Movember’s brand IS their product

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Twenty-three years ago, a group of mates in Melbourne decided to grow moustaches. It was novel. A bit silly. Something that would get people asking questions.

"Why are you growing that?"

"I'm raising awareness for men's health. Want to join?"

That was the entire strategy. Grow facial hair. Start conversations. See what happens.

Well, what happened was they stumbled onto something most brands spend millions trying to create. A distinctive asset so recognisable that seeing it instantly triggers brand recall, while also being so widespread it takes on a life of its own.

Walk past someone with a moustache in October and you might not think much of it. See one in November and you immediately know: Movember.

But it comes with a catch. You can’t own moustaches. You can’t trademark the upper lip of everyone. You can’t control what they mean or where they show up.

This should be a branding nightmare. Your primary distinctive asset is public domain, uncontrollable and culturally fluid.

Instead, it's become Movember's superpower.

I was lucky enough to sit down with Tony Clement, Global Director of Insights at Movember, to hear how they think about and play with their brand as a growth lever.

One day on Tony's commute, a question hit him. What even is Movember's product?

They don't sell software. They don't manufacture goods. They're not a subscription service.

Then, the answer became obvious. The brand IS the product.

For most of Movember's history, that type of measurement didn't exist. Brand intelligence was "a hodgepodge of research projects", as Tony describes it.

When Tony brought in Tracksuit to establish structured brand tracking across their six major markets, their internal assumptions got hit hard with the reality.

"When you ask people to name 10 charities, no one names Movember. It doesn't come to mind. But then when you ask people 'have you heard of Movember', everyone's like 'yeah, I've heard of it'".

People know Movember. They just don't think of it as a charity.

This tension existed internally too. Brand design teams focused on creative expression. Research program leads laser-focused on health outcomes. Two different views that were reflected in what audiences were seeing.

The data didn't just show what people thought. It showed what Movember had built almost unknowingly. A brand that didn't fit traditional charity positioning, anchored to an asset they couldn't control, balancing serious and playful in ways most organisations would consider brand suicide.

But it was working.

That simple idea from 2001 created a challenge around protecting a brand asset you have no real ownership of. The answer wasn't control. It was consistency, paired with cultural awareness.

Moustaches mean different things in different places. In America, they've recently become tied to traditional, conservative masculinity. Think law enforcement, military, a particular vision of strength. Then at the same time in Australia, they're larrikin and fun. Permission to not take yourself too seriously.

The cultural context evolves constantly and differs significantly across geographies.

This is where systematic brand tracking became essential. Not to control the uncontrollable, but to understand it. To have a finger on the pulse.

Monthly measurement across all six markets (Australia, New Zealand, UK, Canada, US, Ireland). Standardised questions allowing comparison. Brand attribute tracking showing how perception shifts across audiences and geographies.

The always-on tracking helps answer what moustaches mean for specific audiences in specific markets right now.

"You have to study the importance of moustaches to culture", Tony explains. "What's happening in moustache culture? Who are the moustaches that matter?"

When Travis Kelce grows a moustache and it becomes part of NFL culture, that matters for understanding the American market. When moustaches show up more in Australian pubs, that matters for understanding local positioning.

The genius is that they didn’t choose moustaches strategically. They just recognised what they'd stumbled into and were smart enough to double down.

Movember's measurement infrastructure does more than track brand health. It creates strategic intelligence that informs every decision.

Now they have always-on measurement with Tracksuit, the granularity matters. Instead of broad brand health scores, they see specific funnel points. Where is awareness strong but consideration weak? Among which audiences? In which markets?

That specificity enables more productive conversations. Tony works with general managers in each market monthly, looking at data together, identifying where the brand is weak to figure out if they need a marketing intervention or deeper research to understand the cultural shifts.

The tracking also helps balance competing priorities. Movember owns their biggest cultural moment (the annual campaign in November) while also operating year-round men's health programs. The campaign funds the programs, but the campaign is also a program. The conversations it sparks every year are interventions that make an impact well beyond the fundraising opportunity.

This systematic approach has delivered remarkable results:

But maybe the most impressive outcome is what can't be fully measured. The one-to-one conversations about men's health that happen because someone grew a moustache. Someone checking for testicular cancer. Someone reaching out to a mate who's struggling.

Once you're clarified that the moustache is a conversation starter, awareness equals impact. The brand IS the product, which IS the intervention.

That was the original vision. Grow a moustache. Friends ask why. You say you're raising awareness. You have a conversation.

Simple. Authentic. Undeniably powerful.

That confidence from decades of consistent results enables bold creative risks. The rebellious DNA that came from founders who just wanted to grow moustaches with mates never left. A couple of years ago, drones formed giant moustaches over London. Last year's campaign celebrated terrible moustaches with "Shit Mo's Save Lives".

This isn't manufactured edginess, it's just who they are. That authenticity emphasises brand attributes competitors can't replicate.

Moustaches will continue evolving independent of Movember. They'll mean different things to different people in different places.

Movember doesn't own any of it.

But after 23 years, they've earned the association. When people see a moustache in November, they think of Movember.

Not through trademark law, but through authentic origins that couldn't be manufactured in positioning workshops. Through recognising what they'd stumbled into and doubling down rather than chasing strategic perfection. Through systematically measuring what they couldn't control, revealing where brand strength is weakening before it becomes crisis.

Through staying consistent to their core (moustaches, men's health, rebellious fun) while adapting how they showed up based on cultural context. Through accepting that some impacts are intangible, that the conversations happening because of their brand are real impact even when they don't show up in dashboards. Through building for decades, not quarters, creating an association that now feels permanent.

Most brands try to own something unique. Movember made something common uniquely theirs. That's much harder. But it's also much more valuable.

The moustache is public domain. But the movement belongs to everyone who's grown one, raised funds, had a conversation, checked in on a mate, started talking about things men often don't talk about.

That's what happens when a simple idea between mates meets two decades of strategic consistency. You can't manufacture that. You can only earn it.

I think the biggest lesson here is that sometimes, what you stumble into authentically becomes infinitely more powerful than anything you could have strategically planned.

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