Insight
Court
There’s something happening on TikTok right now that most brands haven’t clocked. It’s not a trend. Not another 'this is a hook' hook. It’s something quieter, messier, and honestly, a bit revolutionary.
Now, I’m not saying anything radical at this point. But creators are showing up half-finished. They’re in-progress. Filming mid-rant, mid-pivot, mid-'I'm really trusting the process here.' The rooms are messy, their thoughts even messier. And weirdly, that’s what makes us trust them.
Maybe it’s because we can see them becoming. And that’s something brands still haven’t figured out how to do.
Branding, for the last decade, has been obsessed with being done. But most small brands aren’t finished. The logo might change, the founder rewrites the about us page every full moon, whilst the product is still fermenting. And that’s not a flaw, it's the point.
I mean - I’m figuring out my own brand too. I’ve started and changed it already this year. I’m still shaping how it looks, how it speaks, how it feels. And while the work keeps going, the brand, my brand, keeps becoming. It’s not always clean or clear. But it’s real.
I’m building it the same way a lot of my clients are — out loud, in motion, and a little bit at a time.
Because branding doesn’t have to happen before the world sees you. Sometimes it happens while they’re watching.
Has anyone been following Condimaniac? I’m no stats person, but the uplift since they started the 100% British Ketchup journey has been massive. Every moment, every failure, every second-guess was shared in real-time. They didn’t announce a product, but instead let people watch it happen.
I honestly think that's most powerful brand move of all.
Brands need to loosen the f up.
Every brand bangs on about authenticity. But belief? That doesn’t come from a well-phrased mission statement or how 'complete' a brand looks. It comes from how convincing it feels in a moment.
Imagine if Jaguar let us in on the day no one could agree on whether to capitalise the G or not.
That’s how you build connection, not by arriving fully formed, but by letting people in while it’s forming.
Let’s be real. Most small brands don’t have strategy decks and five-figure identity systems. They’ve got a few good ideas, a Google Doc, a to-do list on fire and something real they want to say.
So why are we still pretending to be Apple? And why are we waiting to be 'ready'?
The brands people believe in now are the ones that speak while they’re still figuring it out. They post what they’re thinking - not what’s finished. They say, here’s where we’re at right now, not, here’s our complete brand architecture, thank you for your patience.
They’re fluid.
Is this a brand revolution?
This isn’t just a vibe shift. It’s a breakdown of how branding has worked for decades. Branding is no longer about control, but coherence. It's not perfection, but momentum. Belief comes from letting people see the work.
So if you’re building something - show the sketch and share the mess - because people don’t want a perfect brand, they want a believable one.
And I know the next time I talk to a client, we won’t just talk about what the brand will become. We’ll talk about how to show the shift before the shift even happens.
