How brave is your brand? Future-proofing through fearlessness with FutureBrand
Future-Proof Your Brand
Fast Company’s Innovation Festival is always a highlight for the Chair 8 team—a time to reset, find inspiration, and dive deep into the world of NYC’s agencies, innovators, and creatives. Our first session by FutureBrand—a global network of brand, experience, and design experts—was an interactive workshop on how to future-proof your brand through fearlessness.
We explored five key characteristics to help a brand stand out, then identified our brand’s bravery gap with The FutureBrand Score tool. It breaks your brand purpose down to ten key dimensions and explains what’s crucial for thriving in an ever-evolving market. We benchmarked our own brand, as well as our clients', against industry leaders, evaluating attributes such as seamlessness, authenticity, innovation, & more.
How brave is your brand? Let’s dive in!
What is a Brave Brand?
Bravery demands action. Bravery is felt. Bravery is always fresh. A brave brand is irresistible magnetic, boldly confident, unexpectedly ingenious, radically impactful, and intrinsically real. These five characteristics help your brand stand out with brave ideas that drive positive impact. Let’s break each one down…
1. Irresistibly Magnetic
Charismatic, enjoyable, and pleasurable—these are the qualities of an irresistibly magnetic brand.
Take CeraVe’s Super Bowl LVIII “Michael CeraVe” commercial as a prime example. The brand embraced a charming and whimsical approach with Michael Cera as the face of their campaign. What does Michael Cera have to do with moisturizer? Everything, once you experience this hilarious ad featuring a narwhal-speaking Cera. It quickly became one of the most memorable spots of the night, and according to ad research firm DAIVID, it was the most effective Super Bowl campaign on TikTok.
2. Boldly Confident
Influential and emotionally resonant—these are the hallmarks of a boldly confident brand.
Spotify’s “Spreadbeats” campaign hit the mark with the perfect message and creative execution. Using animation to bring Microsoft Excel, a seemingly mundane tool, to life, the campaign spoke directly to media buyers who spend countless hours in spreadsheets planning new ad strategies. It served as a reminder that even the everyday tasks in Excel contribute to shaping the impactful campaigns of tomorrow. Above all, it reinforced (bodly) the power of music in creating emotional connections.
3. Unexpectedly Ingenious
Innovative and transformative—these are the traits of bold, brave brands.
At the heart of emotional storytelling is the ability to tug at the heartstrings, and Siemens Healthineers’ “Magnetic Stories” campaign does exactly that. The experience of undergoing an MRI can be intimidating and anxiety-inducing for adults, let alone children. This campaign showcases a brilliant solution, turning the loud, unsettling sounds of an MRI into something more comforting. It's an unexpectedly clever way to improve a daunting situation. Get your Kleenex ready!
4. Radically Impactful
These are brave brands driven by purpose and inspiration.
Mastercard introduced a new tool designed to support small businesses in finding places to live and ideal storefront locations in Poland. The "Room for Everyone" initiative harnesses data for good, helping displaced Ukrainians not only find places to settle but also opportunities to flourish in their new communities.
5. Intrinsically Real
Brave brands are authentic and effortlessly seamless.
Xbox’s “The Everyday Tactician” campaign exemplifies genuine storytelling. In a football world dominated by wealthy clubs and high-profile coaches, this campaign gave fans the opportunity to win a five-month paid role as a performance support tactician for the small club, Bromley FC. With the expertise of a data-savvy gamer, Bromley achieved its best season ever, earning promotion to League Two for the first time in its 132-year history. It's a powerful example of personalization, boundary-pushing, and building real, meaningful connections.
Score Your Brand
Now that you know the five characteristics of a brave brand, how does yours measure up? Discover your brand’s bravery gap with “The FutureBrand Score.”
Step 1 - Answer 10 questions about your brand
“True bravery demands action: it must be lived, breathed, and felt in the everyday experiences and behaviors of the brand.” The FutureBrand Score assesses brand performance across 10 key dimensions. Click the button below and answer 10 questions to see how brave your brand truly is. Be sure to compare your brand to the “Average of Top 5” to find bravery gaps.
Charismatic: My brand has an engaging personality
Pleasurable: My brand is enjoyable
Influential: My brand has strong ideas and principles
Emotive: My brand crafts emotionally resonant stories
Innovative: My brand continually leads its category with inventive products and services
Life-Enhancing: My brand improves people’s lives
Inspiring: My brand is encouraging and has a positive outlook
Purposeful: My brand has a clear vision for the future
Authentic: My brand is genuine and real
Seamless: My brand understands its consumers
Step 2 - Identify your brand’s bravery gap(s)
Consider both the five key characteristics and the 10 dimensions to evaluate how your brand stacks up. Take our in-house brand, Withernot, as an example. Our bravery gaps are in the areas of Bold Confidence (Emotive) and Unexpected Ingenuity (Innovative, Enhancing).
Step 3 - Find creative ways to close your gaps
Now that you've identified your bravery gaps, it's time to focus on bridging them with holistic thinking, innovative ideas, and creative campaigns. Here are a couple examples of how brands are doing just that.
Closing The Charisma Gap
- Think holistically
- Precise about personality
- Keep it fresh
Case study: Duolingo stands out as one of the most charismatic brands today. With its lovable green bird mascot and a witty, hilarious content strategy, the brand elevates engagement through its vibrant personality.
Closing The Life Enhancing Gap
- Solve meaningful problems
- Link to universal truths
- Demonstrate tangible value
Case study: Impossible’s new branding and positioning are aimed at a broader audience, extending beyond just vegetarians. They’re targeting meat-eaters and striving to become a top choice for everyone. How do they achieve this? By emphasizing the value and transparency of their nutritional information, prominently displayed on their packaging. Through compelling imagery and engaging social content, they demonstrate to meat-eaters that choosing Impossible is not a sacrifice, but a delicious reward. That’s truly life-changing.
Closing The Seamless Gap
- Make it personal & relevant
- Push the boundaries of experience
- Foster real connection
Case study: Ritual, a daily multivitamin designed for women, is clarifying the truths about supplements, health trends, and misinformation. With a straightforward, science-backed product, Ritual forges a personal connection with women who have high standards. Even the bottle is transparent, showcasing the thoughtfully crafted formulation that includes only essential nutrients in their optimal forms, free from unnecessary ingredients.
Closing the Influential Gap
- Plant your flag
- Be an advocate
- Go all in
Case study: Liquid Death has become a category leader by breaking away from traditional marketing norms. In fact, they describe themselves as an entertainment company that just happens to sell water. Advocating for reducing plastic waste with their canned water, they infuse fun and irreverence into everything they do—from casket coolers to their "Murder Your Thirst" campaign and the quirky Head Hoops game.
Closing the Authenticity Gap
- Know what is yours
- Be true
- Expand on owned equities
Case study: Coca-Cola, often known for being highly protective of its brand, took a more open approach with the “Every Coca-Cola is Welcome” campaign. This initiative encouraged local reinterpretations of the iconic logo, celebrating diverse cultures and personalities while maintaining the brand’s legacy.
Final Thoughts
To future proof your brand, engrain bravery!
Bravery demands action
Bravery is felt
Bravery is always fresh
Here are a handful of brands doing this very well…
Miles Deodorant
Miles helps ease the stress of being a teen by being an inclusive, modern brand that focuses on individuality rather than enforcing gender roles and expectations.
Inclusive and for everyone.
Bettr Coffee
A home-grown specialty coffee company founded in 2011, the Bettr Coffee is also Southeast Asia’s first certified B-Corporation.
Bettr provides professional beverage education, specialty coffee products for retail and wholesale, and large-scale events services for companies. They also operate retail coffee bars islandwide, using our presence to amplify positive social impact in the community.
Screw perfect. Make impact.
Dis-loyalty
Dis-loyalty is the travel and food membership that beats boring with bigger discounts on going somewhere new, so you can see more places, do more things, and be more interesting.
No tiers, no points, no brainer.
Thank you, FutureBrand!
A big thank you to FutureBrand for an incredible workshop and knowledge-packed session. It was one of the most impactful highlights of Fast Company’s Innovation Festival 2024, and we’re eager to start implementing these brave characteristics, dimensions and ideas into our brand strategy.
