Those Who Whisper
The soul of a brand is what’s said behind your back.
This week I want to talk about brand intimacy.
Not the dashboard metric. Not the next-gen Martech stack promising deeper customer profiles.
But the soul-level kind. The kind that outlives the campaign.
The kind whispered in rooms you’ll never enter.
It’s a strange word, intimacy, in a boardroom.
But in the wild? It’s everything.
It’s how people describe you when you’re not around.
It’s the feeling they keep — or don’t — long after the receipt fades.
Let me tell you a story.
Two decades ago, I was falling in love with the woman I’d marry.
The kind of love that makes you invent rituals.
A pocketknife wrapped in Tiffany blue. A keyring for the idea of “us.”
A few trinkets became talismans.
So when it came time to propose, I chose a Lucida diamond ring, Tiffany cut.
Of course I did.
Maybe it was Breakfast at Tiffany’s lodged in my subconscious.
Maybe it was the magic of Audrey, the poetry of a brand that understood elegance without effort.
Maybe it was just the blue box.
But here's where the story shifts.
After the engagement, I was offered a Tiffany credit card — a promotional piece, beautifully square, exquisitely wrapped.
It wasn’t meant for me.
But I loved the format, the knife-folded paper, the typography, the entire mouthfeel of the idea.
So I did the odd thing: I called Tiffany’s marketing department.
Not to complain.
Not to upgrade.
But to ask about the knife.
Who made it? Could I source it? Could I recreate something like it?
The woman on the phone — whose name I’ve long forgotten, but whose generosity I’ve never lost — told me:
“You can’t do anything in Tiffany blue.
But tell me how many you need and what you’re trying to do.
I’ll speak to the printer.”
She didn’t ask for a PO.
She didn’t redirect me to legal.
She just got it.
Two weeks later, a bundle of wraps arrived at my door.
No invoice. No terms. No CRM tracking code.
Just trust. Just magic. Just Tiffany.
I was — and remain — a speck on their radar.
But what they gave me was intimacy.
Not in the “personalized recommendation engine” sense.
But in the “you matter, even when no one’s watching” sense.
Twenty years on, I still smile when I see that blue.
I still believe in the brand.
And now, watching my daughter Ocean grow up, I wonder if one day she’ll inherit more than the trinkets —
if she’ll inherit the story.
That’s how folklore becomes legend.
So here’s the provocation for this week:
In a world where brands are obsessed with reach…
Are you cultivating resonance?
In a world of KPIs and conversion funnels…
Are you building folklore?
In the age of AI, where sight, sound, and motion can be synthesized in seconds…
How are you crafting emotion?
Because when the noise fades, it’s Brand Feel that stays.
Not what you say. Not what your agency scripts.
But what people whisper when you’re not in the room.
That’s the true currency of influence.
Not broadcasting.
Belonging.
And belonging can’t be bought.
It has to be felt.
So here’s to the brands that feel like Tiffany blue.
The ones that leave fingerprints on the heart.
The ones that remember we’re not just consumers with wallets —
we’re humans with memory.
September 3, 2025
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