Founders Note 03: Brand Aesthetics and the Trap of Analysis Paralysis.
A reminder that good ideas are simple, even when the execution gets complicated.
Like all my blogs, I’m writing this in the middle of the night.
I recently found an old photo in my camera roll from 2023. It was a simple orange sticky note from the week I started dreaming up Merry Marketing. It said: spending less time on our marketing so we can spend more time on yours.
At the time, I’d just stepped away from my previous brand, Outrageous Cakes, to lean into interior design. I’ve always been a visual thinker and obsessed with interiors, so I wanted to see if I could translate my design eye into physical spaces. Ironically, I ended up doing the brand strategy for the firm that hired me as a junior designer. It was a major reality check. It proved that while I have the aesthetic lens, my brain is permanently wired for it to meet with logic.
That realisation wasn't new. Even back at school, I loved art, but it felt pointless without a reason. While everyone else was drawing fruit bowls or vases of flowers, I was trying to draw a narrative. (I’ve included one of my A-level pieces at the bottom of this post as evidence).
That’s why I chose to study Art, Photography, and Economics, which led me straight to an Advertising degree.
I became obsessed with the idea that creativity paired with logic is a superpower. In a world where you can now prompt a computer to be creative or ask a bot for an economic forecast, the bridge between the two (human intuition) is the only thing that still matters. That is what this business was built on.
But for the last several months, I have done the exact opposite.
I’ve been in a state of total analysis paralysis. I’ve spent months redoing a website that took me months to build in the first place and obsessing over brand colours. When your company sells brand aesthetics, you feel an immense pressure for your own brand to be a masterpiece.
It’s very easy for doubts to creep in when you’re the one setting the standard. This is when I’m jealous of narcissists. They genuinely believe everything they do is the best in the world. For the rest of us, we just keep refining until we are too close to the picture to see the portrait.
In a world obsessed with endless refinement, especially now that AI can polish a message into something perfectly symmetrical and safe, we're starting to lose sight of what actually makes advertising work.
AI can optimise a headline, but it can't feel the weight of a good idea. When we over-refine, we strip away the soul that makes an idea stick. Refinement has become a commodity. Any machine can do it. But a genuine gut hit? That is becoming a rarity.
The business model I was building didn't feel right because somewhere along the way, I'd prioritised the polish over the point. I had to listen to that.
You may have noticed some changes in Merry Marketing recently. I’ve spent the last few months dismantling and rebuilding the model to align with where I know this industry needs to go. But I’m going to save the how and the why of that shift for another blog.
Finding this sticky note was the reality check I needed. It reminded me that while Merry Marketing offers editorial photography and cinematic content, our soul is good ideas. When I saw this note 3 years later, it made me feel something. And making people feel something is what good advertising is about.
The overthinking stops here. The foundation is set. I’m done fussing over our brand.
Merry Marketing is ready to start building yours.
‘Life, Regardless.’
A-level art, circa 2012. Even then, I wasn’t interested in drawing fruit; I wanted to draw a story.
I still remember exactly what I was trying to say with this piece, but I’m always fascinated by how other people read it. If you have an interpretation of the story behind this drawing, I’d love to hear it. Send me a message or find me on LinkedIn - I’m always up for a conversation that starts with a good idea.
Oh yeah - hold tight for the SEO keyword plug: Creative Direction, Brand Strategy, Visual Authority, Experience Led Brands, Digital Independence, Revenue Strategist. (If you don’t get this, read my previous blog ‘I’d be lying if this blog wasn’t for SEO’)