What Pushing Daisies Taught Me About Brand Voice

What Pushing Daisies Taught Me About Brand Voice (And Why Your Favorite Show Probably Taught You Too)

When people ask me how I help entrepreneurs find their brand voice, I usually start with something that surprises them.

I do not start with their offers. I do not start with their audience. I do not start with their competitors or their niche or their positioning. I start with lists of what they love in art, media, print, music.

I start with their favorite TV shows.

Specifically, I ask them to tell me what they love about each show. Not just that they love it. Why they love it. What it does that other shows do not. What they feel when they watch it. What they would tell a stranger to convince them to give it a chance.

The answers are almost always the beginning of a brand voice. No, really.

Here is what I mean.

Why I Return to Pushing Daisies

Pushing Daisies is a show about a pie maker who can bring dead things back to life with a single touch, and kill them again with a second touch. Our dear pie maker falls in love with a woman he resurrects but can never physically touch again. It ran for two seasons in 2007 and 2008 and was cancelled before its time and I am still not over it.

What I love about this show are very specific things. The playfulness and the unique concept. The narrator who treats the most absurd plot developments with the same calm authority he would use to describe the weather. The music, which manages to be whimsical and melancholy at the same time. The costumes and set design, which look like someone took the 1960s and made them more saturated and delightful. The way tragedy and delight live in the same frame without one overshadowing the other.

When I describe what I love about Pushing Daisies, I am also describing what I want my work to feel like.

Playful yet not frivolous. Melancholy though not heavy. Attentive to detail in ways that reward people who pay close attention. Willing to hold contradiction without needing to resolve it. Delightful in a way that does not pretend the hard things are not also true.

That is not a coincidence. It is a pattern. And I can use it to my advantage.

What Your Media Choices Are Actually Telling You

Often, we are drawn to stories that reflect something we already believe about how the world works or how it should work.

The shows we love, the films we return to, the music we put on when we need to feel like ourselves again, these are not random. They are a record of what moves us, what we find beautiful, what we think is worth paying attention to. What we want to be reminded of.

For entrepreneurs and creative service providers, that record is one of the richest sources of brand voice material available. And almost no one uses it.

Instead, people try to build their brand voice by looking outward. They study competitors. They read about their audience. They take personality assessments and try to map the results onto their content.

These things have their place. But they start from the wrong direction.

Strong, reliable brand voice does not come from outside in. It comes from inside out.

It starts with what you genuinely find compelling, what makes you feel something, what you could talk about for hours without running out of things to say. Then it works outward toward language and strategy. Toward magnetism and messaging.

Your favorite show is inside-out data. It is you telling yourself what you care about before you have had a chance to perform or edit or make yourself more palatable for potential clients.

How to Use This in Practice

The exercise I use in Brand Strategy Unlocked starts simply.

List three to five shows, films, or pieces of media you genuinely love. Not what you think you should love. Not what sounds impressive. What you actually return to, recommend, quote, or think about long after you have finished watching.

Then for each one, answer these questions.

What does it do that other things in its category do not?

How does it make you feel while you are with it?

What would you tell someone to convince them to watch it?

What do you notice about the craft of it, the writing, the pacing, the visual language, the sounds?

Read your answers back. Underline any words and phrases that appear more than once. Notice what themes emerge.

You are not looking for a tagline. You are looking for a vocabulary. A set of values expressed through aesthetic preference. A way of being in the world, of seeing the world that your work can reflect.

What the Pattern Reveals

When I do this exercise myself and look across the things I love, certain words keep appearing.

Layered. Witty. Melancholy and delightful at once. Attentive to what most people miss. Willing to be strange. Serious about beauty. Honest about difficulty without being defeated by it. Celebratory of playfulness and the power of language.

Those words show up in how I teach. In how I write. In what I notice in client work. In what I consider worth pointing out versus what I let pass.

They are not marketing language. They are character language. And character, expressed consistently, is what people recognize and remember and trust.

When someone reads my work and thinks, this person sees things the way I see things, that recognition did not come from a well-optimized tagline. It came from years of showing up in a way that is consistent with something true in others as well.

That consistency is easier to sustain when it comes from an actual source. When it is rooted in what I genuinely love and why.

Pushing Daisies and other shows I love are part of my source. What are yours?

FAQ

Why does my favorite TV show matter for my brand?

The shows and films you love reveal your aesthetic values, your emotional sensibilities, and what you believe is worth paying attention to. These are the same values that make your brand voice distinctive and recognizable when you express them consistently in your work.

How do I find my brand voice if I am not a creative person?

Brand voice is not about being creative in the traditional sense. It is about being honest about what you genuinely find compelling. Everyone has preferences, and those preferences are data. The exercise described in this post works for analytical thinkers, practical service providers, and anyone who has ever had a strong opinion about a piece of media.

Can I really build a brand strategy from things I like to watch?

Media preferences are a starting point, not the whole strategy. They help you identify your aesthetic values and emotional sensibilities, which then inform your voice, your visual choices, and your content themes. Combined with your professional expertise and your understanding of who you serve, they become a foundation that is both distinctive and sustainable. They serve as dialog entry points for future clients.

What if I do not watch much TV or film?

The same exercise works with music, books, podcasts, visual art, or any media you return to repeatedly. The question is always the same: what do you love about it, and why? The medium matters less than the honest answer and following reflection.

How do neurodivergent entrepreneurs benefit from this kind of brand work?

Many neurodivergent entrepreneurs have rich inner worlds of aesthetic preference and pattern recognition that they have been taught to hide or minimize in professional contexts. This approach specifically invites those sensibilities in rather than asking people to suppress them. The result is brand work that is more accessible and regenerative (read as: better than sustainable) because it does not require constant performance of someone you are not.

Is this kind of brand strategy useful for service providers who are not in creative fields?

Yes. Coaches, consultants, healers, educators, and other service providers all benefit from having a brand voice that reflects something genuinely true about who they are. Clients hire people, not corporations. The more your presence reflects something real, the more effectively it builds trust with the people you are trying to reach.

Does Katie Helms work with entrepreneurs outside the United States?

Yes. Brand Strategy Unlocked and all consulting and coaching offerings are delivered online and serve entrepreneurs in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. If you are a service provider in transition and want support with your brand strategy and messaging, you are welcome regardless of where you are located.