What Mission: Impossible Can Teach You About Brand Messaging That Converts
Mission: Impossible isn’t just an action franchise — it’s a masterclass in brand clarity. Here’s how to use their messaging formula to sharpen your mission, connect with your audience, and sell more.
Here’s a quick but valuable lesson in brand messaging from a movie you probably saw: Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning.
I thought the movie was fun. Not perfect. I’d give it four stars out of five: It took a while to get going, but once it did, two thumbs up.
When we left, though, I couldn’t stop thinking about one thing: the IMF creed.
If you saw MI: Dead Reckoning, you might remember it: "We live and die in the shadows for those we hold close, and for those we never meet." It returns here in full force, with the full text or a shortened version said aloud around a half-dozen times.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed this repetition, the first iteration of which actually comes in the previous MI installment, Dead Reckoning. (“There are also far too many repetitions of the I.M.F. creed,” groused the critic for the New Yorker, ”which soon starts to sound like greeting-card John le Carré.”) As literary text, fail. As brand messaging? Home run.
“Mission: Impossible” is foremost a brand, and as such, it is hugely insistent on its brand values: courage, camaraderie, and service to others. When the creed shows up in this edition, it always arrives at times of heightened emotion: The characters say it to themselves and to each other when they need to connect with their mission most deeply.
Now consider another brand: maybe your brand. In working with brand founders, I’ve been deeply surprised by how often they struggle to articulate their mission in such clear terms.
Let’s break down the IMF creed: "We live and die in the shadows for those we hold close, and for those we never meet."
We’d start by revising it, and only focus on the biggest ideals: "We die in the shadows for those we never meet."
What do you do that’s hard?
Who do you do it for?
We do this hard thing.
For these people.
It’s such a good formula you can spot the company just from the setup:
We make the world’s best shoes for the world’s coolest athletes.
We make good-enough tacos for people in a hurry.
We sell cheap furniture to people who like style but don’t want to pay for it.
What’s the hardest thing you do? Who do you do it for?
Once you have clarity on this, you should take additional inspiration from the film and plaster it everywhere. What’s your mission? Who’s it for? What’s your mission? Who’s it for?
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We do this hard thing.
For this group of people.
And however many times you’re thinking of saying it — on your social, in your newsletter, on your site — it’s not enough.
If you’re buying something people want, one good reason they’re not buying it from you is because they don’t know you’re selling it. Tell them. Make your mission clear. More sales are lost because of a lack of clarity than for any other messaging-centric cause.
What are you doing?
Who’s it for?
If you have trouble reaching this level of clarity in your messaging, we can help. Schedule a session with me to get clear on your brand’s mission.
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