glue that binds these loose elements together into something coherent: A → B → B → C → D → … → Z
It helps our mind go from A to Z along the correct path.
In the example of the Icarus myth, we have loose elements: the son, the father, the wings, the sun… but how do all of these relate to each other?
Our brains remember stories easier than facts. Narrative caters to that.
That’s why the myth requires a narrative.
ONE Simple Trick That Turns Your Boring Story Into a Hollywood-worthy Script.
I’m talking about the concept of Tension and Release. In a previous essay, I wrote:
Bill Grundfest - the founder of the Comedy Cellar - said that all narrative follows the same structure: Who (subject) wants what (desire)? And what’s in the way (tension)?
In ancient times there was a fella called Alexander the Great (subject). He wanted to rule the world (desire) but the Gordian* Knot was in his way (tension). An oracle had declared that any person who could untangle this sophisticated knot would become the ruler of Asia - which from Alexander’s perspective meant the rest of the world. The crux was that the knot was impossible to untie.
A tragedy:
In mythology, Icarus (subject) wants to have it his own way (desire) but thermal conductivity of the wings is in his way (tension). Icarus falling from the heavens teaches us an important lesson (release).
A fairy tale:
In corporate narrative, your customer (subject) wants to solve their problem (desire) but the status quo of the solution landscape is in their way (tension). // Hint: Your new solution can solve their problem (release).
To summarize: A narrative - peppered with tension and release - helps the audience to remember the branded elements of a brand.
Marketing: The Execution
This one is a quickie.
Now that you have a brand, the various branded elements, and a narrative, it’s time to get this message out into the world. That’s marketing.
Over generations, the myth of Icarus was shared in different ways:
Oral: Retelling of the story around a bonfire
Visual: Depictions of the story
Literary: Written record of the myth
To summarize: The purpose of marketing is to spread the brand far and wide.
Remember Nike?
Your Future Mythology Within
Innovators are messengers from the future.
Nike saw that everyone is an athlete before others did. This was at a time when the word “jogging” didn’t even exist.
Likewise, tech companies see something that the rest of us don’t see. Yet.
This is the meaningful essence of what the brand and its branding should revolve around.
In the next essay, I will teach you an advanced concept - the Narrative Pyramid - that you will use to craft your own mythology in a way that it’s easy to remember and easy to share.
In the meantime, ask yourself: What do you believe the future looks like?
⏩ Want to read more? Check out the next essay in this series: “Branding for Tech Companies 102: Clarity and Consistency”
🙏 Thanks, Matt for giving the draft a good’ol red-pen edit. Thanks, Ben, Sara, Finn, and Peter for listening to rough versions of this idea.
My promise for the following essays: Tech companies (subject) want to solve their messaging problem (desire) but don’t know how (tension). // Hint: This series will solve their problem (release).
I’d love to hear from you, please leave a comment or get in touch via Linkedin ✌️