| Dear Chase, In this mansion, I am McCully Culkin. Because I am literally home alone BLASTING Drake at max volume since the last album came out. If there's anyone who's had a hell of a career without any major hiccups, it's Drake. He has been beloved for 12 years and accepted by the mainstream. He's also made a BILLY, even though Google is lying to us saying that he's only worth a measly $250M. There are better rappers than Drake. There are better singers than Drake. There are cooler personal brands than Drake. But SOMEHOW, he's been the most relevant person every year since like 2012. I think that some of the stuff he's done can be applied to brand building, marketing, and copywriting. As nerdy as that is. So I'm gonna give you a list of things that you can use to try and build a brand with the same foundation as Drake. 1. Drake does not lie. He has this talent of being able to call what he's going to achieve, and then he pulls it off when he says he's going to pull it off. It makes you trust and respect the man 10x more than anyone else, ESPECIALLY because of how big the goals are. If you say you're gonna go #1, and then you're only #25…you look dumb. If you say you're gonna go #80, and you hit #75, you look like a gangster – even though you achieved less than the first example. It's all about setting expectations. And Drake smashes expectations whenever he wants to. Brands can do this too. Set goals in public, and do everything you can to hit it. 2. Drake goes for one audience at a time. Concentrate to polarize. Drake has not always been as beloved by all people as he is now. He USED to be just "for the girls". His early music was pretty light and dancey, and it was very clear which audience he was serving. Once he locked down every female on earth, he started making music "for the boys" and focused just on them. "The boys" got 3-4 albums straight of Gangster Drake. He spends time nurturing each side of his audience instead of trying to make something that appeals to both people at the same time. The lesson here is that you CAN serve multiple audiences, but not at the same time. Make something that is JUST for group X, nurture them, and then make something that is JUST for group Y. Don't try and make one product that serves both X and Y. That's how you can get every individual under 30 listening to Drake when they're getting ready to go out on a Friday night. Ladies are blasting Nice For What, and the boys are blasting Broke Boys. 3. Drake puts product first, at all costs. Basically everyone knows this at this point, but Drake has multiple ghostwriters. I actually met one of them. One of them is a girl named Kayla. She wrote the "I only love my bed and my mama I'm sorry" line (among a few others), and she's a millionaire just from that. People were mad about Drake having ghostwriters for about 30 minutes, and then we got over it. Because the music speaks for itself. When the product is better than everyone else's, you don't really care about the source. It's the reason that we all buy iPhones even though we know that they're not exactly the most ethically-made product on Earth. It's also the reason that we all use Amazon even though we know that their warehouses are like workplace safety nightmares. He also has never released anything half-assed. Ever. I don't even wanna argue about this. Every album is a net-banger, and you have no choice but to appreciate it. Lesson here is that you can make some small mistakes along the way, but if your product is absolutely superior, you're still infallible. 4. Drake's words make you feel something, and he does it purposefully. Words. Matter. And it's not just about the rhymes and the finesse, it's about what he makes you feel. That's what "brand" is. This lesson is about storytelling. When you speak or you write, do not neglect the power of creating a vivid picture in everyone's mind. Create a fake world that these people can take part in. When Drake goes mob mode, you feel like you're in the mob. When he goes sadboy mode, you feel like texting an ex that you forgot you had. "People may forget what you say, but they'll never forget how they made you feel." One of my favorite quotes of all time. Go vivid with your words. Make sure that when you tell a story, you REALLY paint a picture that your audience thinks they could be a part of. That's so insanely important. 5. Drake has nostalgia on his side. Nostalgia is one of the strongest feelings that you can pull from someone. We have a bias that makes us think that the "good old days" were actually better than today, even if it's not true. Everyone has memories of being a child and listening to Drake. I think I had my first kiss with "Take Care" playing in the background. If your brand/personal brand hasn't been around for 10 years and you have people reminiscing on their childhoods with you, that's okay. You don't need that (even though you will get there one day). In the short-term, you can borrow from REAL nostalgia. Associate yourself with stuff that people are already nostalgic about. Old TV shows, old memories from childhood, old influencers that people forgot about. Whatever. There's a guy on TikTok that makes videos that remind you a lot of Vine. If you were born between 1996 and 2002, you probably think Vine was the greatest app to ever exist. This guy taps into that feeling, and people love it. Find ways to draw nostalgia out of people to make them fall in love with you. All right, Chase. This might have been 1000 words of just rambling. So I'm not even sure if you read this. But I think that this will actually help people if they put it to work. Drake is the goat for all of these reasons, and this is semi-replicable. So, try it out. Lemme know what you think. Yours truly, Alex Sent from my 5s with the screen cracked
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