Overview
The most valuable lesson you can learn about manifestos is to make it about one thing. If you’re celebrating your values, don’t go into a long story about your heroes. If you’re motivating your audience, don’t dwell on your history.
Below, you’ll find an overview of the most common themes, divided into five categories. I highly recommend exploring a few different angles to see which one flows the easiest.
Heads up
This page is in constant flux. I’m in the process of revamping the system. Some categories and names have been changed as themes are combined, reworked, and created.
All of this is in the process of making free deep dives for each theme, as well as laying the groundwork for a new book. Keep an eye out for both soon. Any concerns? Send me an email.
Themes
There are five types of brand manifestos. These are not perfect buckets. Some Differences scripts also mention values. But any splash over should be in service of your main idea.
- Values: Core beliefs, perspectives, and founding principles.
- Differences: Underdogs, USPs, and owning negatives.
- Solutions: Answers, initiatives, and world-changing remedies.
- Motivations: Good advice, inspiration, and the better way to be.
- Portraits: Admired people and interesting cultures.
Values
This is usually the first and most important manifesto brands write. If your brand hasn’t written any of the other ones on this list, this is a great place to start. This is the manifesto you want to write if you’re going through a rebrand, redefining your purpose, establishing your legacy, or drawing a line in the sand.
The best versions of these are specific and focused enough to guide internal decisions. They set the foundation for new hire orientations, they can rally current employees, and they re-invigorate folks who have been there a long time. The best ones are hung on a wall.
The secret to these scripts is specificity. These manifestos thrive on details. Specifics are the proof that you actually do believe in your purpose as much as you say. You know the pain points. The opportunities. The magic everyone else misses. This is also a valuable pressure test. If you can’t fill your manifesto with these details, it’s a red flag. You might have the wrong insight or the wrong theme for your idea.
The North Star
Establish a key philosophy guiding your decision making. One way in: show the problem, them pivot to your POV on the topic, then show us the world it creates.
The Table Flip
Completely unravel the logic of a societal norm or common belief. Confidence is key. Go hard. Be ready to offend people. The ones who aren’t will love you for it.
The House Rules
Lay out a list of principles that ensure your continual success. Don’t tell a story with the list. Make each one it’s one piece. Make the last one slightly grander.
The Fire Starter
Live your values by creating a piece that stands up to the moment. Tap into your brand’s ethos. Go very hard and upset someone. Anger is the cost of free attention.
Differences
Any manifesto designed to separate you from the competition. For this theme, you always want to focus on a perceived negative. Don’t tell us a difference that is positive, such as you care about your customers. Nobody will care. But what if you came out and owned that you don’t care about your customers? Now that’s interesting.
Great versions of these manifestos flip perceived negatives into USPs. To do this, find the thing you’re proud of that’s being attacked, insulted, or doubted. If your competitors insult you for going slow, demonstrate why it’s insane to go fast. If they say you’re behind the times, show how patience gives you perspective that benefits the consumer. Whatever it is, flip it, own it, and make sure you say it so well that they can’t punch a hole in it.
The secret to these scripts is confidence. This manifesto is not for timid brands. You absolutely need to have the confidence to take a strong point of view. If that doesn’t feel good, no problem. Just pick a different theme. The best ones don’t actually talk about the competition directly. They make hard-hitting points that make the competition’s argument irrelevant. The only choice the opposition should have after this is to pick a new attack or focus on something else.
The Fishing Boots
Recast a criticism as a byproduct of value. Good fishing boots smell terrible because keeping out water also means trapping in sweat. Every negative hides a positive. Find yours.
The Barbershop Quartet
Unleash a deluge of good qualities about your product or brand. Two keys: quantity and voice. This only works if you deliver tons of proof points in a charming way.
The Factory Tour
Reveal the meticulous craft or care you put into creating something. But make sure it’s different than your competitors. If not, use humor and make it up.
The History Lesson
Take us through an unexpected journey to now. This can be about your company, product, or industry. The key: insight. Show how it’s not at all what we thought it was.
Solutions
A sub-theme of the previous theme manifestos that shares your solution to the problem. Make sure you have both pieces: (a) a big problem that threatens something important, and (b) your unique solution that’s just as big or bigger
When establishing the problem, make it vivid and heavy. We shouldn’t be able to shrug this off. We need to be uncomfortable and start to crave the solution. That’s what holds our attention. Similarly, your solution needs to completely solve the problem. It can’t just start to chip away at it. If you go through the torture of bring us into this problem, you owe it to use to bring us out.
The secret to these scripts is simplicity. Complexity is death here. You have to remember nobody is asking to care about this problem. You’re asking them. Make it easy. Even the most objectively complex problems should be conveyed as clearly as possible. The best versions reduce the message to a single action. You want people to buy a certain product, change one thing about their thinking, remember one idea that changes everything, and so on.
The Ticking Clock
Demonstrate the immediacy and severity of a massive problem. Go heavy on what’s wrong. We need to be crushed by the weight before we care about the solution.
The Easy Button
Provide a simple action that solves a huge crisis or problem. These work best if people already care about the problem. Want to save the whales? Just do this.
Motivations
This is when brands take the opportunity to encourage, motivate, and inspire a specific group. Make sure your brand either has permission to do this, or is related enough to the group that it can ring genuine.
Use these manifestos when you want to help elevate your audience. When you see them making the same mistakes over and over, or when you’re concerned they’re going in the wrong direction. Help show them the right way.
These manifestos work best (and maybe only) when your brand is successful, beloved, or admired. That’s why the secret to these scripts is authority. If you need to establish it, you shouldn’t do one. Nike didn’t write manifestos like this in year one. But now they have the credibility, they can do whatever they want. The reason why this is so important is because you can only focus on one thing. Don’t muddle it up with anything but the point you’re making.
The Best Friend
Best friends know when you need a kick in the ass. Drop the floor out from someone you care about and tell them straight how to start doing better.
The Hard Button
The opposite of the Easy Button. Show the value of goal or dream by how hard it is to get. You’re in crowded territory here. Do lots of concepting for a new way in.
The New Definition
Make people feel seen by crushing or reclaiming an oppressive label. Try a U Shape structure. Focus on the problem for the first half, and the better way for the second.
Portraits
For celebrating individuals and cultures. This is when you want to honor a person, mindset, or lifestyle that inspires your brand. Doing this well means that your audience will likely find inspiration in this thing, too. Find beauty in unacknowledged places. Done well, these feel like gifts to your audience.
This is the perfect manifesto to use when you don’t have anything to say—no products to release, no initiatives to announce, no success to brag about. Inspiring manifestos show your values rather than tell them. These also work great in overcrowded categories.
The secret to these scripts is restraint. The hardest thing to do with these manifestos is to only focus on the thing that inspires you. You can’t talk about yourself at all. You might be able to sneak in a single line, but even that is risky. This manifesto needs to be about them. It’s a tribute. Don’t turn the camera around or it will look like you’re using them. Treat this like a portrait.
The Crazy Ones
Raise a glass to an established but misunderstood group. Make us wish we were one of them. These are usually anchored around a product that amplifies the group’s magic.
The Venn Diagram
Distinguish a bunch of people who didn’t realize they were all in the same group. This can give people a sense of culture, but be careful not to patronize, diminish, or offend.
The Journal Entry
Consider the vulnerable truths of a culture. Ponder the problems and glorify the possibilities. Each needs a moment of realization that uncovers a deeper truth.
The Birthday Toast
Create a tribute to someone deserving of high praise. The best way to do this: speak for a community. Put into words what everyone wishes they could say.