The power of transformation in creating strong brands

I have written before about how personal brand meaning is what makes people consider you relevant in their lives and care for what you propose. Now I want to turn to another structural element, this time borrowed from storytelling, that helps you become a proposal your audience cannot ignore: conflict.

In scriptwriting, authors use conflict as the central device to make their story engaging and exciting. Conflict creates the sense of difficulty and reveals what must change to overcome it. There are two main types. The first is external conflict, the obstacle that makes it difficult for the hero to reach her goal. The second is internal conflict, the personal transformation the hero must undergo in order to rise to the challenge.

The power of internal conflict

External conflict is what consumer marketing has relied upon since the birth of advertising. An impossible stain to clean, a high price that blocks access to something we crave, or any other barrier that stands between our desire and its fulfilment is an external conflict. Brands that address it make it into the consumer’s consideration set, but they rarely build a deep and lasting relationship with their audience.

Much more powerful is the ability to work with internal conflict. This is where a brand establishes a deep conversation with its audience, helping them recognise inner flaws or limits and offering support to overcome them. The experience that follows is transformational, because it touches not only what people want but also who they are.

Patagonia provides a strong example. The brand does not simply sell jackets. It invites its customers to take a stand for the planet through campaigns like “Don’t buy this jacket” and its activism for conservation. Patagonia confronts its public with a question: are you willing to change your behaviour and give something up for the sake of the environment? Some buy Patagonia because it is fashionable, but others cannot ignore the deeper journey of awareness and responsibility the brand is asking them to embrace.

On a completely different register, a Brazilian football club, Esporte Clube Vitória, once faced a shortage in national blood banks. To encourage donations, they turned their iconic red and black striped shirts into black and white. The message to fans was simple but powerful: donate blood, and the red will return. As more donations came in, the stripes gradually recovered their colour. The campaign forced fans to ask themselves: do I care enough to act for the community? Am I ready to go beyond supporting my team to supporting life itself? This was not just about football, it was about identity, belonging and values.

Personal brands that work with conflict

In the personal branding sphere, several individuals stand out for their ability to tap into internal conflict. Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, set an unforgettable example by giving away almost all his fortune to a foundation dedicated to protecting the environment. His gesture forces us to ask ourselves: what are we ready to renounce for a cause greater than ourselves?

Hubert Joly, former CEO of Best Buy, has written The Heart of Business, where he narrates his own transformation from a profit-driven leader to a humanistic one. His testimony is not only about his personal journey, it raises a collective question: what are our real goals, our principles, and the leadership style we want to embody? If we truly care about business, we cannot ignore that interrogation.

Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why and one of the most influential leadership thinkers of our time, has also built his reputation by challenging us with internal conflict. His entire work is an invitation to rethink the way we see organisations and leadership, to question our limits and our beliefs, and to take a step towards a more humanistic vision of business. His audience cannot remain neutral, his discourse obliges us to reflect on our own responsibilities.

The lesson for personal brands is clear. If we are able to identify areas of inner life where our audience needs to evolve, be it flaws, fears or weaknesses, we must be brave enough to address them. Establish a dialogue, and help our public face the transformations that will make them stronger. We can do this with empathy, with confrontation, or with a mix of both. What matters is that we become voices they cannot ignore, because the real power of conflict lies in its ability to generate transformation, and it is through transformation that strong brands are created.