Fail fast, story harder. The strategy that makes failure marketable
If your marketing failed, maybe it wasn’t the idea. Maybe it was the storytelling.
“Fail fast” left out the best part
We’ve absorbed the Silicon Valley gospel like scripture: Fail fast. Fail often. Learn and move on. The part they forgot to teach us was what to do with all that failure.
So, we bury them.Quietly. We pivot, hoping no one noticed. We launch the next thing with a little less heart, a little more caution, and the echo of “what if I fail again?” ringing louder than last time. We walk away from stories that just needed a second act. Failure without storytelling is just noise. Failure with storytelling is a midpoint, not an ending.
The people who say “fail fast” without building a narrative around failure are not learning. They are leaving the stage too early.
When story holds, confidence follows
Here’s what really collapses in a failed launch: your voice and your coherence. You start to second-guess everything. Should I have priced it differently? Was the tone wrong? Did I send too many emails?
The deeper collapse is internal: what does this mean?
We humans don’t process experience through metrics. We process through story, and without story, failure feels like chaos. With story, failure becomes bearable. Then moldable. Then marketable.
When you hold your flop inside a narrative, you get to make sense of it. So does your audience. A bad product becomes a plot twist. The end of your relevance becomes a revelation.
Story doesn’t erase the fall. It gives it form.
The midpoint reversal: where the plot actually begins
If you mapped your last failed offer onto a classic story arc, here’s what you’d see:
- Setup. You had the offer, the plan, and the reason why it mattered.
- Rising action. You teased it, prepped your audience, and hit publish.
- Midpoint reversal. Nothing. Fewer signups that you hoped. Tech issues. A public flop.
- Dark night of the soul. Panic. Doubt. “Maybe I should go back to what was working…”
- Breakthrough. A client says something that reframes it. You get clarity. You rewrite and rebuild.
- Climax. You reshape the campaign and relaunch. You come back stronger.
- Resolution. The message lands. People respond, and you remember why you’re here.
The failure was never the end. It was the story getting interesting. The mistake wasn’t in launching, but in abandoning the arc too early.
How to fail like a storyteller
Here’s the shift: instead of analyzing failure, narrate it. Not as a pity post or a humblebrag, but as a real-time evolution. A character arc. A behind-the-scenes moment with emotional stakes.
Let people witness the shift, not just the highlight reel.
Give your flop a villain. Maybe it was an outdated strategy. Maybe it was a burnout. Maybe it was trying to please an audience that didn’t match the message.
Then, cast that flop as foreshadowing. That laugh that didn’t land taught you what not to say, what not to offer. What your audience actually wants when they say nothing at all.
And then, and this part is important!, give it a sequel. Don’t let the failed idea fade into your digital archives. Revise it. Reposition it. Turn it into a new thing with narrative clarity. It’s not the same offer anymore. It’s the next chapter.
Brands that story harder
The brands that last don’t have perfect launches, but they know how to build a bigger arc when the first arc fails.
Oatly’s U.S. launch flopped, so they leaned into the misunderstanding, making it part of the campaign. “We know we’re weird. That’s kind of the point.”
The Estonian mobility company Bolt expanded too fast, lost its grip, and rebranded through storytelling, not damage control. Their message: “We’re rethinking urban freedom”.
Danish fashion brand Ganni got called out for sustainability greenwashing, but didn’t hide. Instead, they started narrating transparency as an ongoing process, not a polished promise.
None of these were perfectly crafted responses. They were pivots, brand stories made stronger through failure.
What to do next time you fail?
Next (or first!) time you fail, you could close the tab, archive the campaign, and try something new. Pretend the flop didn’t happen.
Or…
You could go back, give it a name, and find the turning point. Write the villain into the story. Share what you know now that you didn’t know then, and let people follow the arc.
Our brands aren’t built on wins. They’re built on what we do next when something flops. Failure isn’t the end of marketing. It’s the middle of a really good story.
So go ahead. Fail fast.
And then, story harder.
