Dolemite on Building a Meaningful Brand

Rudy Ray Moore earned the nickname quotThe Godfather of Rapquot as his style was a blueprint for what became hiphop in the late 1970s His larger than life story in Dolemite Is My Name is a framework for anyone who wants to understand how to build a meaningful brandAuthenticity is an overused buzzword as it currently exists Brands aspire to authenticity but usually fall far short Rudy Ray Moore was a struggling comedian relegated to doing warmup sets for local acts Desperate to break out he crafted a new persona for himself and his alterego Dolemite was bornMoore leaned into Dolemite as an outrageous foulmouthed pimp More than just a comedy routine Dolemite was a product of black folklore namely the signifying monkey In black folkloric tradition the signifying monkey is a trickster amp8212 quickwitted and nimble amp8212 and could weave stories to outsmart his enemies The mannerisms Moore adopted as Dolemite and his new chosen style were the ultimate inside joke for the audience he was seekingTraditional African American leading men at the time were Billy Dee Williams and Sidney Poitier Rudy Ray Moore made a calculated bet that a chubby middleage journeyman comedian who was willing to be himself would ultimately prevail Playing the game in the way it was constructed would never lead to success for someone such as Moore The only chance he had to rise above the clutter and make a connection was to be unapologetically himselfThe traditional powers were not ready for authenticity but his audience wasamp160 This is what is often missing from modernday branding It is not enough to use the word authentic and aspire to that ideal Authenticity has to live in every facet of the brand journeyBuild and Trust Your TeamIt takes a team of shared values and intention to build something Rudy Ray Moore recognized this by pulling from the available talent pool around him He used the people and resources in his community to create what is now coined in Silicon Valley language as the minimum viable product Moore recognized that empowering his friends who shared his value of hustling and his hunger to succeed would keep them all highly motivated Moore also was not afraid to embrace diversity Despite relying on his core team he brought in outside talent when expertise was needed to get the job doneMoore trusted his team to do their jobs and leverage their cultural diversity to create something new Organizations that do not build environments of trust won39t get their best work from their people just as homogenous teams won39t be as creative as those with diversity Leveraging varied areas of expertise and cultural perspective is essential to producing meaningful workQualitative Over QuantitativeMoore was on a seemingly quixotic quest to star in a movie Understanding the medium of cinema he knew he could be everywhere at once rather than relying on citybycity toursThe work he had done traveling from town to town and honing his act provided him with an incredible amount of information about the preferences of his audience Even so movie executives rejected his proposals saying that quotyou don39t make movies for five square blocks of your friendsquot These executives were assessing the opportunity based on their data which reflected a smaller audience for black films in general much less one with a nontraditional leading manThe data was giving them everything they needed to decide except for the right information Moore on the other hand had years of insights gathered by talking and reaching out to his audience To put it in his words he knew those quotfive square blocksquot existed in every city in America and that made his audience bigger than the data would ever showTo successfully build your brand you can39t solely rely on a datacentric approach A deep understanding of what people respond to also requires being comfortable with the complexity of the human experienceExperts Suck on What Has Never Been DoneExperts primarily rely on the ability to forecast using past results to project into the future Experts are best when asked to extrapolate using known quantities Experts however suck when asked to determine the potential success of something they have never encounteredWhen Moore released his first film Dolemite it was trashed by critics The critics were assessing the movie based on what had come before it but they had no framework to judge the work on in a new environment Their expertise did not allow them to see the possibilities In creative endeavors amp8212 and brand work is at its core creative amp8212 listening to experts will likely not give you your best workIn the end Dolemite built his brand on his terms His journey was uneven but it was deliberate at the same time It was also profoundly based on joy Joy is distinct from happiness because moments of joy can be a struggle or they can be bliss Branding would be better served if there was more joy in the decisionmaking process Instead it is mostly dominated by fearThe closing statement of the film is a poignant distillation of Dolemite39s branding philosophyquotI want you to live the life that you love and love the life that you live Shoot for the moon and if you miss cling to a staramp8230quotClick the social buttons to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Dolemite on Building a Meaningful Brand

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Philip McKenzie

Jon Miller | Cofounder Marketo, Engagio | The Gumball Machine is Broken - Rethinking B2B Marketing - By Mike Linton

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Philip McKenzie

Jon Miller | Cofounder Marketo, Engagio | The Gumball Machine is Broken - Rethinking B2B Marketing - By Mike Linton

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