What Brands Can Learn From Michael Jackson

You will recognize Michael Jackson's brand within a second. And that's not done by mistake. It's intentional. Most brands today, they're fighting for attention. But how is it possible that Michael Jackson is instantly recognizable around the world? When you think of his genius

when you think of everything that he managed to do, there are some very specific things that you can take a part of your brand that can help you go to the goals that you have. I've just recently watched Michael the film, and regardless on what you think in terms of who he was, what he did, what he didn't do, I had a fantastic time. I absolutely loved the film, the music, the performances, the feelgood factor, the celebration of the genius, the king of pop that he really was. But one of the major things that I had walking out of it was how strategically and purposefully he built his Michael Jackson brand. So, let's dive right into number one, instantly recognizable. When you think of Michael Jackson, all I have to do is share with you a number of things and you will associate Michael Jackson straight away. When you think of the the dance moves, poses, when you think of his what he wears, his clothes, when you think of the sound. If I said to you straight away like he and I've butchered it, you'll know immediately it's Michael Jackson. And throughout the film, there was most definitely immediately he's recognizable. Number two, he was incredibly consistent. Everything that he did, everything that he stood for, it was consistent throughout absolutely everything. Inconsistency in his music style, consistency in his dress, in his design, consistency of everything that associated you to the MJ brand, the Michael Jackson brand, that was completely evident. But when you go down the layers and I think about these core things, the first one, think about your brand. The first core is language. He created his own language. He um Shimon, right? All of the he literally created brand new language. And when you think about that, are you doing that part of your brand where you're the expert? Your ecom brand, your service brand, whatever it is that you're doing. If you think of your e-commerce business, you being the owner of your brand, are you creating your own language within your industry? Because that new language will then be associated to you as it was with Michael Jackson. that straight away I was like he's literally created his own language. The next thing was he created his own sounds. He the genius that he was with his music. If I shared with you just a simple beat with within seconds, you will immediately know that's Michael Jackson. So the sound, are you using sound? If you're doing any type of marketing, videos, reals, Tik Toks, are you have you created a sound that is associated for you? Another way of thinking about it, if you watch some of the programs on Netflix and stuff like this, some of the series, all the series, they always have like an intro, right? They have like that intro sound and that becomes associated to them. So I think about something like friends, you know, I'll be there for you, right? If you heard that music, you would associate that with friends. If you heard Michael Jackson's intro music, the beats, the sound, you would associate it with Michael Jackson. So think about that from your brand as well. The next thing, as I mentioned, was the look, the style. He had everything from his, you know, his shoes with the white socks. He had the glove when he was holding the microphone. You know, you think the camera is on his face while he's singing and he's got a glove on. Billy Jean, right? You think of the hat, you think of the the style, everything. You think of Thriller, The Red Jacket, the everything was specific on the association to Michael Jackson. So, think about that from your brand, like your style, whatever brand that you're building, the ecom products that you have. Think about the consistency of your products, the styling, the labels, the colors, right? Were are they specific and consistent and immediately recognizable to you? I think of some a brand like Apple, right? Apple with their iPhones, their MacBooks, their AirPods, they all have a consistent theme. Everything's about simplicity. Everything is even from the packaging to the product, everything is about simplicity, ease of use. So that's another lesson that you can take when it comes to Michael Jackson. The next thing I put on my list here is the movement. He designed his own dance moves. The famous dance moves. Everything from the moonwalk to up on his heels to the way that he would uh move his body. He the dance moves in um beat it. uh Thriller like everything was unique. He had a song and he created a unique dance move for it. So I think about that in terms of your brand and our brand. I think okay, every product that you have, if you're going to do a brand new launch, does it have a consistent theme in terms of the way it looks across your brand? But is there something new that comes with it? Is there something that you design new that's then associated specifically with that product as it was associated with his music, his songs? You think of Bad, you think of Thriller, you think of Be It, you think of, you know, Man in the Mirror. All of these, they all have very, very unique and Billy Jean obviously being one of the most famous, a unique dance that is associated. The next thing is then un underlining to it all is storytelling. The storytelling in his music was revolutionary. It's still impactful to culture today. He really cared about telling stories. every single one of his movies and his, you know, videos to his official music, they were literally a a story. It was a movie. Some of his songs Thriller is like, you know, you think of a music song now being only like two, three, four minutes long. Some of his were like 10 minutes plus. He created a movie called Ghosts. And you know that's like 40 minutes. He was a storyteller. He used his experience of life to share powerful messages. Whether that was political messages, they don't care about us. When you think of Earth song, if you think of the emotional undertones to it, right? Um the emotional stories was it pulled in your emotion whether it was like fight right like it was like bad or whether it was dirty Diana whether it was you rock my world whe whether you think of any of his songs and that was imprinted from the Mottown days of like you think of I'll be there you know that's one of my favorite songs of all times from Jackson You know these are he plays with emotion. What is the feeling that you want the person to experience and that emotion was a centerpiece to okay if we're going to try to give that emotion to the audience and think about it from your own products maybe your ecom business or your own service when you think of the emotion as a starting point. Okay, I want people to feel sad. angry. I want feel people to think. I want people to question. Whatever it is that you want people as an outcome, you can then package it. You package it in terms of Michael Jackson would his dance moves, his look, his, you know, his famous uh sounds and language that he would use. But what are you doing in terms of your packaging? copy, your headline, the what the product's called, what's the range called? And these are the really powerful lessons. I mean, it was truly incredible. You think of his signatures, you think of his uh the ecosystem that he created, the narrative that he created was genius. And I came out of that with a real good feel factor. And that's what you want people to think about your brand. You want them to walk away with that feel good. And I was talking to uh Kylie and we've been

watching a load of Michael Jackson since watching the movie. And I couldn't help but think that the creative genius that he had, he actually, whether he knew he was doing this or not, whether it was just naturally just coming out of him in terms of his creative and genius gift, but it actually had some true lessons and true common realities that we could all take away and learn from. So, let me know your thoughts down below. What do you think? Have you watched the film? What do you think about the film? I absolutely loved it. I'm really looking forward to what Impact happens. I'm already thinking about what I'm wearing this year's Halloween. And uh it's a good one. So uh my name's Kev. Hit the subscribe button. We talk all things like um entrepreneurship from operator to owner. We talk all things fundamentally building a business of scale that is based on structure not effort and a part of that structuring your brand is going to be really important. So I look forward to seeing you very soon. I'm going to have a new video that pops up right here if you want to go a little bit more deeper into the Atlas way. That is a language that I've used that associates you hopefully when you learn the framework to me the Atlas way. Speak to you on the other side. Take care.