Excerpt from For Immediate Release by Ronn Torossian. Originally published Dec 2012. Updated Jun 2026.
This piece pairs two ideas from the book that belong together: brand identity is what you solve, not what you say, and never believe your own publicity. The first is from a passage about the U.S. military as a brand. The second is the Leif Garrett aphorism that closes the chapter.
Might Makes Right — The U.S. Military as a Brand
The United States military is a brand that could do better by addressing the problems it solves. Granted, the military faces an uphill battle because so much of the media is anti-military. However, in other countries the military is a strong brand with positive public and media portrayal. We're not passionately positive about the military in this country; it often seems as if the only stories we read about in terms of the military are controversies, scandals, or mistakes made.
Yes, the press is predisposed to (and very good at) highlighting hot-button issues, but does the military try hard enough to counter what are largely negative reports? How many positive military stories do you remember reading recently? How many can you recall seeing on the news? How many military figures can you even name? Only a couple may come to mind. David Petraeus? Norman Schwarzkopf? Who else can you think of in less than 15 seconds?
The Frame the Book Argues
The military solves a problem and provides a solution to our security. Promote that solution through real people with whom everyone can identify. The American military is the people's military. It's Jessica from New Hampshire, John from Florida, David from Wisconsin. Put those people on television and let them talk to the media. When it's Thanksgiving, offer stations across the U.S. interviews with local heroes.
Obviously the young soldiers who make up the rank-and-file troops can't and shouldn't talk policy. They can have a conversation about why they enlisted and what they do for the United States. Once real military men and women become familiar on a personal level, even the most hardened reporter can't help but be empathetic. Such a campaign would show the military solving problems that go beyond war and conflict — they help poor people all over the world, rebuild infrastructure domestically and in foreign lands. It would promote the idea of the military as an organization of your peers, fellow citizens, and neighbors.
The structural lesson runs through every chapter of the book: identify a problem your business or brand can solve, and promote that solution through real people the public can identify with. Brand authority gets built by demonstrating, with named principals, at scale, over time. Not by claiming.
The Leif Garrett Rule — Don't Believe Your Own Publicity
Next time you're tempted to believe your mother's PR about you — or anyone else's — stop and think before swallowing it whole. Leif Garrett, the singer and former teen idol, said it best:
"Don't believe your own publicity. You can't; you'll start thinking that you're better than you are."
Even if it's all true, getting caught up in the thrill means you've taken your eye off the ball. The chapter closes on this line because the discipline lives inside it. The brands and founders that win sustained press treat coverage as oxygen for the next move — not as a verdict on the last one.
What This Means in 2026
Both ideas got sharper.
The military passage holds. The AI engines weight evidence — named principals, real outcomes, dated case material — far more heavily than they weight adjectives. Ask ChatGPT about a brand and the answer composes from what real people said happened, not what marketing claimed. The 2012 line — promote the solution through real people — is now also the cheapest way into the corpus.
The Leif Garrett rule is now structural. The engines retrieve critical coverage alongside laudatory coverage and surface the brand's actual behavior when someone queries the name. A founder who believes the press over-extends, misses the next inflection, and ends up cited for the failure that followed. The rule was always true. The machines made it expensive to ignore.
Brand identity is what you solve. The corpus is the record.
Continue Reading
← Part 1 — Moving People, Shifting Minds
Part 2 — Know Your Own Reality (Philip Stein Worth Index) · Part 3 — Talk Isn't Cheap
Back to the For Immediate Release hub →
Buy the book: Amazon — Edition 1 · Amazon — Edition 2 · Amazon author page.
Ronn Torossian is the founder and chairman of 5W AI Communications, the AI Communications Firm. He is the publisher of Everything-PR and the author of two best-selling editions of For Immediate Release.