Aug 20, 2026 · 1 hr 5 min · 17 segments
**You've published four posts a week for a year, and your buyers still can't tell anyone what your company believes. Somewhere in all that output there should be one sentence you could be wrong about…
Ben HasskampGuestJoshHostYeah.
It's interesting, I mean, 'cause you touched on something that everyone knows.
Like, everyone knows intellectually, also in their bones, that having a strong brands requi- having a strong brand requires you to take a stand and have a perspective, and being okay with not everyone agreeing with that perspective.
But I think where a lot of companies get it wrong is they're afraid to put something out there that people might not like or people might not agree with.
And I think that that's the road to, yeah, people not knowing who you are and what you stand for and, you know.
If, if you're, uh, competing with brands that are clear on that, you're gonna lose.
You're gonna lose every single time.
Yeah, and, and that's, that's the funny thing is that, you know, companies are getting wrong now that it's okay to go out with a point of view that's provocative.
Um, you know, I don't wanna violate my non-disparagement here, but I, I do [chuckles] think that, you know, Palo Alto Networks was definitely like, "Okay, we need to go out with, like, points of view that, you know, that, like, we believe that audiences will respect." And for me, it was like, well, no, like, we, w- we need to go out there because audiences want us to have differing points of view because, like, that's what audiences do.
You know, nobody goes into a movie and 100% of the people walk out and said, "That's the best movie I've ever seen." And I think because we have differing opinions, we need to kind of tap into those things.
And sure, maybe 90% of the market says it's going this way, but 10% it's going, says it's going this way.
Well, we wanna tap into that point of view and, and, and prove, right, why you disagree.
Now, that's the other thing, like, you can make whatever claim you want, but if you're not backing it up with, like, any sort of substantial evidence, well, then your audience will be like, "This guy's, you know, ridiculous." But that's the whole thing with like, again, opposition prep, that it's like make the statement, make the claim, go out, prove it.
But if you can do that, then you've satisfied the argument, and then we'll go out with it.
But, you know, for companies just to say, "Here's our, our one point of view we're gonna rely on," that I don't think audiences are gonna be interested.
Yeah.
It makes me think a little bit of, uh, especially when you touched on, uh, movies and how no one's-- There's never been a movie that everyone says that's the best movie of all time.
I don't know if you've spent much time on X recently, but, like, it's definitely a, a big source of contention because on, on, you know, let's say broadly speaking, the left or the more liberal part of Twitter, you know, including the m- the, the film critics, they're like, "It's the best movie of all time, and Nolan's a genius, and his casting is brilliant." And then on the right you have all these criticisms of the casting, in particular of Elliot Page and, uh, I'm blanking on the lady that plays Helen of Troy, but, um-
YeahYeah.
I'm, I was blanking on her name, but there's just, there was just so, so much about things that don't really matter to the story.
Yeah.
It's interesting, I mean, 'cause you touched on something that everyone knows.
Like, everyone knows intellectually, also in their bones, that having a strong brands requi- having a strong brand requires you to take a stand and have a perspective, and being okay with not everyone agreeing with that perspective.
But I think where a lot of companies get it wrong is they're afraid to put something out there that people might not like or people might not agree with.
And I think that that's the road to, yeah, people not knowing who you are and what you stand for and, you know.
If, if you're, uh, competing with brands that are clear on that, you're gonna lose.
You're gonna lose every single time.
Yeah, and, and that's, that's the funny thing is that, you know, companies are getting wrong now that it's okay to go out with a point of view that's provocative.
Um, you know, I don't wanna violate my non-disparagement here, but I, I do [chuckles] think that, you know, Palo Alto Networks was definitely like, "Okay, we need to go out with, like, points of view that, you know, that, like, we believe that audiences will respect." And for me, it was like, well, no, like, we, w- we need to go out there because audiences want us to have differing points of view because, like, that's what audiences do.
You know, nobody goes into a movie and 100% of the people walk out and said, "That's the best movie I've ever seen." And I think because we have differing opinions, we need to kind of tap into those things.
And sure, maybe 90% of the market says it's going this way, but 10% it's going, says it's going this way.
Well, we wanna tap into that point of view and, and, and prove, right, why you disagree.
Now, that's the other thing, like, you can make whatever claim you want, but if you're not backing it up with, like, any sort of substantial evidence, well, then your audience will be like, "This guy's, you know, ridiculous." But that's the whole thing with like, again, opposition prep, that it's like make the statement, make the claim, go out, prove it.
But if you can do that, then you've satisfied the argument, and then we'll go out with it.
But, you know, for companies just to say, "Here's our, our one point of view we're gonna rely on," that I don't think audiences are gonna be interested.
Yeah.
It makes me think a little bit of, uh, especially when you touched on, uh, movies and how no one's-- There's never been a movie that everyone says that's the best movie of all time.
I don't know if you've spent much time on X recently, but, like, it's definitely a, a big source of contention because on, on, you know, let's say broadly speaking, the left or the more liberal part of Twitter, you know, including the m- the, the film critics, they're like, "It's the best movie of all time, and Nolan's a genius, and his casting is brilliant." And then on the right you have all these criticisms of the casting, in particular of Elliot Page and, uh, I'm blanking on the lady that plays Helen of Troy, but, um-
YeahYeah.
I'm, I was blanking on her name, but there's just, there was just so, so much about things that don't really matter to the story.
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