You can't put lipstick on a pig

I have now spent over thirty years working in communications, marketing, and branding. The most important thing I've learned... the most important principle for doing this job ethically and well... can be summed up in a saying that's been around about twice as long as that...

You can't put lipstick on a pig.

Rolling out a new logo or visual identity, or putting up a poster of "core values", or launching a glitzy social media campaign will not matter a whit if it doesn’t align with that which is being branded.

If it doesn’t align with reality.

Now I should be clear that I love pigs. And I recognize that they are often misunderstood. Pigs could use their own marketing campaign. What that marketing campaign would use as a central message is a whole other debate. But it definitely would not involve lipstick, either literal or figurative.

For example, the key message would not could not should not be that “pigs are the new kale.”

Because that would be a load of… not kale. Or a load of kale, depending on your feelings about kale.

Kale, on the other hand, has had some excellent marketing in recent times. As has cauliflower. And from a nutritional standpoint, and with proper handling, there is enough truth to the claims that the integrity is there in the marketing.

That is not the case with a lot of marketing messages these days… better to call it spin, call it propaganda, call it outright lies.

That’s not to say that marketing and branding can’t be aspirational, early on, but you damn well better bring your reality up to your aspirational bar as quickly and consistently as you can. And at a certain point, your actions will be what define your brand and nothing else.

Back in 1908, when my university, the University of Alberta, was established, it’s motto from day one was quecumque vera… whatsoever things are true. In an empty field out in the middle of the prairies, the university’s first classes taking place in an elementary school building miles away, this was nothing but aspiration.

But it wasn’t long before the work and research and teaching and community service of the university rose to the motto. We grew into a diverse and motivated community of thinkers, pursuing truth, pursuing ideas, pursuing excellence that punched well above our weight. We have earned recognition because of what we have done as a university, as that diverse community of thinkers, flawed and imperfect though we’ve been.

Because in the end, that is our brand, not our motto or our logo or our colours.

Trying to put lipstick on a bear will work about as well as on a pig. And trying to dress it in a tutu and make it dance, even less so.

It might get it a bit more attention in the short term, but it might also just kill the bear. And then all the lipstick in the world won’t do a thing to help the bear be a bear.

Quecumque vera.