david hieatt

Don’t create myths. Create the space to allow them to happen.

Myths are powerful. They are seminal storytellers of events that may or may not have happened. The most powerful are semi-believable, but contain some element of wonder and magic.

What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

It’s hard to dream up a myth, like you can think up some marketing campaign: They can feel forced. They can feel like they are selling something. And so they don’t get shared.

The best ones just happen all by themselves. And when they do, they will be shared. And they can really help build your brand. Because, like I said at the start, myths are powerful.

My learning from myths is what you can do as a brand builder is to create a space for myths to happen. And, just wait and see what unfolds.

For the last 7 years we have been building The Do Lectures. It is a gathering of people around ideas and how they can change the world. It takes place on the far western edge of Wales. In an old cowshed. (And, it now takes place in California, Melbourne and for the first time this July in Costa Rica)

At this year’s Do Lectures Wales, we created a secret gin parlour that no one at the event knew was there. On the Friday, we Instagrammed a barman wearing a black suit and tie serving some fine seaweed gin in it. And nobody came. The Wi-Fi is so bad that no one was able to see the post on his or her phones. Instead, we told two people, and before we knew it, you couldn’t move.

The Naim Audio equipment played the music. The Hendricks flowed freely. We had bought enough for the 3 days. But it only lasted 3 hours. One of the rules of the secret gin parlour was when the bell sounded there would be a 60 second disco, and everyone had to take part. Most of that was planned.

But what we hadn’t planned to happen was for Tom Herbert to walking in a 1 am with a sourdough loaf that he had just baked in the Big Bertha’s oven in the back of their Land Rover. It had ‘Do’ written on it. And it was still hot. He gave it to me. I took a chunk of it. And I passed it on to the crowd. I can still see it now, everyone passing it on with hands a loft like someone crowd surfing but with a loaf of Sourdough.

The next morning, it was that moment everyone was talking about. It wasn’t planned. But all we did was to create a space for it to happen.

This week the Do Lectures was voted in the top 21 coolest brands in Wales along with a small jeans maker called Hiut.

From time to time I run a Do Workshop: How to build a great brand with very little money.

Do Workshops (Wales and London)

My Book: Do Purpose.