Overcomplicating lore and how to apply placemaking to branding
Deep lore can pull fans in, but it can also lock newcomers out. In this clip from You’re Not the Audience, Parliament Creative Director Calvin Ross Carl uses Destiny as a warning about worldbuilding that goes too far, then praises Cyberpunk, Mass Effect, and BioShock for their storytelling. He shares practical ways to apply worldbuilding to branding: treat it as placemaking, describe a world where only your brand exists, as with Rainier Beer’s mythical Mount Rainier, and create histories, characters, subcultures, and rituals for superfans. It’s from the You’re Not the Audience episode on worldbuilding, Stop Brand Building, Start Worldbuilding.
Watch the full episode
Outline
Summary
Calvin Ross Carl starts with a downside of deep worldbuilding. Destiny’s lore is so vast, with a story for every planet and character, that after years on the market the game has become nearly impenetrable to newcomers. It now mainly serves people with an exploration and discovery mindset, a reminder that worldbuilding can go too far.
After a detour through viewer favorites, including Cyberpunk’s grounded take on what capitalism does to a sci-fi future and BioShock and Mass Effect’s emotional storytelling, Calvin turns to branding. He suggests treating brands as placemaking rather than a collection of assets, describing how Parliament pushed a mezcal brand into an outlaw, rebel world of tattoos, motorcycles, and rock shows.
He closes with a set of exercises: describe a world where only your brand exists, like the mythical Mount Rainier for Rainier Beer; build histories and lore from a founder story; create characters or a consistent voice; and develop subcultures, rituals, and symbols that reward fans who dig deeper.
Highlights
Destiny shows how too much lore can make a world impenetrable.
Stop thinking of your brand as just a collection of assets.
Ask what kind of place your brand creates for people.
Rainier Beer’s world is the magical, mythical Mount Rainier.
Calvin expects a new era of mascots in branding.
Key insights
Depth needs an entry point
When there’s a detail about every detail, newcomers don’t know where to start. Rich worlds still need a way in.
Places give brands permission
Defining who lives in a brand’s world creates excuses to show up in those worlds, from motorcycle culture to rock shows.
Characters set the voice
Like metal bands that speak as pagan priests and hold seances instead of concerts, a brand character can anchor every message.
Specific beats universal
Going one level deeper produces a distinct brand that isn’t for everyone, and that’s the point. Appealing to everyone means appealing to no one.
Detailed analysis
The clip balances a caution with a playbook. Destiny’s problem isn’t depth itself but depth without a clear starting point, which matters for brands that accumulate years of campaigns and lore. The practical exercises that follow give teams concrete ways to build a world without losing the plot.
Placemaking reframes brand strategy around belonging. Mission, values, and archetypes still matter, but imagining the place a brand creates, and the people in it, makes those abstractions tangible enough to guide swag, rituals, and voice.
Conclusion
Worldbuilding turns a brand into a place superfans can explore. The key is going one level deeper with everything while still leaving a door open for newcomers.
Transcript
And yeah, I think that’s the thing. It’s funny because—this is actually a good thing to chat about, because this is actually one downside to having such deep lore, where it’s really heavy on emergent storytelling. Destiny’s lore is deep and infinite. It seems like there is a detail about every detail. Every planet in the universe has a story. Every character, all the different types of characters you can play as—it’s insane. But this game’s been out for years. It’s about to end. RIP Destiny. But this game has been out for years, so for a newcomer, it is nearly impenetrable, because there is now almost so much lore that you can’t even break into it. You don’t know where to start. You don’t know where the story starts. You don’t know where it’s going, because there’s so much that it’s really difficult to explore. So now, for people who are into story, this game really only hits those people who have that exploration and discovery mindset, because you have to want to dig deep. Otherwise, you’re just going to be lost. So that is actually one downside of going super deep into worldbuilding sometimes: at some point, you can go too far.
Oh yeah, right: “Cyberpunk was great, but wish they’d continued evolving it.” Yeah, I love the cyberpunk worlds. Cyberpunk is specifically really interesting because it takes things that we establish about sci-fi but then adds what capitalism does to us, you know? There starts being all this underground drug trade. There starts being all of these people getting implants in their bodies that are maybe made by nefarious people and acquired through nefarious means. It’s a much more realistic view of what our sci-fi future might actually look like. So Cyberpunk is great for that. It just has a lot of different details. It adds a lot of deep subcultures within a sci-fi world.
And oh, I mentioned Mass Effect, and BioShock also did some fantastic worldbuilding. BioShock was great. Yeah, I feel like those were some of the first games in the first-person shooter genre where you realize, oh, you can communicate a deep emotional story in these things. It’s not just kill bad guy. Sweet. Yeah, I love those.
All right, so that’s some worldbuilding chat. I think maybe some things to think about, then, are how you can start applying this into branding. Rather than just doing standard branding, you can start thinking differently. So for branding, stop thinking of your brand as just a collection of assets. That’s step one. I think people who are really into it know there’s a lot more beneath the surface than just the assets. There’s your mission, your values, your attributes, your archetypes, all these things. But start switching your branding over to being about placemaking: what kind of place are you trying to create for people?
We developed a brand for a mezcal company, which went awry in some other ways. But the thing that was important for them was we really wanted to push them into this outlaw, rebel mindset. So that was the place we started creating for them. It’s about who’s drinking this. It’s people with tattoos. Who’s drinking it? It’s people who ride motorcycles. Who’s drinking it? It’s people who go to rock shows. And as you start building out those worlds, you develop this deeper place that moves beyond just your standard assets, and it starts giving you excuses to go into those worlds and interject your brand into them.
Okay, so for worldbuilding, stop thinking of your brand as just a collection of assets. Start thinking of it as placemaking. Try describing a world where only your brand exists. You’re the only brand in the world. What is that world like? For Rainier Beer, it’s the magical and mythical world of Mount Rainier. That is the only place that exists in their world. Try creating histories, stories, and lore that lie behind your brand. A lot of this starts with just a founder story, but then how does that founder story turn into other stories?
And then try creating characters in the world. I’m convinced that we’re going to enter a new era of mascots in branding. God, I hope so. I love mascots in brands. So try creating a character in your world. Or if not, try creating a character that sets the voice for your messaging. I talked about metal bands a few episodes ago. Metal bands are great at that. Some of them speak from this one specific place, almost like they’re a pagan priest speaking to you. You don’t go to concerts, you come to seances, or things like that. Create a character, then embody them, and also create details for that character.
For your brands, you can create subcultures or focus on subcultures, like I talked about with bikers and things like that. Create rituals or symbols that are related to your world, that give fans who dive really deep that “Oh, what is this cool thing?” moment. Those end up being little details on swag or things like that. If you really try going that one level deeper with everything, the result is a really strong, distinct brand that isn’t for everyone. It’s just for your superfans, and that is great. That’s what you really want. If you’re appealing to everyone, you’re appealing to no one. We all know this stuff. But I think that’s just what the benefit of worldbuilding really, really does.