Be your own species
Be your own species… and stay off the endangered list.
Dragonfly or panda?
One is custom designed for its function. One of the animal kingdom’s most successful predators. A feat of evolution.
The other is a jack of no trades that relies on constant human intervention to keep its species from slipping, tripping, or tumbling clumsily out of existence.
Dragonflies catch up to 95% of the prey they pursue. Compare that to 48% in great white sharks, 20% in wolves, and 5-10% in the mighty tiger.
They’re strong, agile fliers, capable of migrating across entire seas with speed and ease, propelling themselves in six directions with four different styles of flight.
They come equipped with super-powered motion camouflage – adjusting their flight paths to appear stationary to rivals.
They’ve got five freakin’ eyes!
Dragonflies are specialised, sharp, and successful. They know exactly who they are – and they’re exceptional at it. They also have a kick-ass name.
Pandas, meanwhile, have to eat nutritionally-deficient bamboo for nine hours a day just so they can muster the energy to go to sleep. They ‘commence operation number 2’ up to 40 times a day. And they lay around more than a rug on holiday.
But we’re not here to give pandas a hard time – they do that to themselves with their wildly low birth rate. We’re only slating those overgrown dominos to warn about the perils of excessive caution.
In a recent survey, a massive 82% of clients described themselves as risk averse. And it makes sense. Risk aversion stops us getting hit by buses and comes in handy in many aspects of life and business.
We’re not adverse to a little risk aversion ourselves.
Before you worry about how people will react, first worry about if they’ll react at all.
The arena where eyelines are fought for, the oversaturated ad market, is no place for playing it safe. Wishy-washy won’t wash here. In this game you can’t politely ask for awareness and consideration – you’ve got to grab it. If you want the buzz, sometimes you have to push work through that makes you sweat a little.You could swap the logos around and nobody would even notice.
You’ve got to know exactly who you are, and fully commit to it.
Imagine asking a panda to fly in six directions, across the ocean, undetected.
Picture the ire in the dragonfly’s five eyes when he’s asked to eat a metric ton of bamboo.
Nobody can do it all. The quickest way to fail is to try and please everyone. To be all things to all people. To play it ‘safe’. It’s not safe at all to be vague. To lack definition. All you’ll do is lose in ten categories instead of succeeding in one.
Don’t let your brand sleepwalk into extinction.
You’ve got to serve the system you suit. Get specific. Get sharp. And accept that appealing to some people means alienating others. You can’t do it all.
Even if you find yourself on the edge of a cliff – that’s the safest place in the world for a goat. Because goats aren’t good at being pumas. They’re terrible at being worms. And they make worse than useless clown fish.
But goats are the GOATS at being goats.
So be your own species and stay off the endangered list.
