Just the way you are

You’re not Apple. Neither Red Bull nor Tesla.

Keynotes that work for Apple won’t work for you. You just don’t have the media attention that Apple has and you won’t get it by out-producing Apple. It’s not the slick production that make these events work for Apple. Mimicking them is a waste of resources.

PR stunts that work for Red Bull won’t work for you. Buying a Formula 1 team is probably prohibitively expensive for you and you don’t own extreme sports to the degree Red Bull does. It’s not the logo on the cars that make these investments work for Red Bull. Mimicking them is a waste of resources.

The results that these companies see from their marketing efforts are the results of patience and perseverance. They have earned their spots by building an infrastructure around their flagship strategies.

That’s not to say that you couldn’t do the same in principle. But it’s a mistake to consider these marketing efforts as singular events – which many people do.

It’s not one Apple keynote but the history of decades of doing these events and the culture of making a secret of what will be announced exactly that turn these events into these enormous PR waves.

It’s not the logo on Max Verstappen’s car but the history of decades of sponsoring extreme sports plus the culture that Red Bull has built around it that turn these ventures into a huge bargain.

Most of all, it’s been derived out of these companies’ cultures. It’s true to what these brands stand for. It’s authentic to them.

Given the culture in your company. Also, given your budget. It pays to look not so much on what these gigantic companies do but much more to who your customers are. What resonates with them? How can you attach to that?

And then, when you’ve done something that works, stick with it and amplify it. Just like Apple, Red Bull, Tesla, Lego, Coca-Cola, Nike, and all the others did. For decades.