Apply It: Find the Soul of a Brand

Lee Clow and Steve Jobs didn't save Apple by listing processor speeds or RAM. They asked a harder question: What does this brand actually believe? The answer — that the world is changed by people crazy enough to think they can change it — became Think Different. It became the soul made visible.

Now it's your turn to do the same work.

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The Goal

You're going to apply Lee's framework to a real brand and uncover what it truly stands for — beneath the products, beneath the taglines, beneath the current campaign. By the end of this exercise, you'll have a one-page "soul statement" that could serve as the foundation for a brand campaign.

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Setup

Choose your brand. Pick one of the following:

• A brand you currently work with or have worked with
• A brand you genuinely admire (or genuinely distrust — both are useful)
• A brand that feels like it's lost its way and needs rescuing

Avoid choosing a brand so massive and familiar (Nike, Apple itself) that you default to what you already know. The point is to discover, not to recite.

Gather your materials. You'll need:

• A notebook or blank document
• 30–45 uninterrupted minutes
• The brand's founding story (a quick search will do)

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Instructions

Work through these four steps in order. Don't skip ahead — each one strips away a layer.

Step 1: Strip away the product. Write down everything the brand sells. Then set that list aside and ask: If this brand made nothing, what would it still stand for? Write at least three beliefs or values that feel true to the company's history and behavior — not their marketing copy, but their actual actions.

Step 2: Find who they celebrate. Lee's Think Different campaign worked because it celebrated a type of person, not a product. Ask yourself: Who is this brand's hero? Not their customer demographic — their hero. The person whose worldview the brand shares. Write a two or three sentence portrait of that person.

Step 3: Ask the harder question. This is where most brand work stops too soon. Look at what you've written and ask: Is this actually true, or is this just what they want people to think? Be honest. If there's a gap between the soul you've identified and the brand's real behavior, note it. That gap is often where the most interesting work lives.

Step 4: Write the soul statement. In three to five sentences, describe what this brand truly believes, who it celebrates, and why its advertising should feel a certain way. Don't write a tagline. Write a conviction — the kind of thing Lee could walk into Steve Jobs' office and say out loud without flinching.

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Expected Outcome

You'll finish this exercise with a one-page soul statement that answers three questions clearly:

1. What does this brand believe that has nothing to do with its products?
2. Who is the human being at the center of this brand's worldview?
3. What would advertising rooted in this soul actually feel like?

If your soul statement could apply to any other brand in the same category, go deeper. The real soul is always specific — almost uncomfortably so. That specificity is exactly what made "Here's to the crazy ones" feel like it could only ever belong to Apple.

That's the work. Now go find it.