The art of building legendary brands | Arielle Jackson (Google, Square, Marketer in Residence at First Round Capital)
Ariel Jackson, Marketer in Residence at First Round Capital, shares insights on naming strategies, a brand development framework (purpose, positioning, personality), and tactical advice for getting PR for startups.
Deep Dive Analysis
11 Topic Outline
Arielle Jackson's Background and Career Journey
Qualities of a Good Product or Startup Name
The Naming Process: Brief, Criteria, and Brainstorm
Impact of Names on Company Success and Common Naming Mistakes
Introduction to Brand Development Framework
Defining and Developing Your Brand Purpose
Mastering Product Positioning for Your Startup
Building a Distinct Brand Personality
Leveraging Brand Documents and Initial PR Strategies
When to Hire a Full-Time Marketer
Recommended Books, Podcasts, and Industry Thought Leaders
7 Key Concepts
Brand
Your brand is essentially who people think you are. Developing a brand strategy involves defining what you want people to think you are and outlining the actions you'll take to shape that perception.
Empty Vessel Names
These are words that don't inherently mean anything related to the product or company, like Yahoo or Google. While memorable, they require significant marketing effort and time to imbue them with meaning in the public's mind.
Brand Purpose
This is the fundamental 'why' a company does what it does, explaining the change it wants to see in the world irrespective of financial gain. It acts as a long-term North Star, aligning employees and making the public want the company to succeed.
Product Positioning
Positioning refers to the specific space your product occupies in your target customer's mind. It's about influencing how they describe your product and its role in their lives, ensuring a clear and consistent understanding.
Brand Personality
This defines how your brand shows up in the world, akin to a person's character. It's crucial for guiding visual design, written copy, and overall communication, especially in social media spaces where brands interact like people.
The Bar Test
A practical exercise to refine positioning and messaging by imagining a target customer explaining your product to a friend at a bar. If the description sounds natural and prompts further interest, the messaging is effective and in human language.
T-Shaped Marketer
This describes a marketing professional who possesses deep expertise in one specific marketing function (e.g., product marketing, performance marketing) while also having sufficient knowledge across other marketing disciplines to be effective.
8 Questions Answered
Good names are often suggestive or evocative, making sense once the company's function is explained, rather than being purely descriptive. They tend to be short, memorable, fun to say, and carry some emotion or nostalgia.
While not strictly necessary (as seen with 'empty vessel' names like Apple or Yahoo), a name that suggests or evokes the company's function does more of the marketing work for you, making it easier for people to understand and remember what you do.
A brand's purpose is to define who people think you are, and developing a brand strategy helps shape that perception. It's crucial for customer understanding, aligning employees, and making company decisions.
You likely have a positioning problem if different customers or employees give wildly varied answers when asked what your company or product does, or if you struggle to explain what you do in a single sentence.
Early-stage companies lack the resources to be 'everything to everyone.' Focusing on a specific, large-enough niche allows them to dominate that segment, build a strong foundation, and achieve significant market share before expanding.
Brand personality helps define a brand's character, guiding visual design, written copy, and overall communication style. It makes the brand relatable and interesting, especially in interactive spaces like social media, preventing awkward or forced messaging.
Common mistakes include not having a clear story, unrealistic expectations about coverage outlets and timelines, doing straight funding announcements without a larger news hook, and not making their story interesting or relevant to a broader audience.
A startup should hire a full-time marketer when they have numerous ongoing marketing problems that require dedicated expertise, or when managing multiple freelancers and agencies becomes too complex. For marketing-driven businesses, this often occurs around 10 employees.
25 Actionable Insights
1. Positioning Dictates Marketing
Always prioritize product positioning as it dictates much of your marketing efforts and should be completed before any significant product development begins.
2. Define Your Brand’s Purpose
Clearly articulate your brand’s purpose as ‘why you do what you do,’ focusing on the change you want to see in the world, as this serves as a long-term North Star for your company and aligns employees.
3. Define Target Audience
Start your positioning by defining your broadest customer set, then narrow it down to a specific target audience for the next 18 months, and finally create a detailed model persona representing that individual user.
4. Focus on Niche Audience
As an early-stage company, focus on acquiring a specific, niche audience that is large enough to build a significant business if dominated, rather than trying to appeal to everyone with limited resources.
5. Recognize Positioning Problems
Identify a positioning problem if your customers or employees give wildly different answers when asked what your company or product does, or if you struggle to explain your offering in a single sentence.
6. Structured Positioning Worksheet
Use a structured worksheet to define your positioning by answering key questions: who is it for, what problem do they have, how do they address it today, what do you make, how does it work, and what would a happy user tell another.
7. Use the Bar Test
Apply the ‘bar test’ to ensure your positioning language is natural and colloquial; imagine a target customer explaining your product to a friend at a bar to ensure the description is conversational and clear.
8. Define Brand Personality
Develop a distinct brand personality, as brands are like people and need a unique character to show up authentically in the world, especially on platforms like social media, informing both visual design and written copy.
9. Aaker’s Personality Dimensions
Utilize Jennifer Aaker’s five dimensions of brand personality (sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, ruggedness) to identify which two dimensions your brand should strongly embody, as strong brands typically excel in two.
10. Tension-Filled Personality Attributes
After identifying your core personality dimensions, define five specific brand attributes using ‘we are X, but not Y’ statements, where Y represents taking X too far, to create tension and make your brand more interesting and distinct.
11. Create a Brand Bible
Compile your brand’s purpose, positioning, personality, visual design guidelines, and tone of voice into a comprehensive ‘brand Bible’ or creative brief to ensure consistent understanding and application across all stakeholders.
12. Create a Naming Brief
Before brainstorming names, write a naming brief that clarifies what you are naming, what you want the name to communicate/avoid, competitive names, and any other specific considerations like pronounceability.
13. Evaluate Names with Criteria
Assess potential names against seven universal criteria: trademark, domain availability, distinctiveness, timelessness, reflection of messaging/emotion, sound/ease of pronunciation/spelling, appearance, and length.
14. Structured Naming Brainstorm
Conduct a one-hour naming brainstorm with 5-7 people, starting with synonyms and associations from your positioning statement, then moving to thematic brainstorms to generate a wide range of ideas.
15. Pick a Ridiculous Code Name
When incorporating a new company quickly, use a code name so ridiculous you would never launch with it, preventing attachment to a poor temporary name and allowing for a proper naming process later.
16. Brainstorm Purpose with Tensions
To define your purpose, first list cultural tensions relevant to your business, then list ways to describe your brand’s best self, and finally brainstorm ‘we exist to…’ statements, optionally starting with ’the world would be a better place if…’.
17. Get PR Story Straight
Before seeking PR, ensure your company’s story is clear and concise, ideally explainable in a single sentence, as this clarity is crucial for reporters to understand and convey your message effectively.
18. Realistic PR Expectations
Have realistic expectations about PR outlets and timelines; early-stage startups often secure exclusive coverage with a single outlet, and major publications rarely cover seed-stage funding announcements unless the story is exceptional.
19. Avoid Straight Funding PR
Do not make a straight funding announcement your sole PR hook; instead, use the funding as a news hook to tell a larger, more compelling story about your product’s availability, customer momentum, or key partnerships.
20. Make Story Relevant for PR
Frame your company’s story to be interesting and relevant to the target outlet’s readers, not just your internal team, by highlighting broader trends or making customers into heroes to increase appeal.
21. Leverage Local Press
Utilize local press if your business has a local story, customers, or impact, as local outlets are often more eager for stories than national tech publications and can provide valuable coverage.
22. Hire Marketer for Ongoing Needs
Consider hiring a full-time marketer when you have many ongoing marketing problems that freelancers/agencies can’t solve cohesively, or when you have a repeatable sales motion and need more marketing qualified leads.
23. Prioritize T-Shaped Marketers
When hiring a marketer, look for a ‘T-shaped’ individual who is deep in one marketing function (e.g., product, performance, comms, creative) but also possesses enough knowledge across other functions to be effective.
24. Interview Question: Proud Project
When interviewing marketing candidates, ask ‘Tell me about a project you’re proud of’ as an open-ended question to gain broad insights into their experience and capabilities.
25. Interview Question: Cool Campaign
Another effective interview question for marketing candidates is ‘Tell me about a campaign you recently come across that you were not involved with that you thought was cool,’ to gauge their awareness and critical thinking about external marketing.
5 Key Quotes
A good name is just going to help you. But I don't think a bad name is going to kill a good company.
Arielle Jackson
I'll never write a line of code without doing positioning first.
Arielle Jackson
Your brand is who people think you are.
Arielle Jackson
Brands need tension to be interesting.
Arielle Jackson
If you have a body, you are an athlete.
Arielle Jackson
4 Protocols
Startup Naming Process
Arielle Jackson- Complete product positioning first, as it dictates marketing and should be the initial step.
- Write a naming brief, specifying what is being named (company/product/both), what the name should communicate, what to avoid, competitive names, and any additional considerations (e.g., pronounceability in other languages).
- Evaluate potential names against seven universal criteria: trademark availability, domain availability (not necessarily .com), distinctiveness, timelessness (avoiding trends), reflection of key messaging/emotion, sound/ease of pronunciation/spelling, appearance (visual design potential), and length.
- Conduct a brainstorm session (1 hour, 5-7 people) in two parts: first, generate synonyms, antonyms, free associations, and other languages from meaningful words in the positioning statement; second, conduct a thematic brainstorm based on 7-10 relevant themes.
- Research further on Wikipedia, the internet, and books to find additional words.
- Create a shortlist of 10-25 promising name concepts.
- Narrow down the shortlist to 3-5 top contenders using the red, yellow, green rating system against the criteria.
- Initiate the trademark and domain acquisition process for the top contenders, avoiding attachment to a single name.
Brand Purpose Development
Arielle Jackson- List all relevant cultural tensions (zeitgeists, current events, audience subconscious thoughts) impacting your business.
- List all ways you would describe your brand's 'best self' and what your product delivers when everything works perfectly.
- Select one item from the cultural tensions list and one from the brand's best self list that best articulate what's happening in the world and what your product delivers.
- Brainstorm by completing the sentence: 'The world would be a better place if [your company's impact]'.
- Refine the brainstormed ideas into a concise sentence that completes: 'We exist to [your purpose]', ensuring it explains the change you want to see irrespective of financial gain, fits a 10-year timeframe, and can serve as an 'About' page header.
Product Positioning Process
Arielle Jackson- Define your audience: Start with the broadest set of customers (TAM), then narrow down to a target audience (who you'll actively acquire for the next 18 months), and finally, a model persona (a specific, descriptive individual representing the target).
- Identify the core problem your target audience faces, even if they aren't fully aware of its severity.
- Determine how your target audience currently addresses this problem (e.g., existing products, workarounds, old methods).
- Clearly articulate what your product is and how it works.
- Define what a happy user of your product would tell another person (your ideal benefit statement).
- Distill all this information into a classic four-part positioning statement: 'For [target audience], who [statement of need or opportunity], [product name] is a [category] that [benefit], unlike [old thing they were doing], our product works [this other way].'
- Apply 'The Bar Test' by role-playing a target customer explaining your product to a friend at a bar to ensure the language is natural and compelling.
Brand Personality Framework
Arielle Jackson- Identify which two of Jennifer Aker's five dimensions of brand personality your brand will 'spike' in: Sincerity (down-to-earth, honest), Excitement (spirited), Competence (reliable, intelligent), Sophistication (charming, upper-class), or Ruggedness (outdoorsy, tough).
- Define five distinct brand attributes, thinking of them as points on a star, ensuring there's some tension between them (e.g., savvy but approachable).
- For each attribute, write a statement in the format: 'We are X, but not Y,' where Y represents taking attribute X too far (e.g., 'We are playful, but not silly').
- Use these five statements to inform your written copy, visual design, illustration style, photography style, and ad copy.