Pass or Fail: What Good Brand Messaging Actually Looks Like

Executive overview

Most messaging failures share a single root cause: the speaker makes themselves the hero instead of the customer. The Shadeur Sanders NFL draft clip and Katy Perry's space trip both illustrate how arrogance misfires when it signals self-interest rather than value delivered. The winning formula is confidence about what you will do for someone else, not confidence about yourself. Provocative language works when it earns attention for the brand, not the ego. User-generated content beats employee-generated content on trust, but the two work best together.

Shadeur Sanders — messaging fail at the NFL draft

• Coached to project confidence, Sanders instead broadcast selfishness: "if you're not trying to change the culture, don't pick me"
• Vague power-claim ("change the culture") signals diva, not leader — GMs heard "I'll do your job"
• Fix: name the specific culture you'll build — "optimism, winning, sacrifice" — and frame it as your gift to the team
• "I'm a badass" vs. "I'll make you a badass" — individual vs. team framing is the whole difference
• Words alone could have neutralised every concern; prep for messaging matters as much as a 40-yard dash

Katy Perry space trip — same fail pattern

• Actual soundbite: "I had an experience you'll never have" — positioned herself above the audience
• Better version: lead with feeling small, feeling grateful, wanting to give back — audience falls in love
• Rule confirmed: playing the hero consistently fails; make the audience the hero

Provocative brand messaging — pass

• Liquid death ("murder your thirst") earns massive attention even if product-message fit is loose; the drama works for its target market
• Cards Against Humanity ("a card game for horrible people") nails the same-but-different formula: familiar category + sharp differentiator
• Insider language and exaggerated tone that matches the target audience is a reliable attention formula
• Clarity still matters: "card game" does the functional work; "horrible people" does the differentiation — you need both

EGC vs UGC — both pass, but user wins on trust

• User-generated content carries more authority because there is no obvious vested interest
• James Clear's three-star review strategy: find what people wanted to like but didn't, then solve exactly that problem
• Employee-generated content risks solving the wrong problem — internal perspective drifts from real user pain
• Story-loop campaigns (intern-keeps-job) work by handing the audience power over an outcome; urgency and stakes drive virality
• Best UGC prompt: short, constrained format (15-second knife-sharpening video), with a clear incentive (tagging, recognition)
• Hybrid approach — employees asking audience questions, audience submitting demos — combines reach and authenticity