Toniq

Most brands don’t get people. Not because they’re bad at what they do—but because they’re stuck in a cycle of performance.

Words communicate more than meaning—they communicate tone. Are you friendly? Approachable? Professional? Clever? Sophisticated? Or, heaven forbid, careless? A single word can convey warmth, confidence, humor, or, if mishandled, confusion and even embarrassment.

But why? Why are people, men and women, falling for an algorithm and hitching their lives to a chatbot? Why are people willing to bend reality to “be with” a machine?

They glow up like humans do—with messy, awkward adolescence, questionable decisions, a few cringe-worthy moments, and then a decade of slow, steady transformation that suddenly looks effortless from the outside.

A trademark isn’t just a name or a logo. It’s a symbol that connects your business to a promise in the customer’s mind. When people see it, they should think, “Ah, this comes from that company I trust—or at least, that company I recognize.”

But if you think it’s bad for normal people and clueless world leaders, what does this influx of AI slop do to brands? How do brands fight against the deepfake? And what if they don’t?

How does this happen? How does a brand not just sell a product but become the word for the thing itself? That’s what we’re diving into today. We’re talking Kleenexes, Legos, Velcro, and more—why they matter, how they got there.

In business, battles are fought with spreadsheets and strategy decks, billboards, tweets, and viral campaigns. Every brand has a battlefield—customers’ attention, loyalty, and trust—and some go all-in, risking everything to claim victory.

Do brands make mistakes? Absolutely. The stakes might be higher and the spotlight brighter, but a brand slip-up is really just a collective version of the mistakes we all make as individuals.

Just like a person, a brand can’t always rely on constant talking to exist or be understood. In fact, sometimes the act of speaking less—or pausing entirely—can reveal more than any campaign or post ever could.

Thinking of a brand as an animal is more than a playful exercise; it’s a way to visualize its personality, values, and instincts.

Coffee isn’t just a warm hug in a mug—it’s a full-on brain wake-up call. The active ingredient, caffeine, is a stimulant that targets the central nervous system, and its first trick is blocking adenosine, a neurotransmitter responsible for signaling sleep.

If individuals feel this tension, imagine what it’s like for brands. A brand is nothing if not a professional communicator. Every ad, every tweet, every slogan, every press release — it’s all words, wrapped in design.

And this is where it gets interesting for branding: if humans have patterns that make them behave, respond, and engage in predictable ways, could brands too have “humors”—distinct, core tendencies that shape their interactions with audiences, their marketing choices, and their cultural presence?

That’s precisely what happens when a brand’s messaging is disconnected across its ecosystem. One poster promises luxury, the cashier pitches affordability, and the website you checked this morning looks completely different. Confusing, right?