Dove's sketch artist ad had no soap in it. A hundred million watched in a month.

Every founder gets told to tell their story: the garage, the near-bankruptcy, the whole arc. Dove skipped all of that and made one of the most-watched ads ever.

They sat women behind a curtain with a police sketch artist. Each one described her own face, then a total stranger described the same face. The stranger's drawing was kinder almost every single time. There's no soap in the whole thing, and it got a hundred million views in a month.

Nobody forwards an ad about a company. People forward the one that's secretly about them. Put your customer in that chair, not yourself.

Be the obvious choice, not another copy.