The Best Way to Build A Brand People Love? Throw an Audience Away
Make a conscious choice to narrow the playing field
‘I love that idea. But won’t it limit our audience?’
If you’ve ever worked with a growing brand, you’re probably familiar with this sentiment.
Most businesses want to be big, and that means appealing to as many people as possible — right?
Well, not really.
Because being ‘for everybody’ means being for ‘no one in particular’.
In fact, all brands that cast their net wide usually achieve is indecisiveness, anxiety and watered down creative.
That is why it’s important to not appeal to everyone. And why I believe every brand should begin their marketing process by choosing an audience to intentionally throw away.
There’s no such thing as a universally beloved brand
Pick any brand; somebody hates them.
There are people out there who despise Ben & Jerry’s. (I don’t personally consort with these people.) There are folks who don’t fuck with Lego. There are human beings whose personality consists of little but a burning hatred for Apple, Apple Users and Anyone Who Has Anything Positive To Say About Steve Jobs.
Being ‘for everybody’ means being for ‘no one in particular’.
No brand appeals to every audience. There is simply no way around it. And the faster you accept this fact, the sooner you can turn it to your advantage.
Throwing away an audience will unlock three vital qualities for your brand:
1. Credibility
People want brands that stand for something. Standing for something requires commitment. And nothing signals commitment as clearly as sacrifice.
This is the essence of credibility — an invaluable quality for any brand. What distinguishes a trashy news outlet from a prestigious one is not just the stories they publish; it’s the stuff they refuse to run. And the same is true of brands.
Nothing signals commitment as clearly as sacrifice.
A brand today could run 100 different targeted campaigns, each with a message tailored to that specific audience. But unless they were able to sustain that level of segmentation across every platform — a website for every audience, a package design for every audience — they would very quickly start to contradict themselves.
Reducing your audience — sacrificing a potential stream of customers — is the best way to earn credibility. Because the audience you do choose will understand — and believe — that you are genuinely committed to them.
2. Specificity
The people who support your brand are complex — and they want to be treated as such. But the broader your audience is, the less nuanced your idea of each segment will be. The result is a generic brand which might be serviceable, but no one will love.
A similar problem arises when researching competitors. Brands often focus on competitors who are of a similar size and experience, rather than those that target the exact same audience. They work hard to distinguish themselves from those competitors, but each brand ends up settling into different niches down the line. Which means their initial marketing efforts become less relevant — and less effective — as they grow.
The broader your audience is, the less nuanced your idea of each segment will be.
That’s why throwing an audience away can actually be more financially efficient. Because marketing is expensive, and every cent spent must go as far as possible. But that doesn’t mean simply producing a return — it means creating assets and equity that will serve you will into the future.
If you decide from outset to actively throw away a demographic, you can build a brand that is far more specific. And that almost always means bolder, clearer, more decisive – and longer-lasting.
3. Community
Marketers talk a lot about community, yet most product categories are too broad in-themselves to build a community around. The audience might have something in common — an interest in fitness, say. But that is just too thin to forge a real sense of belonging.
People bond over what they dislike. We define ourselves in opposition. Exclusivity is almost always alluring. And throwing away an audience allows the one you keep to build a sense of community.
We define ourselves in opposition.
This is not only about building communities though; it’s also a great way of discovering them. Most of us belong to communities which we are yet to actively identify with. But the right brand positioning can unlock that fact.
A sportswear brand that throws away the fitness fanatic segment suddenly creates a discovers a community for people who are intimidated by gyms. A meat replacement brand that decides not to target vegans suddenly bonds together all those veggie-curious folk who feel judged by life-long omnivores.
The audience you throw away needs to be…
1. Within your reach
The point of this exercise is to put a creative constraint on your marketing. So it’s no good throwing away an audience you were never going to feasibly reach.
A five-person marketing agency can’t ‘choose’ not to work with billion dollar startups. That’s just performative nonsense. But they could plausibly work with businesses that have over 100 employees – and therefore choosing not to represents a genuine statement.
The point of this exercise is to put a creative constraint on your marketing.
Most agencies of their size, still hoping that they’ll land those bigger clients, will talk vaguely about ‘making brands grow’. But this agency can say ‘We’ll help you reach 100 employees’ – a line which is far more impactful and credible precisely because it doesn’t apply to a heap of real prospective clients.
2. Valuable enough to matter
Not every market segment is worth throwing away. A large tech consultancy won’t gain much by ruling out individual freelancers. At best, it would seem pointless; at worst, like ‘punching down’.
The audience you throw away has to represent a genuine sacrifice. Others in your position would cash-in on this market. But your brand chooses not. Because it’s just not who you are.
The strongest positioning maximises both of these factors
Consumers should believe that the audience you’ve thrown away is both very easily within your reach – and extremely high value.
Of course, not every brand can afford to throw away a high value market segment. There will always be a careful cost/benefit assessment to be made.
But if you can locate an audience with that magic combination of attainability, high value and disposability, throwing it away could be the best marketing move you ever make – and the basis for a brand that people actually love.
