The marketing genius of Bryan Johnson
Bryan Johnson has grabbed the world's attention with his Don't Die lifestyle. You might have seen his Netflix documentary where he talks about taking 100 pills a day in order to live longer. Or maybe you saw his YouTube videos where he shows the world his workout routines. If you are wanting to build a personal brand, Bryan Johnson is an excellent example to follow. Let's go over what you can learn from if you want to market yourself or a product.
Stand out
We are living in the attention economy. If you can keep and maintain someone’s attention, you win. But everyone is trying to do this. Everyone wants to be an influencer these days. So what makes Bryan Johnson different?
He stands out.
He is so different because of his mission, ‘Don’t Die’. It’s impossible to ignore Bryan or confuse him with someone else. No-one else is making content about not dying.
I’ve watched hundreds of YouTube videos with fitness fanatics showing how to lift weights. I can’t remember a single one of their names. But as soon as someone is talking about not dying and taking 100 pills every day, you remember that person. But what’s a way to reinforce this?
Have a great slogan
Don’t Die. What a slogan! Whether you believe it or not, it makes you stop and pay attention. He also abbreviates it to /dd on social media.
It’s pretty hard to scroll past someone saying 'don't die' online. It’s so against what we know about life that it’s impossible to ignore. Bryan is questioning everything we tell ourselves about how the world works, which is impossible to ignore.
Don’t Die is also short and snappy. You can put it on a laptop sticker, on a baseball cap, or on a T-shirt. You can’t put “live a bit longer than your parents” on a baseball cap. ‘Live Longer’ could have worked but it’s nowhere near as powerful as Don’t Die. I don’t think Bryan thinks he won’t die - it’s just a bold claim to capture attention.
Appeal to a tribe
Bryan Johnson isn’t trying to please everyone. He leads an extreme lifestyle. But extremes gain attention. It polarises people. 90% of people might hate Bryan or think he is crazy. He has a lot of haters. 9% of people might be curious but ambivalent. But if 1% of people love Bryan’s message, that’s all he needs. It’s better to have a small number of fanatical fans than lots of people who are luke-warm about you.
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Choose an enemy
It’s a lot easier to build a personal brand if you have an enemy. In Bryan’s case it’s ‘evil’ food companies, filling products with sugar. Bryan can rail against these companies all day long and show that he stands for healthy food. He has started doing YouTube shorts showing how much sugar a piece of food has. Given the amount of unhealthy food that exists in the world, there is an almost infinite amount of video material to work with here. Every day he can hold up a piece of food and list how bad it is for you.
Choosing an enemy also lets you re-emphasise your own values and message. Bryan contrasts his own pursuit of healthy living with multinational companies that produce unhealthy food.
Follow a trend
Being healthy is cool again. People are much more interested in health and fitness that 20 years ago. A lot of GenZ are avoiding drugs and drinking to excess. There are lots of reasons for this, such as social media. Most millennials grew up without smartphones. You could go out, get drunk, do crazy stuff and there was virtually no permanent record of that. Now, everyone has a phone in their pocket so no-one wants embarrassing pictures or videos of themselves being drunk. It's also not very aspirational to have a beer belly.
Running clubs are now a common way to make friends and even start relationships. Most cities in the UK are saturated with groups of runners. People track their workouts obsessively on apps like Strava.
Also, people with money are happy to invest in their health if it means they get to live longer. Witness the rise of businesses like Neko, which has a lengthy waiting list for its health assessment, which promises to analyse millions of biomarkers. Every rich person I know is keen to work out.
Bryan's results
Let's see where Bryan's personal branding has got him.
Here are his social media results:
• 1,440,000 YouTube subscribers
• 1,500,000 Instagram followers
Conclusion
Ok, let's recap 5 ways to build a personal brand like Bryan Johnson:
• Stand out
• Have a great slogan
• Appeal to your tribe
• Choose an enemy
• Follow trends
I hope you enjoyed this article.
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