This article appeared in the Financial Mail’s Redzone on 1 June 2016.

The value of brands that push back.

The cliché is that products should be silver bullets and that brands should make life as rosy as a possible. But when brands ask people to do their fair share of the work, they make a meaningful and valuable contribution to society.

Maybe the problem starts with the word, consumer. Is that all people want to be? Consumers?

Do ordinary folk want to buy their way through their lives? Do they want a visit to the mall this weekend to solve all of life’s issues? After all, in a mall you can buy status, glamour, and a sense of wellbeing. You don’t actually have to do any work to acquire those qualities; you can just take out your credit card.

Many brands seem to believe think that ordinary folk, in an ideal world, would love to be Roman emperors, reclining on couches, being drip-fed the grapes of modern society.

In other words, they seem to think that people simply want to be recipients in their lives, not participants.

Consequently, brands seem to think they must be all-smiling and all-solving. Even their communication shouldn’t ask too much of the recipient.

Do brands over-rate the power of consumerism? Do they over-believe their own importance?

As outrageous as it seems, ordinary folk actually like to play a role in their own lives. They don’t want a stream of service providers arriving at the door to make life perfect. Rather, to continue the analogy, they would prefer to do some DIY.

And your product, then, doesn’t have to be a silver bullet, it just has to be the right tool for the job.

Many iconic brands realise that. They push back. We are not the be-all and end-all, they say. You have work to do. You have a role to play in your own life.

“Nobody makes better tea than you and Five Roses.”

That thought is vastly different to “Nobody makes better tea than Five Roses.”

Who would have thought, in the depths of Apartheid South Africa, that White housewives would buy into the idea of making a cup of tea for themselves? But there it is. The line was written half a century ago. Five Roses has always invited people to participate in their own lives, to stand up and do something. And for fifty years, they’ve appreciated that. They’ve found it to be a meaningful proposition.

Yes, Nike makes hi-tech running shoes and trendy trainers. But the message to the most obese nation on the planet? If you don’t set your alarm and get out of bed, nothing is going to happen. The brand pushes back. We are not solving everything for you; we are simply giving you the right tools for the job. Judging from the stature of the Nike brand, people understand the value of that.

“Discover ours. Rediscover yours.” Our work for Ability, a business management solution, does not promise to solve every problem facing a CEO, but it does promise to be the right tool for part of the job. The hard work of actually leading a company is another matter.

How ambitious are you? A student rises from impoverished conditions. A swimmer trains until his muscles burn.

The new Investec brand campaign, too, pushes back. It challenges the viewer. How ambitious are you? It’s a question that will make the right people come alive.

They will get up and make a cup of Five Roses. Then they will make a mental note for next time their financial advisor has an appointment.