WeWork: The story just isn't working

I find it sad when big brands miss big opportunities to tell their story.

When I read a post by Mo Said, Creative Director at Mojo Supermarket on LinkedIn about a recent WeWork ad, I felt compelled to speak out.

Stories are at the heart of how we communicate. 65% of our daily conversation is made up of stories about ourselves and other people. We spend a hell of a lot of time sharing stories.

So when a brand like WeWork who have been through a challenging time of late, decide to try and turn the page and create a new chapter of their brand story, I sit up and take notice.

I'm always interested to see who they think they are, and most importantly how it lands with their audience.

I live and work by the mantra that the stories we tell create our realities. I believe you can't become what you tell people unless you truly believe it. Because unless you believe it deep down inside of you, there will always be an invisible obstacle, a barrier to creating the success you want to truly see.

We need to know ourselves on a visceral level, develop deep insights about ourselves and rewrite the stories that hold us back be that consciously or unconsciously in order to truly turn that page, with authenticity and with conviction. It's only then that our story can work as a magnet for us, drawing in people who relate to our message from far and wide as we share it.

Oh WeWork!

As the first of many subsequent co-working spaces, you had the holy grail of being first to market with your product. You scaled and built at a rate of knots. You conquered, and then you fell.

You may have read the stories behind WeWork's decline. I won't speculate on them here. What I will say though is that you can't take credit for something you don't do.

What if I asked you replaced the WeWork name and logo in this ad with "coffee", with "wifi" or even more terrifying, with the name of any co-working space competitor?

The true story of WeWork is not the co-working space itself, but the stories of the dreams and visions begin created within its 4 walls. The story of its people.

It's not the logo in lights, the table tennis, or funky designs and sofas that make these dreams a reality, it is the people it houses. Their drive, the passion and the dedication to changing the world, both theirs and the wider, with their ingenuity and their creativity.

WeWork see themselves as a partner in this. But I believe you can't take credit for someone else's work. You can champion it, you can be part of their journey, but you can't make it your own.

Yes the tag line "WeWork for you" is humble, and a nod to the investors they may be trying to placate. However, the manifesto style ad and the brand story it's linked to says that they are lost in a sea of competition, striving to understand their point of difference and anxious about how they can create a USP that transforms their future, their potential.

When brands hit crisis, there's a make or break point. You can be visionary with your next move or you can play it safe.

In my humble opinion, this is an exercise in box ticking rather than staking a bold claim on the future of the WeWork brand. A watered down exercise in apologising and admitting they know they should be doing better.

The stories we tell ourselves create our realities. WeWork, there's a difference between knowing you should do better, and being better.

I wish you luck on this journey!