After reading Seth Godin’s This is Marketing and Purple Cow, I began viewing marketing as a process of earning trust, differentiation, and attention through authenticity and generosity. Marketing, at its core, is an artform that plays upon identity and shared worldviews—a way of understanding and shaping how people see themselves and where they belong. Godin emphasizes that marketing works best when it speaks directly to a subset of psychographics, appealing to shared values and experiences that both affirm one’s sense of identity and reinforce the collective worldview that binds a community together. 

Simply put, the Wan Project is a creative studio that seeks to form a sense of community based on its visual, literary, and symbolic representation of Asian American subculture. I began our marketing and branding process by identifying what Godin calls the “smallest viable audience”—a specific and clearly defined group of people most likely to connect with our work, value what we offer, and form the foundation for a lasting community. For us, this meant focusing on first- and second-generation Asian Americans who would recognize and appreciate the cultural cues embedded in our films, photography, and designs. From there, I shaped our creative decisions with the intent of serving this audience first: choosing imagery that reflects their lived experiences, using color palettes inspired by cultural motifs, and designing clothing they could wear to project their cultural pride. By anchoring our work in their worldview and needs, we cultivated a sense of relevance and trust, ultimately earning us permission to offer our products as a natural extension of their identity.