On Discovering the Mountains to Move. The Brand Truths Hiding in Plain Sight.

The “unknown known” is a reference to a truth known by an organisation and / or its customers - but not yet clearly articulated. The organisation already knows this unstated truth, or senses that it knows but didn’t know it knew this until it was surfaced and said in a certain way. Whilst unknown and unstated - it can be something of an organisational blindspot. 

Once you make this known - it can feel like it was there all along. Which of course it was. 

When we presented the idea ‘We Can Move Mountains’ to the Graeme Dingle Foundation - this was the sense in the room.

“Aaah yes, that - we have nearly got there before but not quite” “We’ve kind of been saying that but not directly” “That’s it, that’s what we’ve been trying to say!”

The metaphorical moving of mountains - was hiding in plain sight.

Better yet, it connected to the origin story of founder Sir Graeme Dingle who, himself, has conquered some of the most challenging mountains in the world.

It is, whether it was recognised or not - the essence of the brand, with themes of journeys, challenge of the climb, overcoming obstacles all there for the taking. 

One of the strategist's most valuable roles is to uncover, reveal these truths and give them language.

The output, particularly if it accurately captures something that was already hidden in plain sight, can seem much simpler than the journey to get there.  The distilling of complex and multifaceted ideas into simple, compelling expressions requires some serious heavy lifting. It takes curiosity, pattern recognition, competitive mapping, insight, rigorous exploration and strategic thinking to connect (often seemingly unrelated) observations until something clicks into place.

The power of the ‘unknown known’ is that it creates alignment. Teams rally around it because it feels authentic rather than manufactured. Customers and supporters recognise it because it reflects their own experience of an organisation. Rather than creating a brand position from scratch, great strategy often uncovers the one that was waiting to be found.

That familiarity is what makes it so powerful. People don't need to be convinced because the idea already fits with how they see the world. It reduces the cognitive effort required to understand a brand, creating a much faster pathway to recognition, trust and connection. Rather than teaching people something new, it gives them the words for something they already felt to be true.

We remember presenting the idea “To Be Blunt” to Blunt many years ago. The concept was not about the umbrellas for which they are known, but the design process behind their products - what it means “To Be Blunt”. Surely you’ve said that before? we asked. “No, not like that.” they said. 

Researching strategy for independent news publisher Newsroom, we realised that, despite an increased number of channels and providers, and an overwhelming number of news sources coupled with fragmented attention - news consumers are still wanting to hold space for credible and trustworthy news sources. We realised they were more than willing to make room for this. Make Room for Newsroom was born. 

Insight is very important in discovering what unknowns are known. The process of research and insight helps unearth cultural truths and signals felt by others about your brand and category. It helps you clarify and understand the position you hold in the mind of others - allowing you to improve and strengthen against this information. 

The concept of unknown knowns is often associated with Donald Rumsfeld’s famous 2002 Pentagon briefing, although the term itself came later.

In February 2002, Rumsfeld gave his now-famous explanation: “There are known knowns… there are known unknowns… but there are also unknown unknowns.” The framework echoed earlier thinking around knowledge and uncertainty, including the Johari Window, developed by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham in 1955 as a 2×2 matrix exploring what is known and unknown to ourselves and others.

The term unknown knowns was later popularised by philosopher Slavoj Žižek in the mid-2000s to describe the assumptions, beliefs and ideologies we hold without consciously recognising them - things we know without knowing that we know them.

Psychologists refer to a similar concept as tacit knowledge - things we know without consciously knowing that we know them. Great brand strategy makes tacit knowledge tangible. It takes something intuitive and makes it explicit, allowing organisations to communicate with a level of clarity that feels both fresh and strangely familiar.

Known Knowns

These are the things we know that we know. Established truths. Data, facts, analytics and insight, proof of performance, these are ‘definites’ that we are aware of and can speak to with certainty. For example, we might know how many people are aware of our brand as a result of a piece of market research - or, we know our sales and donation history (of course). Sales figures, website analytics, social engagement, brand awareness research, customer satisfaction scores, NPS, financial performance and campaign results all sit in this category. They are measurable, observable and verifiable.

Known Unknowns

These are the things we know we don’t know - gaps in our knowledge that we are aware of. For example we might know that we do not know current customer thoughts of a new product release because we have not conducted any sort of research in sometime. Whilst we might know our sales and revenue figures we might know that we do not know details of the demographic behind all of these figures.  We might know that we don’t know how to attribute views of our billboards to online purchase figures (which are attributed, more easily, to the known attribution of online ads. Research, testing and analysis can move these known unknowns to known knowns. 

Unknown Unknowns.

These are the things we don’t know that we don’t know. A very risky category as we don’t know what to look for or how to mitigate against the unknown knowns. They are invisible blindspots. We might not know that we don’t know that a new competitor is about to enter the market, or is talking directly with our clients positioning, through direct outreach, as an attractive alternative. 

The best brand strategies don’t feel like acts of invention that you need to force,  rather - they feel like acts of revelation. They make the implicit explicit - and can deliver great value to your business. 

These Guys I Know are experts in brand strategy.  Would you like to find out more about our work or how we can add value to your brand?

Do you have a brand truth hiding in plain site? We would love to help you discover it! Drop us a line at hello@theseguysiknow.co.nz