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We live in an age where attention is the scarcest resource. Platforms reward engagement, and nothing drives engagement like strong emotion. Emotional triggers like outrage, humor, and identity move through culture faster than safe, balanced messaging ever can. That’s why some of the fastest-scaling modern brands lean into polarization. They understand that in the attention economy, if you’re neutral, you’re invisible. You have to stoke a little controversy to stand out. But here’s the tension: Done right, polarization builds cultural relevance and distinctiveness. Done wrong, it can erode trust, alienate your core audience, or ignite backlash you can’t control. Think of it like fire: powerful when contained but destructive when uncontrolled. So how do you polarize thoughtfully? Here are the 4 principles I share with founders. 1. Take risks with creativity, not credibility Push the edges on design and humour, never on trust. People will laugh at your jokes and argue about your look — but they’ll walk away the moment they doubt your safety. Liquid Death will “murder your thirst” with water in tallboy cans that look a lot like beer. It’s a distinctive brand asset (better described as a hook asset) that divides. People dismiss it as ridiculous, or champion it like a movement. The debate is the marketing. Bold design, tone of voice, or category stance is a great way of attracting attention without sacrificing credibility. Misleading marketing or exaggerated health claims, on the other hand, are a great way to attract regulatory scrutiny. 2. Pick the Right Enemy Polarization works best when you define an “enemy” that reinforces your value.  Oatly didn’t just launch oat milk, they declared war on Big Dairy. Their bold ads (“It’s like milk, but made for humans”) positioned them as the irreverent challenger. Polarizing? Yes. But by aiming at a giant incumbent, they created a rallying cry for their fans without risking trust. Inertia, boring incumbents, or outdated categories make great enemies. Your own customers or sensitive cultural identities do not. 3. Be Meme-Adaptable, Not Meme-Dependent Polarization feeds meme culture. The key is to design distinct brand assets (mascots, packaging quirks, taglines) that people can remix playfully.  On TikTok, the Duolingo owl became a meme machine. Their social team leaned into chaos, turning a language app into a cultural presence. Some people found it unhinged, others loved it, but either way, Duo became unignorable. Encourage parody, embrace the in-jokes, and ride cultural waves. Attention fades if you can’t anchor it to something distinct. 4. Stay True to Your Core Values Don’t manufacture controversy, magnify your DNA. Ben & Jerry’s can be politically polarizing because activism has always been part of their brand. Patagonia’s activism works because it’s authentically aligns with its mission. When Patagonia put “Don’t Buy This Jacket” in a New York Times ad, critics called it hypocritical. But because environmental stewardship is baked into their brand DNA, the message deepened loyalty among core fans. It divided opinions without eroding trust. The attention economy rewards the bold. If you play it too safe, you fade into the scroll.  But if you’re careless, you risk burning your credibility. The art is in finding the sweet spot of sparking conversation, driving memes, and energizing fans while keeping your core trust and reputation intact. Because in the end, the most valuable brands aren’t just the most visible. They’re the ones that are trusted enough to be chosen, again and again, even after the viral moment fades.

In the beginning stages of growth, targeting people with the problem your startup solves makes sense. Tapping into existing demand, from people in the market right now, is important to help you gain traction. And this tactical approach can help you find product market fit. But many startups don’t evolve beyond this short-term strategy early enough, and lose momentum. Sometimes even fail. Around the 3 year mark, all the tactics that once worked like a charm stop being effective, and acquisition becomes harder, and more expensive. Here's the unpopular truth: There are a lot more people who are not in the market for your product right now, but will be one day. This holds true whether you’re B2C or B2B. And if you’re not talking to those people, even while they’re not in the market, they won’t know you exist when they are. (By which point, your startup likely won’t be the only player out there.) There is a way to insulate from this but it’s gotten a bad rep because its effects don’t show up immediately. As a matter of fact, it can take *gasp* up to 6 months or longer. Thinking that far ahead though, can be tough to embrace in a startup with limited runway. Investors and CEOs want to see ROI, efficiency and results. But here's the rub: you have to integrate long-term strategies into the mix for growth. Things like: - Widening your reach to include a broader audience. This tends to be frowned upon in an age of personalization. Talking to people who aren’t in the market is considered “waste”. But it’s important to lay the groundwork for future buyers. - Building a brand through distinctive assets, communication, and experience. Doing this consistently is critical for creating the mental associations and memory structures consumers need to choose, if not favour, your product. These are important because familiarity breeds preference. It’s called the mere-exposure effect, referring to people’s tendency to develop a preference for things just because they’re familiar with them. Which is why your startup should aim to own some real estate in people’s minds. Start investing early, and watch your efforts appreciate in value over time.

One of the most mindset-shifting (and humbling) experiences of my career has been working at a tech startup. I had spent a huge chunk of my professional life as a creative in advertising, working on brands across every category you can think of. I created everything from global brand campaign platforms, not-for-profit behaviour change initiatives, to building apps. I had a lot of experience to draw from. But everything I thought of as gospel was tested (quite literally in some cases), when I was part of a scrappy startup. When you go from an industry with a culture that relies on the creative genius of a few rock stars, to one that embraces experimentation - one that favors evidence over hunches, it can be quite a shock to the system. I learned very quickly that I didn’t have all the answers. But more importantly, I didn’t have to. Tech companies take an evidence-based, scientific approach to everything they do. Which many creatives find stifling and counterintuitive to fuelling creativity. But I found it quite an eye opening environment to be in. When failing fast is embraced as a necessary part of getting to better outcomes, it’s incredible how much more creative you can actually be. The hardest part wasn’t being creative, it was unlearning ad industry conditioning. That’s not to say some of the assumptions I've held weren’t valid. For instance, I recommended not using stock images and videos because they don't authentically reflect the brand or connect with people. Stock looks staged and fake so how can it? So when our SMA ads would perform poorly anytime we’d use them, I’d feel vindicated. But there were many other instances when creative I thought would work, didn’t work well. Or when one small change made a big difference in how people understood our product. And yes, AI can do a lot of optimizing, but it cannot replace a human’s ability to creatively evolve work. Experimentation in creativity should be the norm. I get a lot of push back from the creative community whenever I mention the word “testing”. But I wish every creative could experience for themselves how much better the work gets when you combine science and creativity. I suppose for that to happen though, the industry would have to shift from enabling rock stars, to empowering the humble and curious. [Image: Angus Greig]