Why your brand’s ‘North Star’ is now its most valuable asset

AI has made production easier and more abundant. A clear point of view is essential to set your brand apart, explains Marc Weinreich of Kettle.

As a young copywriter, a ‘brand North Star’ felt like something to begrudgingly consume, like a plate full of veggies. I wanted to skip to the good stuff: delicious headlines, manifestos and scripts.

Then AI changed the economics of the good stuff. Production got cheaper, faster and more abundant.

Making more is no longer an advantage. The scarce resource becomes judgment. And judgment needs a North Star.

Call it a purpose, an ambition or an organizing idea. The label matters less than the job it performs, which is to help a brand decide what to do and, increasingly, what not to do.

It’s a strategic filter: a clear articulation of the change you want to create that helps you decide what belongs and what doesn’t. It guides investment decisions, giving leadership a reason to say yes, a reason to say no, and a shared language for knowing the difference.

When AI makes the barrier to execution so low, the ability to say ‘no’ becomes a competitive advantage.

The brands that last know what should never change

Brands that have historically performed well generally have one thing in common when it comes to storytelling: they know that creativity needs a guiding light.

REI shows what this looks like in practice. Its ‘help me get outside’ North Star can be felt across content, classes, trip planning and the broader customer experience. The point isn’t that every touchpoint looks the same; it’s that they feel like they’re solving for the same human need.

Lego offers another useful example. Its ambition to “inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow” has survived enormous changes in technology and culture. Today, Lego is using AI as another medium for creativity, play, personalization and digital experiences, but it doesn’t change what it is as a brand. The tension is what makes it work. Lego’s proposition isn’t really about plastic bricks. It’s about empowering people to imagine and build.

AI can change the medium without changing the reason. That’s the test of a strong North Star: it should be durable enough to survive the evolution of technology.

Don’t let tech become the strategy

The opposite happens when companies mistake a new technology for a new direction.

CNN offers a cautionary tale. The brand had a North Star: being a source of news. But their failed CNN+ streaming service, which was active for merely one month in 2022, struggled to articulate why a new product was necessary for that reason. Streaming was transforming how audiences consumed media. But the existence of a new distribution technology didn’t necessarily mean CNN needed a new consumer proposition. What human need does this unlock that CNN wasn’t already solving? Without that answer, the technology risks becoming the strategy. Alas, a 31-day streaming service.

Duolingo’s embrace of AI has made content production dramatically more scalable, but it’s also raised questions about what gets lost when efficiency becomes the organizing principle. The brand was built around making language learning approachable, engaging and human. If AI helps deliver that experience, great, but Duolingo has cautioned its employees recently not to force it; in fact, they recently walked back some of their AI philosophies.

If the technology itself becomes the strategy, the brand risks becoming indistinguishable from everyone else using the same technology.

That’s the trap.

Technology is increasingly available to everyone. A distinctive point of view isn’t.

And then there’s Allbirds. Once a popular eco-friendly footwear brand, it suddenly rebranded as SmartBird earlier this year amid ongoing financial challenges, opting to move entirely away from sneakers to provide managed, dedicated AI computing power for companies.

A brand that once had a distinctive purpose around sustainable footwear struggled to translate that differentiation into a viable, long-term business, eventually pursuing a radical pivot away from its core identity.

The company completely abandoned its clear purpose. Instead of evolving within its identity, the former Allbirds is now virtually unrecognizable from its previous life as they look to gain traction in an entirely different industry.

Separating from sameness

AI can manufacture the appearance of brand thinking extraordinarily well. You can see the problem everywhere, especially around San Francisco and Oakland airports. Billboards from AI companies compete for your attention with the same promises, buzzwords, visual language, and, well, AI slop.

Build faster. Work smarter. Unlock intelligence. The future is here.

When everyone has access to the same technology, tools and production capabilities, sameness becomes more likely.

That’s why a North Star matters.

What would become possible if we succeeded? What should remain true about us in 10 years? What makes your ambition distinctly yours and not something interchangeable with competitors?

Answer these questions first before you go down a rabbit hole of greenlighting everything into production.

When creation gets cheap, bad ideas become expensive

With AI, the barrier to create is much lower. The cost for entry is virtually free. But just because anything is possible doesn’t mean everything is on the table. The North Star is there to provide parameters that inspire better storytelling and innovation while ensuring the output remains authentic to the brand.

Ultimately, the best organizing idea isn’t what a company does. It’s an articulation of the human change it wants to create. It’s a foundation of what you do differently.

And that distinction matters enormously in an age when technology can help almost anyone do virtually anything.

So, yes, AI is powerful and enticing, to say the least. But the future won’t belong to the brands that make the most content, rather those that know what’s worth making.

Before you get into the fun stuff of creating, take a step back as a brand. Identify your North Star.

In other words, eat your broccoli. Then, go get dessert.