Most Shared Clip: Inside Nike’s Branding Genius: Lessons for Building an Iconic Brand: Greg Hoffman

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0:32When you think of the most iconic logo in the world, which brand comes to mind? For me it's probably Nike. Their former CMO Greg Hoffman knew exactly how critical strong brand recognition was. And in this clip, he shares his tactics on leveling up your own marketing. I have about 40 companies in my portfolio and when I think about what's worked in terms of marketing, LinkedIn add stands out. They're also the sponsor of this episode. Here you have access to professional network of individuals who influence your business with over a billion members, 130 million decision makers and 10 million C -suite executives.

1:02So you can kill the guesswork and know exactly who you're reaching. If you're ready to make an impact, give LinkedIn ads a try and enjoy this moment on us. Or if you want to get started now, LinkedIn ads is offering a hundred dollar credit to launch your first campaign. Go to LinkedIn .com slash DOAC24 to claim your credit, terms and conditions apply. To create a strong emotional connection with someone else, I'm presuming you have to take a strong emotional stance yourself often. So I'm just thinking about the things that have revoked the strongest emotional connections with anything I do. The things that have evoked the strongest emotional connections with this podcast and its audience are strong emotional stories.

1:39But that when you do that, when you avoid indifference, you are putting yourself in line for potential criticism and attacks and you're going to polarize people so people are going to love and hate you. How important has not been for Nike and how important is it for a person starting a podcast or a business or leading a team or whatever else? For a brand like Nike, it was, you know, look at the athletes that represented the brand early on. I mean, they were all rebels, you know, within their own sports. And so, you know, this idea of, and, you know, having a maximum within the company that was defy convention, right?

2:24So your values kind of say it's like, yeah, there are going to be things we do with conviction that may be polarizing. But it is the deep belief we have in those things. And as long as we always relate them back to sport and this idea of, you know, serving the athlete, then we're willing to go there. And if we're not clearly tethered to, you know, what we say and what we do, then we would deserve the critique and the criticism. So I think you can, for any smaller, large company that's kind of, you know, that's wrestling with this that maybe wants to kind of go beyond just the transactions and truly move into that arena where you really are having real relationships with your audience that their affinity for you comes from that fact that they're getting meaningful benefits, whether those are mental or physical, that are allowing them to progress in life.

3:33You know, when you reach that status, I believe indifference isn't an option right now. I believe we need to look to brands that have that level of success. And again, it's not about scale because there's plenty of small brands, you know, mom and pop brands that are doing great things through their business to affect the lives of people underserved communities. But again, so much of what we're talking about is authenticity, even even doing this book, it's like, well, you know, how much social media should I do on this platform? Does that seem like an authentic? And like I, so at the end of the day, because I drive in people crazy with these questions, is that because, you know, I'm not the most public person, right?

4:21But, but as long as I speak to from the, the center and the anchor of the power of creativity in business and its ability to change the world and make that connection clear, and then if people are pissed off about that, then it is what it is. But more often than not, look at some of the most successful brands and they're, it's made their own business successful. It's accelerated their growth. And so that's where I get into this, you know, yeah, our primary goal, certainly for a public company is to drive growth, both from a brand and business standpoint. But more and more, I believe that within that, you have to integrate this, you know, being a great corporate citizen and using your platform to, to, to, you know, provide your innovation and your inspiration to those that quite frankly don't have the access and opportunity to get it.

5:28How do I find which story to tell? Because if I'm, if I'm running this podcast and I'm thinking, okay, I need to do the logo, the brand, I need to position it in a way that's going to be, this is typically the way the brain thinks. It's trying, it's, the outcome is success and it's trying to figure out which story to tell to get me to success. So how do I make this podcast successful? How would you go about knowing where and how to find that story in your business brand team, whatever it is? And which one is the right one to tell to get the outcome I'm looking for, which is success? The success to me is that it's not overly packaged.

6:03The success to me is that the transparency and authenticity of the conversations and that there's a rawness to it and that's, that is branding. Sometimes it's the, the lack of design, if you will, is the very thing that makes something successful versus there's a, you know, there's go to, it's always the same questions. And so that's the one thing I really appreciate about what you're doing is this, again, back to this, this being human as a being human and creating emotion. And part of that is just dude, the people can, you know, see themselves in you or us. And the, yeah, I mean, that's, that's what I say.

7:02It's less about sometimes the traditional aspects of branding, which is, I want to make sure the frame of every podcast has the color gold and it must, you know, so, and again, I'm saying this as, as someone who's oftentimes been pretty rigid in terms of, to grow some of these businesses, to own a brand color, if you will, and you pick your, pick your favorite brand. There's a level of repetition needed to build that kind of equity in a typeface, in a color, in a, in a logo. You need to build that brand frame, right? Oftentimes startups almost skip that. It's like, no, go back. It's like really build your brand identifiers, your brand elements, right?

7:55Because that's your picture frame. And the stronger the picture frame, the more the picture in it is going to shine. The weaker that frame, then your, the picture within it is kind of, it's just, it's not on a, on solid ground, if that makes sense. And so that's why, in the book, I talk about the picture in the frame and ensuring that the frame never outshines the picture. That's what I'm getting at. It's like, you're, when you're thinking about brand, brand elements and how best to express those through the different platforms, it's the right question, but making sure that they don't take away from the actual storytelling within it, which is the picture, which happens a lot.

8:43For me, so some things that we do intentionally to try and communicate the, I guess the heart of what we're doing on this podcast, for example, in the branding. So one of the things is we always make sure it feels like home. So it's in, whether in L .A. or in London, it's actually shot in my actual kitchen. On a very similar looking table, people are actually surprised it looks exactly the same, but we always shoot it at home because I think the conversations we're having are, are, at home, the ones that are the ones people have at home. They're not ones that we, you know, we could go to this in a massive studio, but it wouldn't be in line with our values.

9:17The other thing is it's dark in here. So that speaks to the subject matter. Sometimes it speaks to secrets. The other thing is obviously the title of the podcast is the diary of a CEO and you, you ask yourself what one might keep in a diary. It tends to be things that are a little bit deeper. Yeah. And there's all these small things, you know, we even, I mean, we spend many days this week, me and Jack debating, removing the microphones because it kills what the humaneness of authentic communication. So we're thinking about ways where we can have the microphones hanging where we can move it barrier and all these small things.

9:48I guess is that the frame is, or when you think about brand elements, you're talking more about like colors and things. No, I think that's the frame as well. You know, when I walk into a space, I'm a bit obsessive, compulsive about like design and details, you know, and I walk in and I look at the carpet and what type of chairs and like the display case and what are the objects, you know, and whether I go into a restaurant or the hotel I stayed in last night, you know, and I'm I'm I'm soaking all that up. But that isn't the that isn't the actual experience. That isn't the actual story. Look, you're revealing the story of this podcast through all these elements.

10:31But but it's that's still the the story frame and is where I'm going. And then the delivery of, you know, through your voice and these conversations is what sits within it. But my, but yes, those identifiers, those brand elements play a huge role because every one of them, I guess what I'm saying, what I like about when I walked in is it's like everything was considered. There was nothing arbitrary because what a miss for for some, some brands large and small when they don't have a culture that cares deeply about those details. And I think the best ones do. And certainly when you think of some of the the the the most successful fashion brands like, you know, there's just an ethic inside that any any detail large or small will be intentional.

11:33So, you know, that's design, you know, emotionally by design, the word design is really about intention, be intentional. And look to reveal something about yourself through this round table, you know, with the marble top. It's like it all communicates. Trust me, I drive my my wife and my kids absolutely mad, right? Because they'd have to live with this guy who's just constantly moving stuff around and, you know, is the clock is the bookcase like, you know, curated perfectly are the books in the right. So if I have a problem, it's in some some ways that it's I've I'm you know searching for perfection too often.

12:25And what can happen is you start to strip the soul and personality out of something. And it's been great that I've had people throughout my career to balance that that's back to this idea of creative tension. Like if there's a two startup founders, you know, it's I love it when it's someone's it's someone represents the art and someone represents the science, you know, someone's more analytical in their decision -making process. And other is maybe a little bit more non -linear, maybe a little bit more right brain thinking. And I love that tension because when you don't have that, it's like one side starts to kind of creep up.

13:09And that's why I got into, you know, I'm also the branding instructor at the University of Oregon's Graduate School of Business. And these are, you know, I'm in front of mainly folks that want to become future GMs entrepreneurs, product developers, you name it, right? And but I'm there to say it's like, you know, yes, we're going to go through how you create a brand plan and a brand strategy. We're going to do this, but you're also going to work on brand identity. And don't worry about if you can't if you don't think you're creative because that's I just that kills me when I hear that. The application of creativity, yes, it's oftentimes reserved for people that have created a fluency through experience and education, whether it's an architect, a coder, etc.

14:00But the creation, the inception of an idea, we can all participate in that like the brainstorming of an idea, we can all participate because what happens oftentimes is people say, well, I can't not creative. It's like, well, that's that's only part of the equation, you know, I've done, I don't know, a couple hundred, I've led a couple hundred brainstorm sessions over the years, big and small. And I've never said at the beginning of the brainstorm session, I want all the non creative people to leave the room right now because we're going to start to concept and be creative. No, it's again, it's right and left brain thinkers working to deliver, working together to conceive great things.

14:54The Direv CEO has brought you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit Progressive .com after this episode to see if you could save progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary, not available in all states.