One of the first things any good marketer does, if he’s lucky, is help his client define or refine their brand; that special something they do better than anyone else in the marketplace. In my 20 years of owning an ad agency, I did quite a lot of this, and I did it well.
With all this branding experience you would think it would be easy for me to define my brand. Or rebrand. But it’s not; it’s proven to be a bitch of an exercise that has evolved over the last five years.
The challenge of branding is that when you have a strong brand, you have to stake a claim. Many business owners marketing executives and CEOs don’t want to stake a claim on one particular service because they fear losing potential business in other services they provide. The key word is fear.
The best brands know who they are. They have no fear. They are relentless in their messaging and self-awareness. Think Red Bull. Strong, bold, and in your face – just like the drink itself.
So what’s taken me so long to define my brand? You already know the answer: Fear. And the conditioned belief that things had to be done a certain way.
I started a new, independent branding consultancy three years ago, but I didn’t really have a brand. In hindsight, my website read like a thousand other marketing consultants; I didn’t differentiate myself from any number of talented marketing professionals across the country. Was I capable and experienced? Absolutely. Was I different? Didn’t appear to be.
The thing is. I do bring something to the table that no one else can bring. I bring Upsight: my brain’s new operating system, and I’m ready to claim it.
I broke my brain with drugs and had a complete mental breakdown (that’s a whole other story) eventually finding my way back to sanity. Along the way, somehow my brain re-booted itself, and now I see things others don’t. I think differently because I see things differently. I call it Upsight.
This unique gift, along with insights from my foray into madness and back, is exactly the differentiator that makes me an invaluable resource to mental health marketers.
BOOM! Talk about a blinding flash of the obvious.
Embracing Out-of-Your-Mind Marketing
Why did it take me so long to come to this? Like many of my clients – whose hesitations I now appreciate more fully – I was afraid to be different. I was scared to sell myself using the most unique thing about myself. Why? Because Upsight makes me different. Like really, really different. Almost Elephant Man different.
“But if I can’t offer my uniqueness as a bold and brilliant benefit to mental health marketers, then what’s the point? Seriously?”
If you guys don’t embrace and appreciate my “out-of-your-mind thinking” and the innovations it can mean for your marketing results, no one will.
I realize staking my brand and reputation on madness and its proximity to genius will narrow down my potential list of clients in the mental health field. But that’s ok. I’m looking to partner with thought leaders and innovators in mental health marketing. I’m looking for marketing directors ready to harness the zeitgeist of the times and make your marketing efforts bold, different, and wildly effective.
I can still tweak a brand message or help create a new logo. If a change in creative is all you want, I can deliver on that too. But I have so much more to offer. Most people who have lost their minds don’t find their way back. I was lucky. Not only did I find my way back, I found something more. More “mind” than I know what to do with. Now I get to share it with pioneering mental health marketers.
Need a fresh approach to mental health marketing? Please email to learn about my “out of your mind” branding workshop. I see things you don’t, and I’ll help your team see things they never thought of before. (When you suggest this to your boss, if he says, “Are you out of your mind?!” you can say, “No, but this guy claims to be.”)