The Brands That Refused to Become Normal

Years ago I saw Kings of Leon play a sports centre in Reading in the early 2000s. No stage, no lights, they just played half in darkness on the basketball court. Mumbling lyrics. Guitars, loud enough to create an inner ear issue. I loved it.

A few years later I saw them headline V and Reading Festival. Massive show, with 60,000 people screaming “Your Sex on Fireeeeerrrr”. It was great. But it didn’t feel the same.

Now, I’m aware how this sounds. (Great looking) bloke in his (early...mid) forties, liked them before they were famous. But we do see this a lot in culture. Music, fashion and, of course, brands.

Something new captures your attention. You found it early. You’re part of a club, sharing the same passion. Then it grows. More people find it. And the club stops feeling like a club.

With brands, this is the bit where growth slows, and everyone starts looking at each other. You’re not as new or as exciting as you were. What's collapsing is your brand differentiation strategy, one softened decision at a time. The market’s now cluttered with newer brands, and you’ve started to trade away your difference for category norms in the hope of growth.

You’ve written Sex on Fire to get mass appeal and stopped playing Red Morning Light. This isn’t anti-growth thing. I’m not romanticising small. Small is hard and mostly not a strategy. There are a few ways to get big, and most businesses pick the only one they can see. Here’s how it happens.

Early on, the thing that makes people love you is the same thing that puts others off. That’s the deal. A small group care enormously precisely because it isn’t for everyone.

Then you scale, and every signal tells you that thing is a barrier. The research says it. The sales team says it. The new people you’ve hired from bigger businesses definitely say it. So you soften it, one decision at a time.

The thing that made you worth choosing gets reclassified as a problem to solve. Uniqueness becomes friction. Friction becomes something to remove. And you end up somewhere no worse than everyone else, which is the point.

Everyone in the category looks the same, sounds the same, makes the same claims, and competes on price, promos, shelf space, Media, SOV, etc because there’s nothing else left to compete on.

The hard way is to grow by turning the volume up on the thing that made you different, and holding your nerve while it costs you people who were never going to buy anyway. Dr. Martens never sanitised their roots. Yeti sells four hundred quid cool boxes and has never once apologised for it. Marmite built an entire strategy on half the country hating it.

None of those are small companies. They just refused to become normal on the way up. It’s easier to be acceptable to everyone than accept you’re not for everyone. The mistake is treating what made you interesting as a phase you have to grow out of.

It was never a phase. It was the reason anyone turned up.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is brand differentiation strategy?
A: Brand differentiation strategy is the deliberate decision to protect and amplify what makes a brand distinct, even when growth pressure signals that distinctiveness is a barrier. The brands that hold their differentiation under pressure (Dr. Martens, Yeti, Marmite) command premium prices and loyalty that brands chasing mass appeal cannot replicate. Differentiation is not a phase to grow out of. It is the reason customers chose you in the first place.

Q: How do you scale a brand without losing what makes it different?
A: Scaling without losing differentiation requires treating your distinctiveness as a strategic asset rather than a problem to solve. Every decision that softens a brand's edges- broader targeting, category normalisation, removing the thing that puts some people off, removes the reason the right people chose it. The brands that scale successfully turn the volume up on what makes them different rather than down.

Q: Why do brands lose their differentiation as they grow?
A: Brands lose differentiation when growth signals are misread as evidence that their distinctiveness is a barrier. Research, sales teams, and new hires from larger businesses consistently push for broader appeal. Each individual decision seems rational. Cumulatively, they reclassify uniqueness as friction and remove it, leaving a brand that is no worse than anyone else in the category, which is precisely the problem.