Branding Lessons from Patti Smith

 

Sometimes I think marketing is just an elegant excuse to talk about the artists we love.

I could pretend this is about strategy frameworks and positioning models. It is. But it’s also about Patti Smith and the way she walked into rooms like she had already decided who she was. And that’s lesson number one.

1. Identity is a decision, not a reaction

Patti did not wait for the market to tell her what version of herself would be acceptable. She did not test different aesthetics to see what performed better. She didn’t soften her edges to increase mass appeal. She decided. The poetry. The rawness. The intellectual references. The androgyny. The refusal to behave. It wasn’t accidental chaos. It was chosen coherence. Branding is the same. The strongest brands are not discovered by accident. They are declared. If you don’t define yourself clearly, the market will define you lazily. And laziness is the enemy of positioning.

2. Depth is more powerful than visibility

Patti read obsessively. Rimbaud, Genet, Burroughs. Her work was layered, referential, almost inconvenient at times. You had to lean in. That’s uncomfortable for modern marketing, which worships immediacy. But depth builds gravity. Gravity pulls people back. There’s a reason some brands feel disposable and others feel permanent. It’s not frequency. It’s intellectual weight. When your brand has nothing beneath the surface, it floats. When it has references, thought, internal logic, it anchors. People don’t stay for surface. They stay for substance.

3. Coherence creates mythology

There’s a difference between repetition and coherence. Repetition is mechanical. Coherence is structural. Patti’s tone, imagery, attitude, and choices aligned. You could recognize her world immediately. That recognition builds memory. Memory builds myth. In cognitive science, memory forms through repeated, consistent signals. If your messaging changes every week, your brand never becomes easy to recall. It never becomes shorthand for something specific. Strong brands don’t just appear often. They appear consistently as themselves.

4. Imperfection is not a flaw. It’s texture.

Her voice was not polished for comfort. It cracked. It moved unpredictably. It felt human. We are entering a strange era where everything sounds smooth. Balanced. Optimized. Sterile. Texture is becoming rare. And rare things become valuable. There is something deeply strategic about allowing your brand to have edges. It signals confidence. It signals that you are not engineered for mass approval. It signals authorship. I would choose textured over perfect every time.

5. Art and strategy are not opposites

There’s a myth that strategy is corporate and art is chaotic. Patti Smith dissolves that binary. Her work was instinctive but also deliberate. Emotional but also literate. Rebellious but deeply informed. That’s how powerful branding works. Creative direction is not decoration. It’s authorship. It’s choosing symbols. It’s choosing references. It’s choosing what you align with and what you reject. It’s saying: this is my world. Enter if you resonate. And maybe that’s why I like using artists as case studies. Because culture understands something business often forgets: meaning compounds. And the brands that endure are the ones that feel authored, not assembled.

Patti is pure soul and sometimes is what we need the most. I'm sorry in advance for putting your name next to the world branding.