Why finding human truths and brand mythology wins customers | Alan Roll, Deel

Adam : Alan Roll thinks a lot about brand and a lot about what it means to fall in love with a brand. When you think about brands that people are obsessed with, you might think about things like Nike or Pixar, even things like Taco Bell. Brands that have products and IP that makes sense for us to fall in love with them. There's a natural story there.

There's a natural nostalgia. There's a way for us to connect with something that really hits at our core in our heart. But what about a tool that at its core is a payment service? What about a tool that really is just all about itemizing and organizing information?

How do you get people to fall in love with those brands? Alan has thought a lot about that. He headed up branding at Deel and Airtable. Companies that have a brand that people are borderline obsessed with in spaces that it might not always make sense to think people would be obsessed with a brand in those spaces.

Yet he's figured it out. I asked him, What's the secret? How do you get people to fall in love with these brands in unexpected places? His answer was insightful, interesting, and multifaceted.

Alan Roll : Hey Adam, sorry I missed your call. Wanted to get back to you on your question around building brands, specifically in places where you don't always think about building brands. I think the key secret is still what it has always been, which is amazing storytelling. And I think the core to every brand is in a couple places.

One is what is the basic human truth you're trying to address that you can get people super excited about and jazzed about. And then ultimately, what is the mythology around your brand that not only is maybe not necessarily the truth, but anchors in something that is inspirational and ultimately leads you into the future. So the idea that you're creating something new it captured in that myth. you're creating something that's true is captured in that basic human truth.

And I think, you know, on top of that, you have to really think about who your audiences are. Because in a world where brand doesn't always obviously make sense as the most important thing to focus on, it usually is because you're not thinking about the right audience that will create the most influence for the business that you're trying to take to market. Right. And so in that context, you should take a full inventory of all the different audiences you're trying to reach.

You should understand what is that basic human truth for each of those unique audiences, and then ultimately figure out what is the myth that helps them see a future that's different than the one that they're in, is tightly aligned to their own belief systems and ultimately, helps them galvanize themselves and want to be with you for a long time as a company or as a brand. Those are really the key things. If you think back on my history places like Airtable, really tapping into that basic human truths around idea of building something and organizing information and putting it to work in ways you hadn't seen before and unlocking that novelness what the product can do.

was the thing that if you tap really solve it. But ultimately you're not selling always to that person who's doing that. selling to that person who's buying that. And if you can get enough people to love that experience, then there's an upward force towards those people who have to make that purchase decision.

And so therefore, that's one of the audiences that you have to think about, I'm gonna just keep rambling other key thing to think about with brands is something that isn't necessarily new or different than it has always been. You're still talking about intersection of the category, the customer and the company, right? And that is about authenticity. is the company.

Like, are you telling a story that's true to who you are that you can constantly deliver on every single day? Right. That is the key thing. That is the idea of the myth.

That is the idea of the kernel that is at that basic human tree. relevance is around the customer and that, you know, what are they looking for? do they need more than anything? Not only nice to have, but something that's critical have, when you're selling to a business.

and then you think about the category. A lot of that is around differentiation and how do you make sure that you're not the exact same thing and forcing a commoditized conversation with your brand. you need to stand out, you need to be different, you need to be cut in some way contrary into what everyone else is saying. Those are foundational ideas for brand that have always been there.

They'll continue to be there. If anything, it'll become even critically more important to be surgical around what those ideas are, specifically as AI begins to play a bigger role, because the scale of information that will need to be put into those different buckets and the preciseness of it will only increase when the information is so large it'd be seemingly you know hard to put your arms around. It no longer is gonna be just in the hands of strategists. It's gonna be a strategist and an AI building these things together and ultimately an AI will be consuming that and spitting it back out.

And so you gotta make sure you get it right when you're being interpreted in terms of all the things you're saying.