You Have to Be Hated to Be Loved

Every successful brand begins by deciding who it is willing to offend.

That sounds harsh, but it is the single difference between brands that scale and brands that blend in. Neutrality has never inspired obsession. People do not rally around something that tries to make everyone comfortable.

The key to being loved is being hated by the right people.

Look at Apple and Android. That rivalry has survived for decades because each side despises the other’s culture. Apple users mock the chaos of Android. Android users call Apple buyers sheep. Both sides are emotionally invested because the tension gives their choice meaning. Without the conflict, there would be no community.

Hatred, in branding, is not destruction. It is definition.

What You Stand Against Is What Gives You Shape

Gene Schwartz wrote in Breakthrough Advertising that desire already exists in the public. The job of a brand is not to create it but to channel it. That means choosing a direction and letting the rest fall away.

Brands that try to exist in the middle are the ones we forget. They speak in soft slogans and never say anything that might risk an argument. The result is polite invisibility.

Real brands have edges.

24/7 Represent and the Rejection of Softness

24/7 Represent is a British clothing label that has built its entire identity on athletic discipline. It speaks to people who live inside their routine, who train every day, who treat their body as the evidence of their control.

This is not a brand that panders to comfort. It does not apologise for ambition or muscle or the pursuit of a defined body. Every campaign, every product image, and every line of copy carries the same message: power is earned through repetition.

That clarity makes it polarising. The brand does not fit neatly into the current body positivity narrative that dominates so much of fashion. It celebrates the aesthetic of effort. It makes no attempt to hide that.

Compare that to Girlfriend Collective, a brand that has become one of the loudest voices for body positivity. Their imagery features a wide range of body types. Their language revolves around acceptance and softness. The tone is calm, reassuring, non-competitive. It exists to soothe, not provoke.

Both brands are built on belief systems. One says, “You are enough exactly as you are.” The other says, “You are only what you prove daily.” Each position creates loyalty, but only because it also creates rejection.

Friction Is Not a Mistake

Founders often talk about wanting loyalty. What they forget is that loyalty requires boundaries. You cannot create belonging without exclusion.

When Represent posts another campaign showing athletes drenched in sweat, pushing through another set, they are not chasing mass approval. They are speaking to a customer who finds meaning in control. The people who scroll past and say it looks toxic or obsessive are part of the system too. Their disapproval is the reflection that keeps the core audience intact.

The same principle drives every powerful brand. What your critics call arrogance, your fans call clarity.

The Courage to Be Misunderstood

The hardest part of building a brand is learning to stay silent when others demand you soften. It is easy to write an inclusive caption about “every body.” It is harder to take a stand that some people will call outdated or extreme, and still sleep at night knowing it is authentic.

If you are building something meant to last, you must make peace with the fact that your truth will repel people. The opposite of love is not hate. It is apathy.

So when your brand begins to attract criticism, take it as a sign you are finally saying something worth remembering.

You do not need to be liked by everyone. You need to be loved by the right ones.