The Fame Multiplier: How Storytelling and Distinctiveness Drive Business Success
Forget spreadsheets—fame and persuasion are the real business cheat codes. Learn why brands that master storytelling, psychology, and bold positioning win bigger, grow faster, and attract opportunity effortlessly.
Here's a thought that might make your CFO sweat: some of the most successful businesses in history weren't built on bulletproof business plans or perfectly optimised operations. They were built by people who understood a simple truth that MBA programs barely talk about - fame and persuasion are the ultimate business cheat codes.
Fame is not just a vanity project. Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of advertising Ogilvy UK, has built a career understanding how to make brands famous, “fame enables companies to increase their ‘surface area’” he says. An enviable situation where buyers and opportunities come to them instead of the company having to seek them out.
It might sound reductive but it’s backed by sound reasoning and quite a lot of behavioural science. So how do we get to that cherished circle of brands and businesses that become famous - in the words of the breakout 1980s TV hit ‘Fame’ “if fame costs, where do we start paying?”
Let’s take a look at Rory Sutherland's perspective on becoming a stand-out success.
The Edison Myth (And Why It Matters)
We love our origin stories to be clean and rational.
Thomas Edison invented the light bulb through pure genius and hard work, right? Not quite. Edison was actually a marketing wizard who happened to be decent at inventing. He didn't just create the light bulb - he convinced an entire world that electric lighting was the future, then built the infrastructure to make it happen.
The same goes for Colonel Sanders (of KFC fame), who was less "fried chicken visionary" and more "masterful storyteller who happened to have a decent recipe." And Steve Jobs? The man could have sold ice to penguins while convincing them it was a revolutionary cooling experience.
The point: History's greatest "inventors" were actually history's greatest persuaders who happened to have something worth selling.
Why Your Amazing Product Is Probably Doomed
One way to think about this is to look at products launched by successful companies that didn’t make it, that failed. Take the following:
Google Glass: Genuinely innovative AR technology that made you look like a cyborg having an identity crisis
Meta Portal TV: Video calling that actually worked well, but felt like inviting Mark Zuckerberg into your living room
Japanese Toilets: Engineering marvels that couldn't get past the "weirdness factor"
These products failed not because they were bad, but because their creators forgot the cardinal rule: People don't buy products - they buy stories, identities, and feelings.
Video calling on your TV? Great idea, Meta pulled it in December 2022
Even electric cars - better for the planet and often your wallet - struggled for decades because they carried the perception of being unappealing, slow cars for tree huggers. That all changed with Tesla's marketing (and Elon Musk’s Twitter persona) which helped make them sexy and exciting.
The Psychology Behind the Purchase
The difference between success and failure often comes down to understanding the illogical corners of human psychology, says Sutherland.
Take real estate: there's a big difference between "being willing to sell your house" and "being willing to put it on the market." One feels like a possibility; the other feels like commitment. Smart marketers know that addressing this mental gap could revolutionise housing turnover.
Consider how entire industries were created not by inventing products, but by inventing categories. Those vintage "Drink More Milk" campaigns weren't selling a specific brand - they were selling the idea that milk-drinking was what healthy, successful people did. They made milk consumption part of your identity.
The lesson:
Great persuasion isn't about features and benefits. It's about rewiring how people see themselves.
Google Glass 2014-23: Lots of hype but consumers weren’t buying it
Fame: Your Business Superpower
Now let's talk about fame - the business multiplier that you can't put in a spreadsheet. Fame is like having a gravitational field around your business.
Instead of chasing opportunities, opportunities start chasing you:
The Magic of Magnetic Attraction
Your calls get returned (because people recognise your name)
Top talent reaches out to you (and might work for less because it's a prestigious brand)
Suppliers offer you deals they wouldn't offer competitors
Customers give you the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong
Your brand becomes a status symbol ("I shop at X because it says something about who I am")
This isn't just feel-good theory. Fame is a multiplier.
It creates "escape velocity" - the point where the game fundamentally changes in your favour. You stop playing on hard mode and switch to easy mode.
The Compounding Effect
But here's where traditional business thinking gets dangerous. The challenge for traditional business management is that fame and persuasion don't work like other investments. When applied carefully they compound in ways that make linear ROI calculations look like astrology.
Building fame is like contributing to a pension - the early returns are disappointingly small, but the long-term effect is transformative. Try to measure the "ROI" of Apple's brand building, or Nike's cultural influence, or Tesla's Twitter presence. You can't, because the value shows up in a thousand indirect ways that never trace back to the original investment or linear campaign.
This is why some of the most successful founders make decisions that look "unscientific" to traditional business minds. John Roberts of online household appliance retailer AO.com didn't have a spreadsheet proving that his marketing stunts would work - he just had a gut feeling they were "good ideas."
The Art of Being Weird
Want to build fame? Here's the secret: be distinctive, not perfect.
Your brain notices things that violate expectations. That's why the most memorable brands have some element of controlled weirdness - look at Dollar Shave Club's irreverent videos, or Patagonia telling customers not to buy their jackets.
Instead of copying what your competitors do well, find where they're all boring or don’t do very well and do something different. Perfect optimisation often leads to the trap of perfect forgettability.
But here's the catch: if you're a founder or marketer, you probably love standing out what psychologists term a high "openness to experience". But most of your customers don't - they're driven by habit and social proof. Your job as persuader-in-chief is to make your weirdness feel safe and aspirational, not just weird.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Traditional business wisdom says: optimise operations, analyse data, make rational decisions. And yes, those things matter. But they're not enough for breakthrough success - especially in new fields or with innovations that demand changes in customer behaviour.
The uncomfortable truth is that business operates more like a complex ecosystem than a predictable machine. The forces of fame and persuasion are more vital than ever to tip the ecosystem in your favour, creating opportunities that pure efficiency won’t.
Sounds great in theory but where do we start? A few pointers to help you break out of the box:
Stop trying to be perfectly logical - start being memorably human
Invest in being famous before you can measure the returns
Learn the psychology of your customers, not just their demographics
Embrace productive weirdness - distinctive beats optimized every time
Play the long game - fame compounds, but it takes time
The Bottom Line
You can have the best product, the most efficient operations, and the smartest team. But if nobody knows who you are or why they should care, you're just another face in an endless crowd of unremarkable businesses.
Fame and persuasion aren't just marketing tactics for instagram celebrities - they're the secret physics of how exceptional businesses work. Master them, and you're not just running a company. You're bending reality in your favour.
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Simon Hardie is an author and founder of findexable - the digital analytics and insight platform. He co-hosts the Born to Disrupt podcast with Mingzulu and Disrupts
