Sometimes You Need to Get Punched in the Face

Hey there, 

Welcome back to the 35th edition of Brandish, 

Your guide to crafting an iconic brand. 

I wanted to get a little vulnerable this week, 

But before I get into it, I need you to understand one thing:

In business and in life, eventually you’re going to get cracked right across the jaw.

(Metaphorically, not literally I hope)

And it’s not the WHY that’s important - it’s HOW: how you react, learn, and brace yourself for the next one.

So kick back, 

Grab your Brez, 

And let’s talk about one of the biggest “oh sh*t” moments from my career. 

They Called Me Superman 

Prior to 2020, we were invincible - especially with our paid marketing. 

We were consistently making money hand over fist, 

I mean we were making $50 for every $5 spent,

And that was on the low end. 

I felt like the man - My creatives were popping off, the money was flowing…

Who wouldn’t feel invincible?

But, 

What we didn’t realize was that by leveraging everything we had into Meta we were in a very, very vulnerable spot.

And like I said before, we were about to take a shot right on the chin. 

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In September of 2020, Apple released the IOS 14 update.

And like the majority of other DTC brands, our sales started falling… 

Fast. 

To say that our office was a dumpster fire is an understatement. 

If you weren’t in the space at that time then it’s hard to really explain what it was like. 

IOS 14 was like kryptonite for anyone who relied on paid media to market their brand, 

It blocked tracking and sent ad spend through the roof - it pushed more than a few brands completely out of business. 

Now Ron, Ash, and myself knew that there was no way in hell that we were going to let the same happen to us, 

And if we wanted to be a thought in anyone’s mind 6 months from now, we needed a plan. 

Back to the Basics

We all needed to take like, 10 steps backwards. 

The days of throwing an ad and out there and having it perform were long gone, 

So we went back to the fundamentals, 

Learning new skills, studying consumer psychology, effective branding, the list goes on and on.

In a sense, we had to learn how to be REAL marketers, with an extremely in-depth understanding of everything we had been doing before. 

This went on for months, but eventually, we were able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

We began moving into a more omnichannel approach, 

Leveraging paid media, organic content, affiliate marketing, etc. 

Starting from scratch and building this foundation is what’s allowed us to scale efficiently and SAFELY, 

Relying on that solid foundation to back us up if anything like this happened again. 

Nobody’s Superman 

Listen, the lesson here is that nobody is invincible. 

No matter how big or successful your company is, 

ONE change can bring it all crashing down in an instant. 

So how can you avoid it?

Always, ALWAYS have some sort of plan - think through all the possible worst-case scenarios for your brand, and draw yourself a survival plan for each and every one. 

If you can prepare for everything, then you should be reading for anything at any time. 

Wrapping Up

And that’s a wrap on this week’s newsletter!

I hope you learned something valuable about this week’s story - if you can absorb the lessons here, you just might be able to avoid this yourself in the future. 

But before I go, I wanted to ask you something: 

What kind of content do you want to see from Brandish in the future?

Do you want to hear about my own lessons, branding strategies, and breakdowns, or something different?

I want to hear your thoughts so I can continue to write impactful and valuable newsletters for you, you can send me your thoughts HERE. 

Thank you, I appreciate you,

And I’ll see you next week!

Ankit