Weird enough is enough.

There is a point where being different stops helping and starts getting in the way.

The brand becomes something you have to explain instead of something people immediately grasp.

This doesn’t mean differentiation stopped mattering. It means the way it’s being used stopped working.

I ran into this with my agency, the little red sofa.

The name was already unconventional.

The metaphor already carried tension.

The idea of helping brands work through discomfort already stood apart.

I kept pushing it anyway. I leaned harder into the concept. I layered on abstraction. I used language that made sense to me and to other creatives. It felt thoughtful. It also made the brand harder to find and harder to understand.

When I grounded the positioning, things changed - anchoring it in brand transformation made the value clearer. Letting the sofa be a reference point instead of the whole story made it easier to connect.

Brand = differentiation. But differentiation only works when it creates an advantage. If people can’t find you, understand you, or see themselves in the work, the difference creates distance instead of demand.

Most brands don’t need more edge; they need to protect the edge that already works and stop pushing past the point of usefulness.

Sit with:

Where is your brand harder to understand than it needs to be?

What part of your story already does enough work on its own?

What have you added that makes people pause instead of lean in?

If someone found you today, would they quickly know why you matter?

— Ian Adams, Founder the little red sofa

Before founding the little red sofa, I led strategy and creative for brands like Jeep, HSBC, and Unilever at top global agencies and in-house teams across 8 countries. Now I partner with brands to do the uncomfortable work that builds resilience. That’s how they become unshakable. Impossible to ignore.