Manifestos have always been a bit of a thing here at Free The Birds. They’ve become a part of every project we do – and in the spirit of not being shy or coy about what we’re good at, I think it’s worth saying out loud.

I believe the manifesto is the single most important page in any marketing strategy presentation.

The one page. The knot at the middle of the bow tie. The nucleus at the core of the atom.

My relationship with manifestos started years ago, when I was at Saatchi’s and we were pitching for Sony. While researching the brand, I discovered something extraordinary – they had the ability to go from an idea to a prototype in just ten days.

How? 

Maybe it was the spirit of inspiration, imagination and commitment of everyone who worked there. Where did they get that from? 

Etched on the wall of their factory was – their manifesto.

Every employee, every single morning, walked past those words. A reminder of why they were there and what they were building.

It amazed me how often people working for a brand don’t actually know what that brand stands for, what it aims for, why it exists. At Sony, they couldn’t avoid it. It stared them in the face. 

And I remember thinking, why doesn’t every brand do this?

So, it became my mission. But also, my party trick – some people can do magic, I could write manifestos. The collection of words which spoke to the core of a brand. Which helped anyone, no matter their knowledge of said brand, understand immediately their purpose, their mission, their core reason for being.

And write them I did, (I got the nickname ‘Half Man, Half Manifesto’) – for Carlsberg, for Toyota, and more. A raft of enormous global brands. What began as an amusing anecdote has become something I now talk about with – dare I say, yes, I do, authority – perhaps even ambition. Without self-aggrandising, over the decades it’s become one of the things I’m known for.

When I founded Free The Birds with the wonderful Nick Vaus, our creative expertise saw us catering to some of the biggest household name beauty brands across the globe, I discovered one of the biggest challenges within this powerful industry was how often their core reason-for-being was overlooked. Teams fixate on the shiny end-result but forget what ties it all together.

When we begin with a manifesto, it’s as if the creatives have the brand sitting beside them while they work. They know how it talks, what it cares about, where it wants to go. It’s the bridge between all the research, business models and strategic preparation…and the creative leap that brings a brand to life.

It’s where the child grows up and develops a personality.

And this is a metaphor which speaks to one of those most primal and key factors when bringing it to life – the human touch. In a world increasingly dominated by AI, the seemingly humble manifesto is, in my belief, the key to keeping authentic, human, emotional connection at the core of every brand. Its soul. 

Of course, you can feed a transcript into a chatbot and get a string of words that look like a manifesto. But the difference with the process I live by is the role the people behind the brand play in bringing the manifesto to life.

I’ve seen their eyes, heard their words when they describe their brand. 

I’ve felt their ambition – the bit no written brief can ever convey.

There is an intangible empathy in creating a manifesto that only comes from listening, from conversation, from understanding what isn’t being said as much as what is.

That’s what makes each manifesto utterly bespoke. You cannot write one manifesto for two brands. You can’t outsource emotion. And you certainly can’t hand this job to AI.

Let AI support you afterwards – help you build decks or expand thinking – but never write the manifesto itself.

Manifestos operate on two levels, internal and external.

Internally, brands are famously bad at explaining themselves to the very people responsible for communicating them. A manifesto gives you one page (not multiple pages of opportunity spaces, strategy and tone-of-voice guidelines) that tells you everything. The vision, the emotion, the positioning, the idea.

Externally, it becomes the ultimate reference point for anyone wishing to understand the brand.

Who are we? What do we stand for? What’s our purpose?

A manifesto answers all of it with clarity and emotion.

And crucially, every word counts. Every sentence is in there for a reason. Remove a line and the whole shape shifts.

When I write them, I think about great speeches – the kind that stay with you. They have rhythm. They build. You find your way through following the language only to arrive at the line that delivers the idea with maximum power.

I’m not here to make people cry but I do think they should feel inspired and invigorated. They should leave with a deeper understanding of the drive behind the brand. The manifesto should move people, if only a little, hopefully, a lot.

And that’s why Apple’s “Here’s to the Crazy Ones” remains my favourite example, the one I truly wish I’d written. No slick production – just black-and-white footage and a read-out of a perfect manifesto. It gave the brand a soul.

Ultimately it gave the brand an ability to last, to endure and to be universally understood.

And universally bought.

We live in a time where attention spans are tiny and brands chase the Instagrammable moment. There’s nothing wrong with that – those moments matter – but they must speak to the core of the brand.

A great manifesto gives brands something that lasts longer than a campaign or a reel. It creates memory. It creates connection. It ensures everything behaves as it should.

You can always tell when a brand has no manifesto – or when the wrong people have interpreted it.

And the danger of approaching the manifesto that ends up with no meaning and ripe for misinterpretation, is a rush to complete it.

For me, speed is never the challenge – and yet it’s what people seem to think is the major benefit of AI in this arena. Something generated for you at lightning speed, ready-made in a virtual microwave.

But give me an afternoon with a client, and I can write the manifesto by the next morning. It doesn’t need weeks. Choosing the human route doesn’t mean you’re sacrificing time. It means not sacrificing emotion, clarity and an honest conversation.

Manifestos sit at the core of what we do at Free The Birds. And yet we may be guilty of not always truly explaining to clients just how important they are – or that they are the one thing we believe should never be left to chance, or algorithm.

Your manifesto is your heart – etched on the wall, carried in your teams’ hearts and minds, echoed in everything you do. It deserves to be written with care, empathy, clarity and soul.

After all, it’s the one page that changes everything.