Playing it safe feels risk-free, but conventional branding has its own side effects: sameness, customer indifference, and fading relevance. Here’s why calculated creative risk is how a brand becomes a category-of-one.
Late-night insomniac unrest, and I’m glued to the TV. It’s not a streaming network, so there are plenty of commercials, and at this late hour, I notice a lot of ads for medical devices and medications. I also see a surprising number of ads for the perfect pants for men over fifty. Comfy, roomy, and you don’t have to pull them up to your chin. Personally, I have waited all my life to finally wear pants so high that I have to unzip the fly to eat a slice of pizza. That and the freedom to dress in more plaid than an octogenarian Scottish golf pro. I’ve lived. I deserve these things.
The pants thing aside, medications these days don’t just come with weird names. They also come with a laundry list of side effects. We see images of happy people walking in the park, fishing, or gathered with friends and family at a picnic. Meanwhile, a soft, soothing voice-over warns us that if we develop a huge, swelling knot in our neck, we should call a doctor immediately.
And there’s more. That same sweet, honeyed voice warns us that side effects may include nausea, dizziness, dry mouth, clammy hands, the inability to speak, a passion for ancient Greek foods, night sweats, night terrors, nightmares, Night of the Living Dead, poor parallel parking skills, an acute hatred of the word spillage, an overly effusive connection to Jell-O, loss of fingers, toes, and the phone number of your parole officer. The list goes on.
I sit there, curled like a boiled shrimp, praying for sleep, and wonder whether, with all those side effects, it’s worth taking the medication in the first place. I mean, I didn’t have any of those symptoms before. Why would I take something whose side effects might include explosive, unremitting, painful, and poorly timed diarrhea?
I wouldn’t take that.
Or would I?
The Promise Is Worth the Risk
Here’s the thing about those commercials. Despite the warnings, despite the possibility that your spleen might suddenly relocate to an artist’s loft in the downtown waterfront area, people still take the medications. Millions of them. Every day. And I don’t think it’s because we’ve collectively decided explosive diarrhea is an acceptable price for clearer skin.
It’s because there’s something on the other side of that risk that we want. Relief from pain, freedom from some chronic condition, or simply the chance to live a little more comfortably. The medication promises something better, and for many people, the potential benefits outweigh the possible consequences. That’s a perfectly reasonable calculation, provided they understand what they’re getting into and have a qualified medical professional helping them make the decision.
What fascinates me is how casually we encounter these warnings. We’ve become so accustomed to them that we barely notice. A couple strolls along a beach, holding hands, smiling at each other with the kind of affection normally reserved for people who have just discovered they’ve inherited a substantial amount of money. Meanwhile, a pleasant voice informs us that their medication may cause serious infections, liver damage, or sudden death. The couple continues walking. Apparently, they didn’t hear that part.
Of course, there’s a world of difference between a possible side effect and a guaranteed one. Most people taking these medications won’t experience the worst things mentioned in the commercial. But the possibility exists, and someone decided we’re entitled to know. Fair enough. I’d certainly appreciate a heads-up if something I’m swallowing with my morning orange juice might cause my eyebrows to fall off.
Still, there’s something striking about the entire arrangement. We’re being asked to consider a product that openly acknowledges its potential disadvantages. It doesn’t pretend they don’t exist. It tells us what could go wrong, then asks whether what could go right is worth it.
And that’s where my insomnia-fueled fascination with pharmaceutical advertising started wandering into territory I know considerably better than medicine. Because I’ve spent enough time around marketing and branding to recognize an odd contradiction. We live in a world where people routinely accept risk in pursuit of a better life, yet the moment someone suggests a genuinely different approach to building a brand, everybody starts looking for the nearest emergency exit.
Apparently, we’re willing to risk losing our eyebrows, but changing the company logo to something unexpected requires six meetings, three focus groups, and written approval from a man named Dennis who hasn’t liked anything since 1998.
The Fear of Getting It Wrong
I’ve always found it curious that companies spend enormous amounts of money trying to stand out, then spend an equally enormous amount making sure they don’t. They’ll hire an agency, announce they’re ready for something bold and unexpected, and then, when presented with something genuinely bold and unexpected, start looking for ways to make it a little less bold and much more expected.
It’s an interesting process to watch. Everyone agrees that the brand needs to be different. That’s usually why they’ve hired the agency in the first place. Their competitors are gaining ground, their messaging has become indistinguishable from everyone else’s, and their customers have begun treating them like one of those interchangeable plastic containers you buy at the grocery store. The ones that come in a package of twelve, none of which has a lid that fits.
So the company asks for change. Real change. Something that will shake things up and get people’s attention. And for a while, everybody’s excited. Meetings, presentations, conversations about possibilities, and the occasional enthusiastic declaration that they’re finally going to do something nobody in their industry has ever done before.
Then somebody asks what happens if people don’t like it.
It’s a reasonable question. In fact, it’s an important one. Any business contemplating a significant change should understand what it stands to lose. But there’s a difference between evaluating risk and using the existence of risk as an excuse to avoid making a decision. And the two can look almost identical, particularly when everyone around the conference table has a different opinion about what constitutes a good idea.
The trouble begins when the objective shifts from creating something meaningful to creating something nobody can object to. The unusual ideas get softened. The distinctive language becomes more familiar. Anything that might provoke a strong reaction gets reconsidered, adjusted, or quietly escorted from the building. By the time the work is approved, the original ambition has been reduced to something pleasant, professional, and about as memorable as the carpeting in a regional insurance office. Not the one with the bloodstains, that we remember.
And everybody’s relieved. Nobody’s uncomfortable. Nobody has to explain a difficult decision to the board. The company has successfully avoided offending anyone, confusing anyone, or giving anyone a reason to question its judgment.
Unfortunately, it has also avoided giving anyone a particularly compelling reason to remember it.
This is where I think our understanding of risk gets a little peculiar. We tend to imagine risk as something that accompanies action. We change direction, introduce an unfamiliar idea, or challenge an established convention, and suddenly we’re taking a risk. But maintaining the status quo is also a decision, and it has its own consequences. They just tend to arrive more quietly.
No soothing voice-over warns that continued exposure to conventional branding may reduce relevance, breed customer indifference, or gradually dissolve your company into a vast commercial landscape of businesses that all look and sound suspiciously alike.
Perhaps there should be.
Ask Your Marketing Professional
Imagine, for a moment, that branding came with the same disclosure requirements as prescription medication. Every campaign would have to include a warning about the possible consequences of the decisions behind it. We’d see the usual collection of attractive, impossibly happy people doing things that attractive, impossibly happy people apparently do all day, while a reassuring voice explained what might happen if your company continued playing it safe.
“Ask your marketing professional if Conventional™ is right for you. Conventional™ is recommended for companies experiencing mild discomfort with originality, occasional episodes of creative anxiety, or an irrational fear of being noticed. Side effects may include chronic sameness, diminished relevance, customer indifference, and the persistent suspicion that your website looks exactly like the one belonging to the company across the street. In rare cases, prolonged use may result in complete brand invisibility. Do not discontinue Conventional™ without first consulting your executive committee, legal department, and Dennis.”
I can see the commercial now. A group of executives strolls through a beautifully landscaped corporate campus, laughing at something that couldn’t possibly be funny. One of them points toward a distant building, and everyone nods appreciatively. Perhaps they’ve spotted another company using the same stock photograph of a diverse group of professionals gathered around a laptop. It’s comforting to know they’re not alone.
The catch is that none of these side effects announce themselves with the urgency of a swelling knot in your neck. They develop gradually, often while the company does everything it believes it should. Sales may remain steady, customers may seem satisfied, and the marketing department may continue producing perfectly respectable work. No obvious disaster points to it; no spectacular failure sends everyone scrambling for answers. The business simply becomes less interesting, less distinctive, and eventually less relevant to the people it’s trying to reach.
And because nothing dramatic has happened, nobody questions the treatment.
That’s what makes playing it safe so seductive. The absence of immediate consequences feels like evidence that you’ve made the right decision. You haven’t upset anyone, the board seems happy, and Dennis has finally stopped sending emails. But avoiding criticism isn’t the same as earning attention, and being acceptable to everyone is a poor substitute for being meaningful to someone.
Of course, taking a creative risk doesn’t guarantee a brilliant result. Sometimes an unusual idea is simply a bad idea wearing an expensive hat. That’s why judgment matters, and why understanding your audience, your business, and what actually sets you apart has to come before the creative fireworks.
But when a company understands those things and still refuses to act on them because someone might object, the problem isn’t a lack of information. It’s a lack of willingness to accept the consequences of being different.
And unlike the unfortunate fellow whose spleen has moved into a waterfront loft, this is a condition entirely within the company’s power to change.
Calculated, Not Reckless
At ThoughtLab, we talk a lot about risk, and not because we enjoy watching executives develop nervous twitches during presentations (although I suppose there are worse ways to spend a Tuesday afternoon). We talk about it because a willingness to take a calculated risk often separates a brand people remember from one they forget before they’ve finished looking at it.
But there’s an important distinction to make here. Risk for the sake of risk is just foolishness. You can paint your company headquarters fluorescent pink, replace your CEO with a trained baboon, and announce that all future customer communications will be conducted in interpretive dance. People will certainly notice. Whether they’ll continue doing business with you is another question, particularly if the baboon starts making decisions about employee benefits.
That’s why ThoughtLab practices Depth-Before-Design & Development. Before we start talking about colors, logos, or clever things to say, we need to understand the business. We need to know what makes it valuable, why customers choose it, and what it can offer that nobody else can. That understanding gives creative decisions a foundation. It helps us distinguish between an idea that’s merely unusual and one that could change how people see a company.
And sometimes what we discover isn’t particularly comfortable. A business may have spent years defining itself by qualities its competitors can claim just as easily. It may be proud of a promise that customers no longer find compelling. Or it may have something extraordinary buried beneath layers of conventional messaging because nobody thought it was important enough to mention. Finding those things requires a willingness to question assumptions, including some that have been around long enough to acquire their own parking spaces.
This is where the idea of becoming a category-of-one comes into play. A category-of-one isn’t a company that has somehow eliminated its competition. It’s a company that has built such a distinctive identity and compelling value that comparing it to everyone else becomes much harder. Customers understand what makes it different, and that difference matters enough to influence their decisions.
Getting there requires more than a clever campaign. It means choosing who you are, what you believe, and how you’re willing to present yourself to the world. Some of those choices may challenge industry conventions. Others may disappoint people who preferred the familiar version of your business. That’s part of the risk, and pretending otherwise doesn’t make it disappear.
But consider the alternative. You can keep presenting yourself in ways that feel comfortable and familiar, hoping customers will somehow recognize your exceptional qualities beneath the same language and imagery everyone else uses. You can keep adjusting the dosage of Conventional™, confident that the absence of complaints means the treatment is working.
Or you can decide that being genuinely different is worth the possibility that not everyone will approve.
ThoughtLab can’t promise that every bold decision will succeed. Nobody can, and anyone who tells you otherwise should probably be required to read a lengthy list of side effects. We can help businesses understand what makes them worth choosing, develop a strategy grounded in that understanding, and find the courage to express it in ways that matter.
Because the goal isn’t to make a brand dangerous. It’s to make it impossible to mistake for somebody else.
The Takeaway
So, here I am, still awake, still watching television, and still wondering whether there’s a medication that will help me sleep without causing my pancreas to develop an interest in competitive ballroom dancing. The happy people on the screen seem remarkably unconcerned about their internal organs, and perhaps that’s because they’ve decided the benefits are worth the risk. Or maybe they’re actors who have no idea what they’re advertising. Either way, they’re having a wonderful time.
Which brings me back to side effects. Specifically, the side effects of never trying. You might spend years being perfectly respectable, entirely inoffensive, and increasingly unnecessary. You could become so good at fitting into your category that nobody remembers which company you are. And the worst part is that you might not notice until your customers have quietly wandered off to find something more interesting.
As for me, I think I’ll turn off the television and try to get some sleep. I’ve learned enough about pharmaceutical side effects for one evening, and I’m beginning to suspect that the perfect pants for men over fifty might be the safer investment. They’re roomy, they’re comfortable, and the worst thing that can happen is that I end up looking like a retired Scottish golf professional who’s lost his way to the clubhouse.
But now that I think about it, those pants come with their own risk.
I might look exactly like everybody else my age.
