The Single Sentence that Scaled Carbone

Success by way of summing things up

Your brand doesn’t need explanation. It requires summarization. Preferably, in a single breath.

If your brand can’t be summed up in a single sentence, you don’t have a brand.

Chef Mario Carbone explains how Major Food Group scaled to 40 venues by anchoring everything to a singular narrative.¹

For their flagship, Carbone, the experience leaves zero ambiguity. A diner leaves saying exactly one thing:

“I had dinner on a Martin Scorsese set and ate a veal parm the size of a hubcap.”

Here’s how that translates to the world of beverage:

• Carbliss: “I crushed a zero sugar, zero carb vodka seltzer in the backyard without getting bloated.” 🍋🏋️‍♂️✨

• Liquid Death: “I drank mountain water out of a heavy-metal tallboy can that looks exactly like a craft beer.”

• Corona: “I shoved a lime into a clear glass bottle on a sunny beach and completely forgot about my job.”

• Red Bull: “I slammed a tiny silver can of liquid adrenaline that made me feel like I could skydive out of a helicopter.”

No one is reading your brand guidelines.² Sorry.

Your team wants a sentence.³

Your customers need a sentence.

Your consumers won’t understand more than a sentence.

1. I first read this anecdote in Jonathan F. Foster’s On Board: The Modern Playbook for Corporate Governance. You can find the original story in the Vanity Fair article “How Chef Mario Carbone Built the Most Celebrity-Studded Restaurant on Earth.”

2. Brand guidelines are for assigning blame when something goes wrong, as in “They didn’t follow the guidelines.” They aren’t why something succeeds. I never recall someone saying XYZ brand made it big because of their guidelines and their team’s diligence in following them.

3. If you really want to challenge yourself, try doing it in three emojis or less.

Here are examples for: Carbone = 🍝🇮🇹🎬, Carbliss = 🍋🏋️‍♂️✨, Liquid Death = 💧☠️🎸, Corona = 🍺🌴🏖️, and Red Bull = ⚡🎈🪽