Brand Connections

Connection isn't a metric you can buy or a KPI you can optimize. It's the moment when someone sees your brand and thinks, "Oh, these people get it." When your message doesn't just reach them—it recognizes them.

The difference between brands that blend into the noise and brands that become part of people's identity stories? Understanding that connection happens in the gap between what people say they want and what they actually need to hear.

Josh doesn't build brand awareness. They build brand resonance—the kind that makes consumers become advocates, employees become ambassadors, and partnerships become platforms for cultural change.

The Connection Paradox: Why Trying Harder Makes You Less Relatable

Here's the thing about brand connection that most marketers get backwards: authenticity can't be performed. The harder you try to be relatable, the more you sound like that friend who laughs too loud at their own jokes.

Real connection comes from understanding the cultural psychology behind why people connect with brands in the first place. It's not about being likable—it's about being useful in the context of how people actually live their lives.

The Thrive Global Case Study: When Wellness Means Different Things to Different Humans

At Thrive Global, Josh faced a challenge that perfectly illustrates the connection paradox. Same company, same wellness mission, but two completely different audiences who needed to hear entirely different hero stories.

For consumer-facing campaigns, brands wanted to position their products as personal wellness enablers. The narrative: "This smoothie/app/supplement seamlessly adds wellness benefits to your already-great life." The consumer is the hero; the product is the sidekick.

For employee-facing wellness programs, those same brands needed to be the caring employers who provide comprehensive wellness programs because they genuinely care about their people's holistic wellbeing. Here, the company is the hero; the employee is the beneficiary.

Same wellness concept. Completely different connection strategies.

The consumer version tapped into personal agency and control: "You're already making good choices; we're just making them easier." The employee version tapped into feeling valued and supported: "You matter to us beyond your productivity."

The strategic insight: Connection isn't about having one authentic brand voice—it's about understanding which facet of your authentic identity resonates with each audience's specific psychological needs.

The Cultural Intelligence Factor: Reading the Room at Scale

Brand connection in 2025 requires something most marketers don't have: the ability to read cultural currents at scale. It's not enough to know what your audience demographics want—you need to understand how they're feeling about themselves, their world, and their relationship to brands right now.

The Trevor Project Transformation: From Crisis Brand to Joy Platform

When Josh repositioned Trevor Project from crisis intervention to affirmation and joy, they weren't just changing messaging—they were reading the cultural moment.

LGBTQ+ youth were tired of only seeing their community in contexts of struggle and trauma. The media landscape was saturated with "It Gets Better" messaging that, while well-intentioned, reinforced the narrative that being LGBTQ+ meant enduring pain until some distant future when it might get easier.

Josh's cultural intelligence insight: young people weren't just surviving—many were thriving. They needed brands that celebrated their joy, not just acknowledged their struggles.

The repositioning from "we're here when you're in crisis" to "we're here to celebrate who you are right now" didn't abandon the crisis intervention mission. It expanded the brand aperture to include moments of triumph, creativity, and authentic self-expression.

The connection outcome: LGBTQ+ youth finally saw themselves reflected in marketing that recognized their full humanity—their struggles and their superpowers. Brand awareness increased 40% because the message finally matched how young people actually wanted to see themselves.

The Hero Narrative Evolution: Who's the Main Character?

One of the sneakiest aspects of brand connection is understanding who gets to be the hero in your brand story. Get this wrong, and your messaging feels either patronizing or self-congratulatory. Get it right, and your audience sees themselves in your success.

The Dual Wellness Heroes Strategy at Thrive Global

Josh mastered something most marketers struggle with: code-switching between hero narratives based on audience psychology.

Consumer Hero Narrative: "You're already someone who makes thoughtful choices. Our product just makes those choices easier to sustain." The consumer is the protagonist; the brand is the helpful supporting character.

Corporate Hero Narrative: "We're the kind of company that invests in our people's wellbeing because it's the right thing to do—and because it drives better business outcomes." The company is the protagonist; the employee experience is the proof point.

The genius of this approach: it avoided the trap of trying to be everything to everyone by instead being the right thing to each specific audience. Different heroes, same underlying values.

The strategic framework: Before you craft any brand message, ask yourself: "Who needs to be the hero in this story for the audience to see themselves in it?"

The Connection Architecture: How Relationships Actually Scale

Most brands think about connection as a volume game—reach more people, create more touchpoints, generate more engagement. But sustainable brand connection works more like network effects: the right connection with the right people amplifies exponentially.

The Prevention Philosophy That Changed Everything

At Trevor Project, Josh pioneered what they call "prevention over intervention" strategy. Instead of just reaching LGBTQ+ youth in crisis, they focused on affirming young people before they ever reached a crisis point.

But here's the connection multiplier: they didn't just expand their direct audience. They equipped the adults closest to LGBTQ+ youth—parents, teachers, coaches, mentors—with tools to create affirming environments.

The strategic insight: instead of trying to reach every LGBTQ+ young person individually, reach the people who influence their daily experience. Create brand connection at the community level, not just the individual level.

The amplification effect: Every adult they equipped to be more affirming could impact multiple young people. Every teacher who learned inclusive language could transform an entire classroom dynamic. The brand connection scaled through community influence rather than just individual awareness.

This approach transformed how Trevor measured success—from "crisis contacts served" to "communities equipped to affirm." From reactive metrics to proactive impact.

The Authenticity Algorithm: When Brand Values Meet Cultural Moments

Authentic brand connection happens when your brand values intersect with cultural moments in ways that feel organic rather than opportunistic. It's the difference between brands that ride cultural waves and brands that get wiped out by them.

The Strategic Timing of Cultural Connection

Josh's approach to cultural moment marketing isn't about jumping on trends—it's about understanding which cultural currents align with your brand's genuine strategic objectives.

The Trevor Project repositioning happened during a cultural moment when LGBTQ+ representation was shifting from "trauma porn" to authentic joy and celebration. Instead of chasing the trend, Josh anticipated it and positioned Trevor to ride the wave.

The Thrive Global dual-audience strategy emerged during a moment when both consumers and employees were becoming more sophisticated about wellness—less willing to accept surface-level solutions, more interested in holistic approaches that acknowledged complexity.

The connection secret: The best cultural moment marketing doesn't feel like marketing. It feels like your brand finally saying what your audience has been thinking but couldn't articulate.

The Measurement Challenge: What Connection Actually Looks Like

Here's where most brands get connection wrong: they measure awareness when they should be measuring advocacy. They track engagement when they should be tracking emotional investment.

Real brand connection creates what Josh calls "identity integration"—when people don't just buy your product or support your cause, but see your brand as part of their own story.

The Trevor Project Evidence: Beyond Awareness to Advocacy

The 40% brand awareness increase was just the surface metric. The deeper connection indicators:

• Young people started sharing Trevor content not just during crises, but during celebrations
• Parents began proactively seeking Trevor resources before problems emerged
• Partner brands approached Trevor for collaboration, not just sponsorship
• The organization became synonymous with LGBTQ+ joy, not just LGBTQ+ survival

The Chanel Purchase Intent Proof Point

The 23% purchase intent increase among female Millennials wasn't just about wanting the product—it was about seeing Chanel as a brand that understood their values and aesthetic without pandering or oversimplifying.

The connection measurement: Millennials didn't just say they were more likely to buy Chanel. They started talking about Chanel differently—as a heritage brand that honored their intelligence rather than a luxury brand trying too hard to be relevant.

The Connection Multiplier: When Brands Become Cultural Platforms

The highest level of brand connection happens when your brand becomes a platform for your audience to express their own values and identity. You're not just selling to them—you're enabling them to be more themselves.

The Ecosystem Effect: Connection as Network Building

Josh's partnership strategy at Trevor Project illustrates this perfectly. Instead of individual brand collaborations, they created an ecosystem where partner brands could authentic connect with LGBTQ+ values through multiple touchpoints.

Abercrombie & Fitch didn't just sponsor Trevor—they co-created a gender-inclusive clothing line that let customers express their values through their fashion choices. The brand connection extended from Trevor to A&F to the individual customer wearing clothes that represented their identity.

The strategic insight: The best brand connections create platforms for your audience to connect with each other around shared values, not just individual relationships with your brand.

The Connection Evolution: What's Next

Brand connection in the current moment requires something most marketers haven't developed yet: the ability to navigate ambivalence.

Audiences are simultaneously craving authentic connection and suspicious of brand manipulation. They want brands to stand for something and stay in their lane. They expect cultural fluency and cultural humility.

The brands that win in this environment are the ones that can hold complexity—that can be values-driven without being preachy, culturally relevant without being performative, commercially successful without being extractive.

Josh's approach to brand connection isn't about resolving these tensions—it's about designing brand experiences that acknowledge them honestly and create space for audiences to engage on their own terms.

The connection compass: Before any brand initiative, ask yourself:

• Does this make my audience feel seen or surveilled?
• Am I adding value to their life story or just interrupting it?
• Would they share this because it reflects who they are, or because I'm asking them to?

The Sustainable Connection Strategy

Real brand connection isn't a campaign you run—it's a relationship you build. The strongest connections come from consistency over time, not viral moments.

Josh's work demonstrates something crucial: sustainable brand connection comes from understanding your audience's evolving relationship with themselves, not just their relationship with your product.

The Trevor Project connection deepened over time because the brand grew with its audience. As LGBTQ+ youth culture evolved from survival to celebration, Trevor's messaging evolved too. The connection felt dynamic rather than static.

The Chanel strategy worked because it acknowledged where Millennials were in their relationship with luxury—ready for heritage brands that honored their sophistication rather than assuming their inexperience.

The sustainability framework: Build brand connections that can evolve with your audience's changing needs while staying true to your core values. Connection isn't about finding your people once—it's about growing with them over time.

Ready to build the kind of brand connections that become part of people's identity stories? Let's decode what makes your audience stop scrolling and start caring.