“People don’t remember what you did. They remember how you made them feel — and the bizarre details that made them feel it.” — Steven Bartlett
Most brands, leaders, and businesses lead with their useful practicalities: what they do, what features they offer, how they work, what they cost, and why they’re better. This information is necessary — and almost entirely forgettable.
The human brain is not designed to remember useful information at volume. It is designed to notice and retain novelty, surprise, and emotional resonance. In a world where everyone leads with practical benefits, the practical is wallpaper. The absurd is art.
Steven Bartlett opens the Story pillar with this counterintuitive truth: the qualities that seem least relevant to your value proposition — the quirks, the unexpected details, the seeming absurdities — are often the most powerful elements of your brand identity.
The Von Restorff Effect, established by psychologist Hedwig von Restorff, demonstrates that items that are unusual or distinct are far more likely to be remembered than items that conform to a pattern. In a list of similar items, the outlier is always remembered. In a market of similar brands, the outlier is always remembered. Distinctiveness is not a risk — it is a memory mechanism.
Practical information informs. Absurdity connects and imprints.
When something unexpected, strange, or incongruous appears, the brain signals “pay attention — this doesn’t fit the pattern.” This heightened attention dramatically increases the likelihood of encoding the memory. The absurdity doesn’t just make you memorable — it makes you the thing people tell stories about.
And stories are the currency of brands. Every person who tells a story about your brand to someone else is doing marketing that no budget can buy.
Deliberately incorporate unexpected, unusual, and seemingly impractical elements into your brand, communication, and persona. These absurdities will define you far more powerfully than any feature or benefit statement.
Authentic absurdity is not manufactured. It comes from:
The test: if something makes a logical person ask “why?” — it is working. That question is the beginning of a story.
Identify three elements of your brand or persona that seem "useless" or irrelevant from a practical standpoint but that are genuinely interesting:
In most industries, the practical differences between competitors are small and shrinking. Products converge on similar features, services converge on similar standards, and prices converge on similar levels. In this environment, the battle is fought entirely on story, identity, and memorability.
The brand that stands out is rarely the one with the best features — it’s the one with the most distinctive identity. And distinctive identity is built not through superior practicalities, but through deliberate, authentic absurdity.