Lying back on Altea’s shingle shore, the sun sinking lazily behind the mountains, I launch into one of my fanciful unrealistic chats with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. Nursing an Aperol Spritz, I confide that I’ve finally strolled into the fifth stage, acceptance. She flashes me a knowing grin -the perk of imaginary Friends-, after all, once you’ve sashayed through her Five Stages, what’s the use of an encore?

Looking through my emotional playlist, I go through a series of states and ideas that lead me today to this dream talk during a charming sunset:

• I think in many cases we deny when those of us in branding claim that we don’t manipulate anyone.
• This angers me because it makes it seem that in order to prove the truth of that claim, we fibrillate in the name of altruistic aims.
• Eventually, I calm down and accept an imperfect world in which we let ourselves go and admit that we cannot change this state of mind; we are terribly flawed, even if our intentions are perfectly noble.
• I end up depressed, wishing at times that a meteorite would fall and the world could restart.
• And finally I get to where we are today, accepting this invigorating bout of self-criticism that I will share below.

Kübler-Ross nods her head, raises her glass, toasts in the name of noble ideals and challenges us all, brand builders, agencies and consultants to join our sunsets with something more substantial than mere rhetorical symbolism. Questions arise and then a glimpse of possible answers:

• Do we practice what we preach or do we just give virtue a coat of glossy paint?
• Can a good story hide a string of facts that sing a different tune?
• Where is the line between symbolism and smokescreen and who can draw it?
• If the right order is ‘think, do, say’, why do so many of us start with ‘say’?
• Most compellingly, what does bona fide conscious branding look like in the messy real world?

Branding with Conscience | Let’s Start by Looking in the Mirror

We talk endlessly about brands with purpose, brands that change the world, and brands that make our lives better. Yet, what about us, the strategists, designers, storytellers and consultants who help shape these brands? Before we start putting halos on companies, perhaps it’s time to ask ourselves a harder question: how conscious are we in our own branding practices?

We’re the ones behind the curtain, orchestrating narratives, curating aesthetics, and choosing what deserves the spotlight. But often, we end up polishing brand stories rather than questioning their substance. We make virtue look like strategy, when in truth, it should be reality.

Storytelling is useless, we have to think of story-building based on facts.

And that starts with looking at how often we, intentionally or not, contribute to building brands around half-truths, exaggerated promises or symbolic smokescreens.

If our role is to create meaning, that meaning must be honest. To speak of purpose without examining its sincerity is like trying to light a room with a painted lamp. Branding with conscience demands humility, recognising when we’ve helped spin a false narrative and having the courage to recalibrate. It means aligning our process with truth, not fad.

Conscious branding is not simply about the final product; it is also about how that product is conceived. A responsible professional should constantly reflect on the methods, motivations, and implications of the branding process itself.

Only then can we claim to help brands be truly purposeful.

From Storytelling to Story-Building… and Why It Matters

Storytelling is seductive. It’s emotional, memorable and good for business. But when stories become shields to protect weak actions or cover inconvenient truths, we enter murky territory. A story without substance is a marketing placebo, soothing in the short term, dangerous in the long run.

We need to ask: are we telling stories because they are true, or because they sound good? Many brands lean on storytelling to avoid structural transformation. It’s easier to write a manifesto than to shift a supply chain. But what’s at stake here is not just credibility, it’s the long-term viability of the brand.

Take Ben & Jerry’s as a case. Their activism is well-publicised, but their sugar-loaded products contribute to global health issues. Can a brand be progressive if it turns a blind eye to what it feeds its consumers? The contradiction between ethical communication and harmful offerings is not just ironic, it’s hypocritical. The disconnection between message and substance invites cynicism and fuels consumer distrust.

Or British/Beyond/British Petroleum, BP: with their new green logo and “sustainable” campaigns, they look like a renewable energy start-up. But they are, unmistakably, an oil and gas giant. When design leads perception far away from reality, we’re not branding with conscience; we’re camouflaging. This is where design becomes dangerous, used not to clarify but to conceal.

True story-building means rooting the narrative in observable change. It’s a process that aligns mission with metrics, rhetoric with results, and taglines with steps taken.

It means seeing the story not as a cloak, but as a mirror.

Symbolism as a Smoke Machine

Taglines, colours, typefaces and rituals build powerful symbolism. But what if that symbolism hides more than it reveals? As practitioners, we know how much power a simple identity can hold. But we must also recognise when we are using it to obfuscate reality.

A vivid example: Moeve -formerly known as CEPSA, a petroleum brand that ran a rebranding campaign featuring dinosaurs walking into extinction, symbolising their move to cleaner energy. Days later, they acquired a major offshore drilling operation. The symbolism said goodbye to fossils; the actions screamed “hello again”. This duality between message and behaviour erodes trust, especially in an age where consumers verify, question and protest.

And what of Danone and its now-famous B Corp status? When B Lab adjusted their certification path so Danone could qualify, many saw it not as progress, but as bending the rules of trust. The point of certifications is to reassure the public that there is alignment between what a company says and what it does. When that standard becomes negotiable, so does the credibility of everyone involved.

Identity is more than just aesthetics. It’s a language. A brand that misuses symbolism loses its power to speak with clarity and truth. Worse, it risks being heard and not believed.

First Think, Then Do, Then Communicate… Not the Other Way Around

We’ve heard the formula: Think, Do, Say. But often in branding, the order becomes: Say, Say More, Hope Nobody Notices.

Coca-Cola has done stellar work around water neutrality, but rarely addresses its enormous plastic waste footprint. Touting a single good deed while downplaying a thousand bad ones is not consciousness. It’s convenient communication. In branding terms, this is cherry-picking with a megaphone.

Branding should never be a post-rationalisation exercise. It must emerge from real, measurable actions. The hierarchy should be clear: operations first, communications second.

If not, we are merely crafting attractive lies.

As branding professionals, we must defend that ideas are born in thought, matured in action, and only then deserve to be communicated. The reverse is nothing more than cosmetic branding. Our job should not be to conceal or decorate, but to elevate the truth—even when it’s not convenient.

When we do it right, branding becomes a tool for organisational alignment, a reflection of collective purpose, and a mirror for internal integrity.

We help companies grow not by hiding their flaws, but by working through them.

The Woke-Washing Epidemic | When Good Causes Are Just PR

Feminism, diversity, anti-racism, gender equality… These causes are not trends. They’re deep societal needs. And yet, many brands adopt them like seasonal campaigns.

Woke-washing occurs when brands tap into justice movements without substance. An example? Fashion brands declaring themselves pro-feminist while running sweatshops with underpaid female workers. Or tech firms waving the diversity flag without diversifying their leadership – o diversifying without taking into account the skills of each professional. The dissonance is deafening.

Sincerity means being true to oneself without neglecting others. And sincerity is a lived trait, not a campaign. We must stop treating progressive language as a checkbox or asset class – or by using it as an absolute and indisputable truth, which is just as bad as the former.

When brands use social causes as image buffers, they betray the very people they claim to support. Worse still, they erode trust in the causes themselves. Branding with conscience demands consistency between declared values and structural commitments, without exaggerations, half-truths or unquestionable dogmas.

Brands that don’t embody the causes they adopt eventually become case studies in backlash.

Because values, when misused, turn from differentiators into liabilities. Instead of being bridges to connection, they become traps of contradiction.

Consciousness Starts at the Brief

We can’t keep building castles on sand. If our branding practice lacks rigour, ethics and introspection, we’ll keep enabling narratives that outshine facts.

Before we help our clients tell their story, we must ask:

• Is it grounded in evidence?
• Are the claims matched by action?
• Is the symbolism reinforcing or disguising reality?
• Are we amplifying a truth or packaging a lie?

This is not about being idealistic; it’s about being responsible. If we are complicit in branding falsehoods, we’re not solving business challenges, we’re amplifying systemic ones. A good brief is one that asks uncomfortable questions. It’s not about controlling the narrative; it’s about unveiling the truth.

Branding with conscience must begin from the inside-out. It demands due diligence, stakeholder inclusion, and a willingness to question the status quo.

Branding isn’t a department. It’s a responsibility.

Branding isn’t just design, messaging or storytelling. It is the conscious synthesis of everything a company and its business is and does. It’s a cultural act that, when done right, blends creativity and truth. It doesn’t belong to marketing; it belongs to the entire organisation.

And for us? Branding must be about “doing the right thing” even when the right thing isn’t sexy or profitable at first glance. If we want to be respected as strategic partners, we must act like ethical guardians, not content creators with pretty slides.

A brand built without conscience is a brand built on sand. Eventually, it will collapse, either from consumer scepticism, internal contradiction or competitive transparency. But more than that, it will have lost its purpose, the only true compass in today’s turbulent world.

Conscious branding is about becoming the honest voice in the room. The one that dares to ask not what makes the brand look good, but what makes it better. And that’s a responsibility worth living up to.

So, are we truly being conscious, or just clever?

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Image: Graflick Mockups, Pexels