The Best Brands Are Hateable
Let's start with an aside, the Sounds Profitable podcast is a great listen for concepts communicated clearly in a short period of time.
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A survey of listeners and non-listeners found that The Joe Rogan Experience is the #1 podcast, which isn't surprising—16% of respondents had it in their Top 3.
But what does that % mean? Here's a fun nugget:
They are not small numbers – they reflect a percentage of all the people who have ever listened to a podcast, and even at 1% they would exceed the audience of most non-football TV shows.
Are you running podcast ads yet?
More important to being hateable, the #2 podcast clocked in at 3%. That's a big gap.
So how does Joe do it? He's hateable. Or...
because Rogan is crystal clear about attracting a very specific audience, even at the exclusion of others.
He "super-serves a core audience."
He knows his core. He caters to it. He doesn't care about you if you're not in it.
Or, as Ian Schrager (another controversial dude) puts it:
“one plus one equals three.” You build something most people will hate, but a few people love – and love enough to tell their friends about.
Or how about Kurt Vonnegut:
“Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.”
After all, brands are stories.
Take a stand. Plant a flag. Draw a line.
Be willing to turn people off from the beginning (it will save you money in the long run).
Name brands—the ones you probably think of when you dream of what your brand could be—are aspiration engines. A rallying cry for fans and a lightning rod for haters. They have loyal fans because they're willing to have the haters.
Don't build a brand for everyone. Build a brand for only those that care as much about your thing as you. Make yourself hateable to those that don't.
🔥 Some will walk through fire for you. Some will light your product on fire. 🔥
Here's an extreme example: