The opposite of secretive

On February 10th 1978, Van Halen released their eponymous debut album which went on to sell millions of copies and heralded the arrival of a seminal band in music history. The album included an instrumental track called Eruption which changed guitar playing forever — but before they signed their first ever record deal, lead guitarist Eddie Van Halen used to play with his back to audiences.

Legend has it that his brother encouraged him to do so. Why?

Because Eddie had “invented” a new style of guitar playing called tapping, and this was their competitive advantage.

Rewind about 500 years, and founding father of Renaissance architecture, Filippo Brunelleschi was working on the construction of the iconic Duomo in Florence (shout out to Liv). Some of his techniques were so ahead of their time, that they remain an enigma today.

To protect his competitive advantage, Brunelleschi wrote a lot of his notes in code. If this sounds familiar, it might be because Da Vinci wrote a lot his notes using a bespoke shorthand that was mirror-written.

And certainly we’re all familiar with the greatest trade-secret of all, the Coca-Cola recipe:

For almost 125 years, the secrecy surrounding the recipe for Coca-Cola has been one of the world's great marketing ploys. As the story goes, the fizzy drink's famous "Merchandise 7X" flavourings have remained unchanged since they were concocted in 1886 and the recipe is today entrusted only to two Coke executives, neither of whom can travel on the same plane for fear the secret goes down with them.

The notion of keeping your competitive edge a secret even extends to sport. Footballers are often seen obscuring their mouths when talking to each other. I’ve even seen this done with motorcycle riders talking to their pit crews.

Eddie Van Halen didn’t play with his back to audiences for long. Da Vinci’s “code” wasn’t actually that hard to break. And let’s face it, what footballers are saying to each other isn’t likely to change the world.

But the impression of secretive genius is irresistible.

We see it all the time in the world of branding. Agencies all over the place have some kind of “TM” process (Richard Turley’s eviscerating review of the agency landscape is well worth a read). The idea that their unique process is based on some Coke-esque secret concoction is often all clients need to believe that they are being delivered something of huge value.

Of course, much like the discovered recipe for Coke, the truth is often quite mundane. As one comment reads:

A little disappointing, I was expecting something more exotic.

This is why doing the opposite to the above examples can be so powerful. And that’s precisely what Sweden Women’s Football did when they launched their newest kit earlier in 2022.

Sweden are like the Brazil of women’s football. Widely regarded as the cream of the crop, always outnumbered, never outgunned.

So when they came to launching their kit, they released an in-depth tactical guide to their own team. And what’s more, the guide was written by their own tactical department. Titled “How to Stop Sweden”, the guide is freely available to anyone.

“Since we represent a country known for its high level of transparency, we want to up the stakes this summer and keep things ultra-transparent by telling our competitors exactly how we play, how we win and how to, maybe, stand a chance”, says Eriksen on Adidas’ promotional video for the jersey.

And if you don’t want to visit the website, the details are stitched into the lining of the shirt itself.

So maybe instead of keeping your approach, your processes or your bespoke-branding-overlay a massive secret, maybe radical transparency is actually a more effective approach.

And even if' it’s a marketing ploy in much the same way as Coke’s “secret formula”, does it matter? Sometimes simply doing the exact opposite to the rest of the market is the biggest secret-formula of all.