WE LIKE TO MAKE SOME CRAZY GOOD MISCHIEF.
THE RARE BEAST CODE:
01
Do not engage in cultural landfill; slay it.
02
The Human Operating System is the true north.
03
Give people more of what they love and less of what they hate.
04
Seek the Law of Attraction. The Law of Constant is soul-crushing.
05
The Rare Beast shall not feed on the attention of people.
06
Content is ephemeral and bullshit.
07
Make cultural artifacts. Not content.
08
Bet on Slow culture. Fast culture sucks.
09
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
10
Art, design, publishing, music, and philosophy come first.
11
Make stuff that’s meaningful, lasting, tactile, beautiful, and wanted.
12
Cultural artifacts and experiences last longer than the IOT.
13
We're feeling machines that think, not thinking machines that feel.
14
Champion the inefficiency of empathy.
15
Leverage strategy, insight, and storytelling to bolster companies through qualitative means.
16
Focus on IRL and less on ROI.
17
Thou shalt not stalk, track, data extract, or hold people emotionally hostage. No predatory marketing allowed. It’s icky.
18
Always bet on the fact that there are soft echoes of humanity under the surface.
19
Do not tolerate risk-averse, corporate, staid, mediocre, or soulless.
20
More camp in our campaigns.
21
More performance with our Key Performance Indicators.
22
More Qual with our Quant.
23
More analog with our digital.
“We have Paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology.”
-Edward O. Wilson
OUR FOUNDING PRINCIPLES:
Modern industry claims it creates culture. In reality, it is nothing more than cultural landfill. Engineered for the almighty algorithm. Our attention is strip-mined to extract every dollar, with contempt for our individual space, privacy, and sanity. The constant assault of “content for content’s sake” at every turn, comment, and click puts a target on your back for endless, insurmountable garbage.
Yes, we’re looking at you pop-up ads, pre-roll, junk mailers, inbox dumpers, brand-wanting-to-be-your-friend, schmaltzy celebrity ads, stalkers, influencers, and interrupters.
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
People don’t trust advertising; they just live with it. And so it goes. Our discontent and apathy towards advertising are then directly targeted at those pushing it. Brands.
We know these tactics are intentional. Masterfully built for profit and shareholders. Unregulated and uninvited. For the modern marketer, machines offer the comfortable, but wrongheaded, notion that people are rational actors who can make clear, dependable, and measurable decisions. Most of the time. The truth is that we’re more Homer Simpson than Homer. We are feeling machines that think and not thinking machines that feel.
We’re now living in a world of engineered “efficiency” where the sharp edges and the inefficiencies of the human condition have been smoothed to the point of dullness. One cannot measure everything, and those who tell you otherwise are selling you on a fallacy that often feels true. Increasingly, we live in a world of quantification and cherry-picked statistics - and we need to remind people of the wonder, horror, and beauty of the human experience.
Modern marketing has become all ROI and no IRL.
A Rare Beast sees capitalism today, and by extension, marketing, as predatory. A relentless hunter. Marketing now speaks of people as targets. Treats them like passive ‘consumers-of-things’ that need to be constantly stimulated and prodded to purchase. They wage a war on our attention. Loudly shilling a constant barrage of cultural garbage at these ‘consumers-of-things’ in an effort to slay the beast.
Here's the thing about people. They can smell the bullshit.
A Rare Beast knows “Big advertising” has a weakness. It’s risk-averse, corporate, staid, mediocre, and soulless. A waste of time. Because of this, the Rare Beast understands modern advertising, it’s cancerous robots, and the residual cultural landfill can be slain.
OUR MANIFESTO
Give people more of what they love, and less of what they hate. More cultural artifacts and less cultural landfill. Stuff that’s meaningful, lasting, tactile, beautiful, and wanted.
We don’t believe in pop-ads, clickbait, ‘easy content,’ banalities, inbox dumping, or annoying robots. We don’t aim to stalk, track, data extract, or hold people emotionally hostage.
A Rare Beast seeks the Law of Attraction because it’s over the Law of Constant. Consent is given, never taken.
We are a motley crew of multidisciplinary practitioners: visual artists, creative directors, designers, publishers, musicians, writers, philosophers, coders, and all-around jacks of all trades.
As a result, we make cultural artifacts encompassing this wide range of cross-disciplines in commercial verticals like fashion, manufacturing, luxury, hospitality, you name it. We believe in the inefficiency of empathy, the time wasted on craft, the conversations rambling toward meaningfulness. This kind of work shifts prevailing company, agency, and brand norms, leveraging strategy, insight, and storytelling to bolster brands through qualitative means.
Companies and brands can do this - and, more importantly - should. They should do this because people live in a world continually shaped by them.
As a result, we make cultural artifacts encompassing this wide range of cross-disciplines in commercial verticals like fashion, manufacturing, luxury, hospitality, you name it. We believe in the inefficiency of empathy, the time wasted on craft, the conversations rambling toward meaningfulness. This kind of work shifts prevailing company, agency, and brand norms, leveraging strategy, insight, and storytelling to bolster brands through qualitative means.
Companies and brands can do this - and, more importantly - should. They should do this because people live in a world continually shaped by them.
We love people, and they want us to feel we see them. It’s our responsibility to act like we give a fuck.
So the Rare Beast is a thinking and doing studio - not a place for frantic churning of codswallop.
We know we’re not for everybody - but we’re betting on the fact that there are soft echoes of humanity throbbing under the surface, beating in the breasts of even the most relentless ‘performance marketers.’ We believe more than a few people are as fed-up as we are. It’s simple, really. Make more things that people love. Enough of generic and average. Stop celebrating those who have everything, and numbing our minds with their inane antics.
And while a Rare Beast can be a scary and fascinating creature. It doesn’t feed on the attention of people. It intrigues it. It nurtures it to a place of genuine value and connection.
We toe the line between what humans love and what brands can authentically offer - Balance. More analog with our digital. More camp in our campaigns. More performance with our Key Performance Indicators. More Qual with our Quant.