You can't market a paperclip with excitement. You can't pitch it with innovation. You can’t even use fear—there’s no disaster looming from a paperclip shortage.
Rebranding Everyday Objects: How Would You Market a Paperclip?
There’s a moment in The Wolf of Wall Street where the main character is handed a pen, and the one who offers it says, “Sell me this pen.” I always assumed it was a Hollywood gimmick—some slick setup for dramatic tension. But it turns out, it really happened. A pen was proffered with the promise of a job if the recipient could sell it back.
I have no idea what the outcome was. My eyes were too busy being burned by the inhuman debauchery and lust that fueled the film’s moral engine. Cruelty, greed, and avarice abound—but damn if the dude didn’t sell the pen. And if you believe the story, the world bought it.
That scene reminded me of a moment I witnessed at Target. A little boy sprinted up to his mom, practically levitating with excitement, holding some kind of robot toy like it was the Holy Grail. Gasping for breath, he launched into his pitch:
“Mom, mom, mom…”
She didn’t look up—too focused on her shopping list.
Still, the kid pressed on. “It can be my birthday present or Christmas…” He was in full sales mode, rattling off every possible justification. Then, just as he reached the emotional crescendo of his pitch, he delivered the line he was sure would clinch the deal:
“Dude, it has lasers!!”
And then came the crushing reply, without even a glance from Mom:
“Put it back on the shelf and don’t call me dude.”
Defeated, the boy drooped. The robot now dangled at his side like a failed dream. He shuffled back to the toy aisle and gently replaced it on the shelf. Then he just… stood there. Looking at it. He knew he’d failed.
Maybe he learned something that day. Or maybe he just learned not to call his mom “dude.” Either way, the moment stuck with me.
Because there’s a lesson in there:
Sometimes the hardest thing to sell isn’t a bad product—it’s a boring one.
So today, we’re going to take on that challenge:
How do you sell the unsellable? How do you rebrand something as dull as a paperclip?
The Challenge of Selling the Boring
Let’s be honest—some products are just boring. Not bad. Not broken. Just dull.
The paperclip is the poster child for this category. It doesn’t have Bluetooth. It’s not “smart.” You can get paperclips in colors, but no one’s lining up for the midnight drop of the neon green edition.
And yet, every office has them. Every supply closet stocks them. Every bank, law firm, and accounting department quietly relies on them. The paperclip is the silent workhorse of the modern desk. It's dependable. It's utilitarian. It's invisible.
Which is exactly what makes it so hard to brand.
You can't market a paperclip with excitement. You can't pitch it with innovation. You can’t even use fear—there’s no disaster looming from a paperclip shortage. And yet, if you can learn to sell this, if you can find a way to make someone care about the paperclip… well, then you can probably brand anything.
Because at its core, branding isn’t about bells and whistles. It’s about storytelling. It's about finding meaning in the mundane. It’s about making people stop and think, Wait—maybe I do want that.
Even if that is just a loop of bent wire.
The Paperclip Experiment
So let’s say you’ve been handed the paperclip account. Your mission: make it stand out. Make it desirable. Make people care.
Where do you even begin?
First, you rename it. “Paperclip” sounds like something your grandmother used to hold her bills together in 1978. You need something fresh. Something aspirational. Something that doesn’t make people immediately think office supplies.
Maybe it becomes The Arc—sleek, minimal, vaguely mysterious. Or ClipCycle, the eco-friendly paper fastener made from 100% recycled hope. Or, for the luxury market, The Loopé, retailing at $49.99 each and arriving in hand-stitched felt pouches.
Then, you find your audience.
- For kids: “Back-to-school just got clipped.” Tie-ins with trading cards and TikTok unboxings.
- For productivity junkies: “Stack smarter.” Brand it as the minimalist, analog productivity tool.
- For design snobs: Release a limited run in muted Scandinavian hues. Throw in some Helvetica. Done.
And of course, you build the story around it. Maybe it’s about organization. Maybe it’s about control in a chaotic world. Maybe it’s about the quiet elegance of simplicity. Or maybe—it’s just a paperclip with vibes.
Or maybe it’s a lifestyle change.
Things are a mess. Your world is spinning out of control. But if you could just get a handle on one thing, you’re sure the rest of your life would fall into place. You’d land a better job. You’d find love. You’d finally fulfill your potential. All you need is to wrangle one piece of the chaos.
And there it is: your desk. Papers running amok. Notes scrawled on cocktail napkins. Big ideas mapped out on the back of receipts and gum wrappers. This goes with that, that feeds into this… but how do you keep it all together?
If only there were a simple, elegant solution. A quick, convenient way to clip everything into coherence.
Wait. A paperclip.
That’s it. That’s the thing. The key to transformation was never a new app, a new mindset, or a productivity seminar in a hotel ballroom. It was this small, humble loop of wire, just waiting to bring order to your personal brand of chaos.
Buy the clip. Change your life.
Sound ridiculous? Of course it is. But that’s branding. You take a simple object and build a world around it. A story. A need. A promise.
And once you've done that, well… you’re ready for the campaign rollout.
A few campaign-ready slogans for our new lifestyle anchor:
- “The Arc: Reinventing connection, one page at a time.”
- “Chaos? Clipped.”
- “Less mess. More you.”
- “Don’t call it a comeback. Call it a ClipCycle.”
- “Your life, held together—one loop at a time.”
- “Minimalism meets metal.”
- “One small clip for man, one giant leap for desk-kind.”
- “The Loopé: Because some of us care about our papers.”
- “Bend. Snap. Sorted.”
- “This isn’t just a paperclip. This is potential.”
Sure, it started with a paperclip, a bit of nonsense, and a few overcaffeinated slogans—but buried in all of that is something worth paying attention to: a lesson about what branding really is, and what it absolutely is not.
What This Teaches Us About Branding
At first, rebranding a paperclip feels like a game. A creative exercise. A throwaway challenge for marketers who’ve had too much coffee and not enough restraint. But the longer you sit with it, the more revealing it becomes.
Because here’s the truth: branding isn’t about the product. It never really has been. It’s about the meaning we assign to things. It’s about the stories we tell ourselves to justify a choice, or to feel a little more in control, or to believe—even for a second—that something simple might be the key to something better.
The paperclip, in all its quiet utility, is a perfect example. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t change your life. But in the right context, with the right language and a carefully constructed story, it becomes more than bent metal. It becomes a symbol of order in chaos. Of potential in mess. Of control in a world where most things feel just slightly out of reach.
And that’s what branding does. It doesn’t invent meaning—it reveals it. Or maybe it manufactures it. Sometimes both. But it always begins in the same place: with the idea that even the smallest thing can matter, if we frame it right.
Branding takes the invisible and makes it visible. It takes the overlooked and makes it desired. It gives emotional weight to things that, on their own, don’t carry any. That’s not manipulation—it’s connection. At least, when it’s done well.
Because we’re not just marketing products. We’re reaching into people’s heads and hearts and saying, “Here—this thing, this idea, this object—it matters. And maybe, in some small way, it matters to you.”
So if we can do that with a paperclip, imagine what we can do with something that actually has a story to tell.
Because here’s the thing—we’re meaning-making creatures. We want things to matter. We crave narrative, even in nonsense. We look at the world and ask, “What does this say about me?” That’s why people argue over brands of bottled water, or feel oddly loyal to a certain kind of pen, or wear a shoe company’s logo like it’s a tribal marking.
We don’t always buy what works best. We buy what reflects us best.
So when someone says, “It’s just a paperclip,” the job of branding isn’t to argue. It’s to nod, and then ask, “But what if it wasn’t?”
That’s where creativity comes in—not as decoration, but as invitation. Branding invites us to care. To imagine. To attach. And sometimes, to laugh. There’s power in that. Not because it’s manipulative, but because it’s deeply human.
A brand doesn’t succeed because it shouts the loudest. It succeeds because it whispers something we’re already hoping to hear. Something like, “You’re not the only one trying to get your life together.” Or, “You’re allowed to want a little beauty, even in your desk drawer.”
And maybe that’s what the paperclip experiment really teaches us:
That nothing is too small to hold a story.
And no story is too small to hold meaning.
So What Is a Narrative, Really?
We throw the word around a lot in branding. Tell your brand story. Find your narrative. Lead with a compelling message. But let’s be honest—most people using those phrases couldn’t actually explain what a narrative is if you took the whiteboard away.
So here it is, no jargon, no TED Talk energy:
A narrative is just a structured way of saying:
- Here’s where we were.
- Here’s what happened.
- Here’s where we are now.
That’s it. Something changed. That’s the heartbeat of a story.
And in branding, narrative becomes powerful when it reflects not just the company’s journey, but the customer’s. You don’t just say, “We make strong paperclips.” You say, “We know your desk is a disaster. We know you’re barely holding it together. We’re here to help—one piece of bent wire at a time.”
That’s not selling a product. That’s inviting someone into a transformation—even a small, silly one. Because even small changes can feel big when they solve a problem we care about.
A good narrative doesn’t need a Hollywood plot. It just needs a sense of movement. A shift. A before and after.
Let’s go absurd to prove the point:
Before: You’re overwhelmed. Your desk is a hurricane of ideas. Your boss keeps “swinging by” to ask where that report went. You’re just trying to breathe.
After: Everything’s clipped, clean, and in place. You didn’t lose the report. You feel like an adult again. You might even take lunch today.
The product stays the same. The context changes.
That’s narrative.
That’s branding.
How to Find and Craft a Brand Narrative
Now that we know what a narrative is, the natural question becomes: how do you actually find one?
The good news is, you don’t have to invent anything. The narrative is usually already there. You just need to uncover it, clean it up a bit, and help it speak clearly.
Here’s how to start:
1. Start with the problem.
Every story needs tension. So what’s the thing your customer is struggling with? And not in corporate-speak—what’s the actual, human problem?
Maybe it’s not “inefficient document management.”
Maybe it’s: “My desk looks like a raccoon ransacked it, and I can’t find page 3.”
Start there.
2. Find the shift.
What changes after your product or service enters the scene?
Don’t focus on features—focus on the feeling.
Does your thing bring relief? Control? Confidence? Calm?
The paperclip doesn’t “bind up to 20 pages.” It says, “You’re not falling apart today.”
3. Give it a voice.
This is where most brands go off the rails. They try to sound impressive instead of sounding human.
But customers don’t respond to a “voice of authority.” They respond to a voice that gets them.
Are you comforting, witty, no-nonsense, irreverent? Match your voice to your customer’s inner monologue.
4. Anchor it in something real.
We don’t remember generalities. We remember details.
Throw in something oddly specific. A lunch order. A cluttered junk drawer. The exact moment the wheels came off.
Those specifics? That’s what makes your brand feel alive.
5. Keep it simple.
This isn’t a screenplay. You don’t need ten acts and a redemption arc.
You just need a before and an after, with a heartbeat in between.
If you can tell that story in a few honest, surprising, vivid lines, you’ve done more for your brand than any slogan ever could.
That’s really all a brand narrative is—a simple, human story with a shift in it. A move from problem to possibility. You’re not just selling what something is. You’re showing what it means. And once you start thinking that way, even a paperclip can carry the weight of a whole brand.
Summing Up (and Clipping It All Together)
So yes, this all started with a paperclip. A tossed-off office supply. A loop of wire so ordinary it’s practically invisible. And somehow, we turned it into a luxury item, a lifestyle upgrade, a desperate plea for order in a world that refuses to cooperate.
Absurd? Completely.
But also—kind of the point.
Because branding isn’t just for shoes and apps and oat milk startups. It’s how we assign meaning to things. It’s how we organize chaos, how we connect with other people, how we turn even the smallest thing into a story worth telling.
And when you really break it down, branding is just storytelling in disguise.
It’s the moment a kid in Target yells, “Dude, it has lasers!”
It’s the paperclip that might—just might—help you finally get your life together.
It’s meaning, wrapped in metal, language, and hope.
So the next time someone says, “Sell me this pen,” maybe try something different.
Try giving them a story.
Open Question:
What’s the most ordinary, overlooked object in your world—and if you had to rebrand it, what story would you tell?
