Be More Pirate

turns out the pirates weren’t just influencing the mainstream because they were shouting about their ideas and weaponizing storytelling. They were directly influencing the mainstream because some of them were actually in cahoots with the established powers of the day, telling them their stories face to face

Rule 3: Protect your reputation; give people something to gossip about.

Rule 2: Don’t just live the brand, be the brand

Rule 1: Find the singular message and make it unignorable.

the most badass beard in piratical history, the greatest seafaring strategist, the most revered leader, the lustiest old swashbuckler with fifteen or so ‘wives’ to his name and the most villainous and salty sea dog

pirates pioneered reputation management so they could actually be less violent and command the high seas through fear, not fighting

a real brand is built on more than a clever logo or a cool name. A powerful brand is an emotional tool that demands the mental availability of its audience to signal a clear message. In their case, the pirate flag said ‘surrender or die’.

take your storytelling to the most dangerous, contentious or incendiary place possible, in order to magnify those stories’ effect. The Strategy and Creative Directors at Livity, Katy Woodrow-Hill and James Hogwood, came up with this method and called it ‘The Lion’s Den’.

The Lion’s Den approach encourages you to go somewhere unexpected, somewhere that scares you, where you might be likely to offend, where you risk being rejected but where you will inadvertently strengthen your story because the reaction of others will amplify it or their very criticisms will force you to tell it better next time. It’s a bold approach but it’s effectively what the pirates did: sailed their anti-Establishment symbol right into the Establishment’s view and used the repercussions to create the world’s first global superbrand.

What principles do you respect so much you’d take a risk for them? What values do you treasure so much that you’d be willing to suffer to protect them?

When you commit to redistributing power and fighting for fairness, you take the single most radical and effective step towards making your change a long-lasting success. When you give power away it will flourish and multiply. Other people will be inspired by your actions and will start to follow suit. Inspired by innovation, the mainstream will begin to adopt the behaviour of pirates like social enterprises who start out at the edge. It was pirates’ collective effort and focus on both financial and social justice that allowed them to thrive and take on the world.