The Michael Dunn Brand Process: Truth, Clarity, and Beauty
Too many global business executives, investors, VCs, and supposed 'thought leaders' too often forget the basic premise that BRANDS are all about People – how they think, how they make decisions, and why they buy anything.
People use brands as a cheat sheet for decision-making in a noisy world with literally millions upon millions of products and thousands of marketing messages bombarding them each and every day. Because my team and I love watching and analyzing people, we also enjoy helping inspired, forward-thinking companies connect with people. To do so, I work with brand owners and handlers to help them find their truth, clarify their messages, as well as design their brands to be more beautiful, not just visually, but also in sound, smell, touch, and even taste.
TRUTH
I always search out and seek different paths and techniques to discover the truth for my clients. In this way, my team and I act as brand investigators.
At the outset of every project, we research and examine all relevant and appropriate aspects of the client’s current business and brand reality: a thorough and precise understanding of each of our client’s business practices, its culture, its competitors, its industry and its customers is essential to ensure the successful creation, repositioning or revitalization of their brand.
Our strategy uncovers and creates lasting truths about your brand, which will be the key to your brand’s long-term success, and temporary truths, which can be adapted as your brand grows and extends.
I, therefore, incorporate elements of brain science, behavioral economics, social psychology, anthropology, ethnography, trend recognition and more to anticipate customer behaviors and we then help create enduring connections between or clients’ brands and the people that will sponsor their survival.
“We always attempt to uncover the truth: people are compelled by the truth.” — Michael Dunn
Veritas, or “truth” from classical and medieval Latin, is a word whose ancient meaning encompassed wider meanings and possibilities prior to our modern age. We should all embrace the ancient wider heritage of “truth” as a core value.
Does this sound a bit trite? It’s not: truth in advertising, as the phrase goes, is a serious business.
In Roman mythology, Veritas, was the goddess of Truth, a daughter of Saturn, the mother of Virtue. The ancients viewed the goddess and the human quality she embodied as quintessentially elusive. She hid in the dark depths of a sacred well, cloaked in concealment, a metaphor for truth hiding in depths of the human heart.
The Latin Veritas drew the themes of elusive concealment and revelation from Greek mythology. The Greek equivalent Aletheia (ἀλήθεια: truth) is part of the mental geography rooted in the origins of our culture. From lethe (oblivion, forgetfulness, and concealment), our culture-derived the concepts of their opposites: a-lithia, meaning un-forgetfulness, immortality, remembrance, and revelation.
We try to imbue these deeper meanings of truth into every client project we undertake: my philosophy is to harness the best of design, innovation and emerging digital and social media strategies and time-honored written craft to shape narratives that reveal authentic brand truths and compelling messages, cause them to be remembered, and in a sense, achieve for them a kind of immortality in the world marketplace of ideas and products.
“Truth, naked and cold, had been turned away from every door in the village. Her nakedness frightened the people. When Parable found her she was huddled in a corner, shivering and hungry. Taking pity on her, Parable gathered her up and took her home. There, she dressed Truth in story, warmed her and sent her out again. Clothed in story, Truth knocked again at the villagers’ doors and was readily welcomed into people’s houses. They invited her to eat at their table and warm herself by the fire.” — A Jewish Teaching Story
CLARITY
In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity should be your brand’s power. Our goal is to give your voice power. That’s why I work with my clients to help them simplify and clarify their verbal brand positioning, their messaging, and all of their content and communications to help them connect with all of their relevant audiences.
We have found that one of the most critical parts of our work is sifting through and clarifying the unifying elements in the information gathered and data collected in order to craft compelling and articulate messages, metaphors, narratives, and stories.
In the content era where communication is increasingly hailed as shorter, more dynamic, and much more visual, the way brands choose and clarify language continues to hugely influence a plethora of media channels — from social media to search engines to advertising, public relations, website content, direct marketing and more.
Language is responsible for expressing and persuading, for informing, declaring and characterizing, relationship building, telegraphing, and storytelling. Words are, as Rudyard Kipling once described them, the most powerful drug ever used by humankind.
BEAUTY
Beautifully executed ideas touch emotions, move minds, and then build brands. We ensure that we strategically and systematically design every brand touchpoint, every interaction, every communication, and each engagement to be more aesthetically beautiful.
Brilliant design is essential in generating understanding, inciting emotions and sustaining attention. That is why design is a major part of every project that I do. Design’s vocabulary is both graphic and editorial, working in concert. My goal is to compose and express ideas memorably in ways consistent with my client’s desires, aspirations, and objectives. And most importantly, from conception through execution, I strive to create original work that is without precedent.
My team and I have an artistic sensitivity to design sensibility. Because we believe great design requires great restraint, I often take a more minimalist approach in my work, prompting design with a purpose through clarity and simplicity. Regardless of the medium in which we work, I emphasize concepts, sound thinking, and beauty as effective devices that will add to and enhance the company’s strategic competitive advantage in today’s hyper-competitive environment.
“Quite often art, architecture, design, and music all project a brand’s personality much more effectively than mere words.” — Michael Dunn
“Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’” — John Keats
Voice Actor and On Air Personality at K-ZAP.org
3yAs a voice actor I strive to "touch emotion and move the mind to capture the brand" in the read. Great point to keep top of mind Michael.
Fractional CMO | Executive Advisor | Global Brand Strategist | Creative Director at MICHAEL DUNN
4yI am a global brand consultant, creative professional, and speaker, usually for larger global companies and well-funded start-ups as well as advising CEOs and their executive teams for the past 30 years. How might I help you?
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4yLove this!!! There is so much more instinct to brand that words cannot easily convey. When it is spelled out excessively, in the way it too often is in ‘about us’ pages nothing is left for the imagination and the magic is gone.
By actively engaging with our unique community and demonstrating a clear purpose, we aim to transform the perception of convenience stores. This involvement will enhance respect and appreciation for these businesses.
4yCongrats Michael Dunn!
Chief Marketing Officer @ Latterell Thinking | Certified Brand Specialist
4yStrong article Michael Dunn, perfect wrap-up. “Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st, ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’” — John Keats