74. The 6 principles of exercising (and also brand marketing)
How the best advice for working out is also the best advice for standing out
Behold my greatest athletic achievements:
I played tackle football in school. Among my duties was snapping the ball to the quarterback, which I did very well and very faithfully except for one time when he wasn’t looking.
I made the boys’ basketball team, but just barely, which afforded me the luxury of saying I made the boys’ basketball team and the leisure of sitting on the bench for every game.
I did the shot put in track-and-field so as to avoid any of the running events.
I played left field in baseball, the part of the field to which the ball is hit most infrequently.
In hindsight, it seems like my athletic history was actually a history of avoiding athletics, being physically present but aerobically safe.
Nevertheless, I remember my exploits, er “exploits,” with fondness because I really did enjoy aspects of these sports, just on my own terms. I loved figuring out how the games worked, the strategies that would set us up for success, the creative ways to work together to achieve our goals. I might not have been doing sports right, but my approach to athletics reminds me a lot of my approach to brand marketing—just with a lot less sweat (most days).
I’m not the only one who thinks so!
In his book Sweat, Bill Hayes explores the history of athletic training—not just as a record of how people exercised through the ages but as a metaphor for how to strengthen the mind and the soul and even the creative process.
Hayes shares six principles that sustain long-term fitness:
The principle of specificity: What you train for is what you get.
The overload principle: Train a part of the body above the level to which it is accustomed.
The principle of progression: Move on as soon as you have mastered a new task.
The principle of accommodation: Without challenge, the body settles into stagnation.
The principle of reversibility: When you stop training, you lose progress.
The principle of rest: Recovery is a crucial part of long-term progress.
And then he goes on to translate these principles to worlds beyond athletic training.
In reading these principles, I can’t help but draw parallels to the world of brand marketing. I don’t think Hayes would mind. A lot of the ways you show up to exercise can be applied to the ways we show up to our brand work and how we create remarkable, uncommon campaigns and content. A lot of the things that I found enjoyable about playing sports and sitting on the bench during sports are the same things that I enjoy about brand marketing.
If you don’t mind taking a little leap in imagination with me, here are some ways that exercise principles can just as easily be brand marketing principles.
The 6 principles of exercise, but for brand marketing
1 - The Principle of specificity
Exercise: “What you train for is what you get.”
Brand: “Know what you aspire to be.”
If you want strength, you lift weights. If you want endurance, you run. These statements sound obvious, but in reality, it can be very tempting to get lured into training your body in ways that are superfluous to your goals. I’ve wasted so much time on the upside-down table at the gym, for instance.
With brand marketing, the rule of specificity holds two important lessons:
You should know how you want to be known (we call this your brand positioning), and then focus all your efforts toward that outcome. If you want to be known as THE most trusted widget in the widget category, then you need to run campaigns and take actions that build trust: community testimonials, case studies, high-quality campaigns, and dare I say SOC-2 compliance (snooze!).
You should know what KPI you want to move as a brand, and then shift your priorities toward activities that move the needle. For instance, if you are all about brand awareness right now, then you would choose activities that gain lots of eyeballs like video and PR. If you want brand ROI, then you might choose campaigns that are tailored to an audience and a use case.
2 - The overload principle
Exercise: “Train a part of the body above the level to which it is accustomed.”
Brand: “Do more than the status quo.”
Growth doesn’t come from doing the same thing over and over again—in exercise or in brand marketing. If you want to build muscle, you gradually lift heavier weights. If you want your brand to grow, you have to push beyond your comfort zone.
In my experience, this means experimenting with new platforms, taking creative risks, and investing in bold campaigns that challenge the status quo. We often talk about this using Coca Cola’s 70-20-10 framework, where they allot their 70% of their resources to proven tactics, 20% to new experiments, and 10% to moonshots.
By giving yourself 20-30% of room to innovate, you’ll ensure that you’re reaching the “overload” zone and strengthening your brand muscles.
3 - The principle of progression
Exercise: “Move on as soon as you have mastered a new task.”
Brand: “What works today won’t work forever.”
Progression builds on overload. Once your body adjusts to a certain level of strain, you increase the difficulty—heavier weights, longer runs, higher intensity. The same applies to marketing. Once you’ve mastered a particular channel or tactic, don’t coast. Go bigger!
When I was creating content at Buffer, we reached a certain level of comfort and stability with our regular blog posting. So we found a way to systematize blog posts, and we went off to new horizons of podcasting and video and events (not all at once of course; brand never has that many resources).
If you’ve nailed organic social media, maybe it’s time to explore paid strategies. If your written content is thriving, consider expanding into multimedia. Not only is it good to broaden and diversify your brand tactics to avoid plateauing, but you’ll also find new audiences and deeper engagement by showing up in new and unexpected places. The people who love your brand aren’t staying the same forever either!
4 - The principle of accommodation
Exercise: “Without challenge, the body—or brand—settles into stagnation.”
Brand: “Be consistent, not conventional.”
If you only ever do the same workout, your body stops changing. The same goes for brands. Repeating the same campaigns, using the same visuals, or sticking to the same messaging might feel safe, but it breeds stagnation. There is a lot to be said for showing up consistently according to your brand values, your voice and tone, and your purpose. But you can carry these same characteristics into a wide variety of new and uncommon tactics so that things feel fresh.
To stay relevant, here are some things that we’ve seen great brands do to avoid stagnation:
Creative ad refreshes on a quarterly or biannual basis
New brand campaigns every six months
Refreshed websites, refreshed social media profile assets (cover photos, profile pics)
Fun little microsites
Fun big partner campaigns
5 - The principle of reversibility
Exercise: “When you stop training, you lose progress.”
Brand: “Be unforgettable—by content and by cadence.”
Fitness gains don’t last forever—stop exercising, and you backslide. In marketing, the same holds true. Brand equity doesn’t stay static. If you stop investing in your brand—letting content lapse, ignoring your audience, or abandoning innovation—you don’t just stay still; you slide backward.
The antidote? Keep a regular cadence of brand content. You might hear this referred to as the “drumbeat” of your brand, that constant rhythm of new social posts, new blog posts, new PR placements, and new campaigns.
6 - The principle of rest
Exercise: “Recovery is a crucial part of long-term progress.”
Brand: “Revisit what works and what matters.”
Ironically, rest is just as vital to fitness as exertion. Muscles need time to repair and grow stronger. Brands, too, need moments of reflection.
Rest in brand marketing might look like stepping back to reassess a strategy, taking time for creative brainstorming without immediate deadlines, or pausing to gather data and insights before your next move. It’s not about stopping—it’s about recharging so you can push harder next time.
Over to you
Just like athletic training, brand marketing is about showing up consistently, pushing limits, and allowing space to rest and regroup. These six principles, born from the world of fitness, offer a surprising but powerful roadmap for building a bold, resilient brand.
Which of these principles resonates most with the way you go about your brand-building? What is missing from this list?
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