Brandmaxxing: What the Looksmaxxing Trend Can Teach Us About Building Brands

The 'looksmaxxing' trend going viral right now is somewhat surprising. Growing up, weren't we always told it's what's on the inside that counts?

But with a generation that's grown up on social media, where attention is currency, the affinity to shallow self actualisation manifested as bone smashing, mewing and fat-dissolving injections kind of makes sense. Kind of.

And it had me thinking, has the digital landscape, the constant investment in leads, clicks, impressions and short term goals skewed the way we're thinking about brands, in the same way looksmaxxing is affecting the next generation?

The performance trap

Over the last decade, the digital landscape has pushed brands toward their own version of looksmaxxing - investing heavily in the surface. More leads, more clicks, more impressions. Optimise the ad. Tweak the landing page. A/B test the subject line. Chase the short-term metric.

None of this is wrong. Performance marketing matters. But when it becomes the entire strategy - when every dollar is measured against this week's conversion rate - brands start to hollow out. They become performance machines with nothing underneath. They look good on a dashboard but mean nothing to the customer.

This is the equivalent of bone smashing your brand. You might see a short-term result, but there's no foundation holding it together.

What looksmaxxing should actually be

Here's the thing - Looksmaxxing should be about being authentic, knowledge seeking, investing in learning, growing and your health - feeling like a better person from within, and projecting that outward with grace.

The same principle applies to brands.

What a brand actually does

A brand isn't a logo. It isn't a colour palette. It isn't a tagline or an Instagram grid. Those are the ‘looks’ - the equivalent of a new haircut and a well-fitting shirt. They matter, but they're the last thing we look at when building a brand.

A brand is the core idea that everything else is built around. It's the answer to: why do I matter, and who cares?

A brand should permeate throughout a business and organisation, come before the business strategy - and rather should inform it. It gives everyone, from finance to HR and sales an emotive reason to come to work and every customer a reason to listen - a story we can all resonate with and believe in. It's a jar of value we top up everyday by investing in the right activity at the right time.

That's brandmaxxing.

The jar of value

I think of brand equity as a jar of value. Every time you invest in the right activity - a considered campaign, a consistent customer experience, a piece of content that genuinely helps your audience - you're topping up the jar. Every time you chase a short-term metric at the expense of what the brand stands for, you're taking value out.

The brands that win over the long term are the ones whose jars are full. They've earned something that performance marketing alone can never buy: trust, recognition, and meaning.

LVMH brands operate at extraordinary margins not because they spend more on ads than anyone else. They invest relentlessly in the brand - the story, the craft, the experience - and the commercial performance follows. Hermès posted significant growth in early 2026 while the rest of the luxury market declined. Not because of a better media strategy. Because of decades of brand investment that made them resilient when everything else got shaky.

The Australian opportunity

I work with Australian brands, and what I see consistently is a storytelling gap. Particularly in retail, where the playbook has been reduced to: lowest price, widest range, most convenient. These are hygiene factors - the cost of doing business, not a reason to choose one brand over another.

The next breakout brand in Australia won't win on price. It'll win because it stands for something, it delivers an experience that means something, and it tells a story that customers want to be part of.

Tesco and John Lewis figured this out a decade ago when they started investing in long-term brand campaigns that built emotional connection rather than just driving weekly footfall. Australian brands have the same opportunity.

Brand before business strategy

This is the part that challenges most founders and business leaders. Brand isn't a department. It's not something the marketing team does in isolation. Brand should come before business strategy - or more accurately, it should inform it.

When you know what your brand stands for, every business decision becomes clearer. Which markets to enter. Which products to develop. Which partnerships to pursue. How to price. How to hire. The brand becomes the filter through which every decision is made.

Without that filter, you're making decisions in a vacuum - reacting to competitors, chasing trends, and wondering why nothing quite holds together.

The bottom line

Although looks are important - design, identity, visual expression all matter - when building brands, they're the last thing we look at. Not the first.

What really drives long-term value is an authentic brand that is believed from within. A brand that has substance, not just surface. A brand that invests in the jar every day, not just when the quarterly results need a boost.

Get that right, and the leads, clicks, and impressions will follow.

Get it wrong, and no amount of looksmaxxing will save you.

Oliver Smith is an independent brand and marketing strategist based in Melbourne, working with founder-led brands on positioning, growth strategy, and brand transformation. Learn more at oliverstrategy.com.