I am a brand, but I am not a label. My brand is Marc Eckō. You too are a brand. Whether you know it or not. Whether you like it or not. A brand is not skin-deep. Labels are skin-deep, but a brand—a true, authentic brand—is made of blood and bones, skin and organs. A brand has a heartbeat
The anatomy of a brand, in turn, is defined by its authenticity. And just like a doctor can’t describe the wonders of the human body in a pithy one-line description, a brand’s authenticity can’t be clearly defined in a Twitteresque 140 characters
Hard work is required to understand, grow, and nurture the anatomy of a brand. You can’t do it on the surface. You can’t slap on a “Brand Band-Aid.” You have to dig deep and poke around with a scalpel
To understand the anatomy of the human body, doctors use tools. They use stethoscopes, exams, and a mountain of knowledge that dates back to Henry Grey and Hippocrates. I, too, have a tool. It’s a formula. To understand the anatomy of a brand, I created a formula that explains the nervous system, the heartbeat, the spine, and the core of a brand’s authenticity. It’s not straightforward. It’s not a tidy 1, 2, 3
This is a book that explores the anatomy of a brand. And it uses this formula— the Authenticity Formula—to explain the cross sections of that anatomy. Each chapter peels back a layer and dissects a variable of the formula. And just as doc¬tors use a body as an example for their students, it just so happens, coincidentally, that I have an example that we can use for our anatomy lesson: me.
My brand started in my parents’ garage in Lakewood, New Jersey, where I spray-painted T shirts and sold them for $10 a pop. I grew that brand to the tune of a billion-dollar retail business. I’ve built skate brands, hip-hop brands, maga¬zine and video game brands. I’ve built brands that people literally tattoo on their bodies, which is “branding” in the truest sense. But the most important brand that I built was me, the personal brand that’s from my guts to the skin.
My philosophy is simple: unlabel
Not “un” as in the nihilist or negative sense of the prefix, but in the “refuse” sense of the meaning. Refuse to be labeled
Fight their labels
Ignore their labels
Peel off their labels
Create your label
Unlabel
This takes work. In the same way that you do push-ups to exercise your body, you need to challenge yourself to shake free of the herd, find your own unique voice, and create your personal authentic brand
Find your swoosh, your Apple, your Rhino
You’re labeled in hundreds of ways by thousands of people. But how much of this have you consciously controlled? How much have you consciously created? How much of what’s known about you is authentic to you, and how much is merely the perception of others?
When you unlabel, you can be an artist without being a starving artist. You can sell without selling out. To do this, you need to create an authentic personal brand that transcends the gatekeepers (the critics, the haters) who want to put a label on you and gets right to the goalkeepers (the ones who vote, the folks with the shopping carts). The goalkeepers are the only judges who matter
How people see you, feel you, understand you, and make assumptions about you when you are not in the room are pieces of your personal brand, and this is true whether you’re the president of the United States, a priest, or a plumber. Whatever your product or service, you are essentially selling you. Deal with it
This book is the story of how I unlabeled myself, defying classifications so that I could grow both creatively and commercially. It’s a personal story, a business story, and a prescriptive course for anyone who wants to grow a brand
Brands are often thought of negatively as the do¬main of advertising, but a personal brand can be a powerful tool. In times of success, it keeps you grounded. In times of crisis, it keeps you confident. In heightened moments of critical decision making, it hones your improvisational skills. But it doesn’t come easy. It takes real effort, imagination, and follow-through to create your authentic personal brand
I’m a brand, but I’m also a creator. Are these ideas even compatible? People think of the word creator as something almost divine, while brand is almost vulgar. Brand is all Don Draper; creator is all Michelangelo. Creators do work that is noble and proud—spiritual, ethereal, and impossibly pure. There’s an inherent tension between these two concepts
Unlabel is about resolving that tension. This requires a fundamental change in your assumptions. You must move from the mind-set of “I am a consumer and I want X” to “I am a producer and I create Y.” Create can be anything; you don’t have to be an artist or musician or inventor. Maybe you create code or create ads; or if you’re a dental hygienist, you create clean teeth.
When you unlabel and create an authentic personal brand, you will broad¬cast yourself differently to the world. You will think of yourself more actively, not passively. You won’t just use the social network, you’ll become the social network. When you have a rock-solid sense of your own authentic personal brand, everything else—the graffiti you’re tagging, the mix tape you’re hawking, the company you’re launching, the next $1 billion platform you’re stewarding—will flow externally from the inside out; from your guts to the skin
People can take your job. No one can take away the brand you’ve created and your ability to create again. Let them smash what you’ve been saving, let them burn what you’ve built— when you can create, the power is yours, not theirs. What happens when your job is yanked away? What happens when your career be¬comes obsolete? What happens when you shit the bed—hard?
To me, these aren’t just rhetorical questions. I’ve had to answer them. I nearly lost all control of my company, I struggled with crushing debt, I even thought I might lose my house. I was a media darling and then a media target
But it was okay. I was okay. You’ll be okay. Because if you do it right, your brand is still there selling for you, and when you know you can create, your brand will help you recover, get a new job, make new sheets. Your brand is your bedrock. It’s there when your start-up cracks $200 million in revenue, but it’s also there to help you deal with a nasty boss, swallow dire news about the economy, and it’s even there if you face bankruptcy
Building a brand is like creating your own personal religion. You need to be willing to fight for it, defend it, die for it. It involves being something of a zealot. Honestly? I would have preferred to call this book Creating Your Own Religion, but the world is too sensitive to use religion as a metaphor for branding. But religions brand all the time. The Sistine Chapel? Now that’s branding—it puts Apple’s retail stores to shame. Glass cube storefront? Whatevs
How ’bout that nave roof detail at Antoni Gaudí’s masterpiece, La Sagrada Família, in Barcelona, Spain? That’s one hell of a shopping environment
The book breaks down each individual component of the authenticity formula, and then, throughout, you’ll see each piece in action. Each chapter tackles one variable of the formula, and you’ll see that my story is the for¬mula’s story, and within it are prescriptions for how you can apply it. (And while there isn’t much math, there are plenty of pictures. I use visuals to process and to synthesize; that’s why there are so many photos in this book.)
This isn’t a fashion book. I don’t care if you’ve never seen my clothes or have no interest in fashion, graffiti, or street wear. That happens to be the aesthetic world I came from, but the principles are equally valid regardless of whether you’re promoting a new product, launching a website, or selling cars
And this isn’t a “how-to” business book about how to make millions. There are no cheesy mission statements. (But there is a manifesto I dare you to sign.) I won’t spoon-feed you 7 Habits of Highly Successful Creators, I’m not going to tell you The Art of the Brand, and you won’t see me lose my virginity (though girls have definitely played into my motivations). I don’t believe in just brag¬ging about wins, sugarcoating, or pretending that I never fail. I’ve failed plenty. Unlike what I’ve seen of the Trumps and the CEOs and the cigar-smoking Titans of Industry, I believe in not only disclosing that failure but also robustly diagnosing it, and learning from it. This is the textbook I wish I had in college.
Through all my ups and downs, it was the creation of my personal brand—and discov¬ering the seed for my authenticity—that helped me live the American Dream 2.0
Not just settling for the brand I was born into
Not just checking off the boxes of what the perception of success looks like
Not just accepting the gatekeepers’ label
I know that plenty of readers will laugh and say, “Wait, Marc Eckō, writing a book about authenticity?” It’s true: my clothes have been called inauthentic, my street cred has been questioned, and my publicity stunts have been criti¬cized. The cynics have jeered and the detractors have slung their arrows. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I wear those scars with honor. This is all part of the story
I found success—measured in both guts-to-the-skin happiness and billion-dollar companies—only when I scrapped off the labels of the gatekeepers, ditched the boxes, and created my own personal, authentic brand that cap¬tured the attention of the people who count: the goalkeepers
You don’t need much to start this creation. In my case? Just some crayons, scratch paper, and a stack of comic books
