Why building a brand is hard as hell.

Brands are all about emotion (duh!). It’s funny because when you’re working on a startup that designs, manufactures, and sells mens accessories, it’s really easy to forget that simple fact. Especially when the company basically consists of a handful of people doing all kinds of random shit. Also, I have to admit that sometimes I’m just not that good at emotions.

Think about Tiffany & Co for a second. Tiffany’s makes you think of love. Not just any love mind you… true love. The only love that’s worth loving for… obviously. That’s what they’re about! They even have an entire website about true love (http://www.whatmakeslovetrue.com/). I bet you didn’t know that! So what that they’ve been around since 1837… I’m pretty sure love has been around for longer than that. You have to hand it to them though… they really kill it with their branding.

Now, back to reality. The challenge with a new company is that the possibilities are endless. We can do whatever the fuck we want! Sounds fun in theory but it really isn’t easy for a control freak like myself :) At some point a decision has to be made about the central “tenet”, or to be super nerdy, the prime directive of the business. If you can pick 1-3 words that describe the emotion of your business, what would they be?

At Dolbeau, we’ve made some mistakes and we’re still working it all out (as we should be), but we have a pretty good idea of where we want to go. We think we can be pretty funny dudes sometimes, but we’re also deadly serious. So there you have it: serious, with a side of funny. There has to be a better way to phrase it though… but we’re making baby steps here.