MICROBRAND MARRIAGE? JOIN THE CLUB

A microbrand marriage is an extra tightener on the matrimonial knot. The idea came to me during an important conversation about the R word.

Realionship.

Getting married seeps into everything until it becomes the defining relationship we’ll be judged by.

The “Good Husband,” and, “Good Wife,” pressure is easier to manage in a microbrand marriage.

Maybe it would work for you, too. Check it out:

Show me the couple who got their wedding ‘license’, filed the legal papers, said, “We’re married, let’s go,” and called it good.

Brides and grooms say things to each other, sometimes repeating the words of the wedding official, minister, priest. They’re called promises, or vows, or pledges, and they can feel suffocating.

But couples bliss their way through in the most romantic possible way, locking the memory of that day with the warm sunshine that glows over their next four decades together.

And it scares the hell out of the most ready of ready to get married couples. Instead of drinking, use tactics, or both.

Microbrand Marriage Means I Love You

A microbrand is a small scale thing aimed toward a niche market, the opposite of corporate branding to a mass market.

The Unipiper Hazy IPA is a microbrand of a larger company of some of Portland’s most memorable beers. The Unipiper is a Portland microbrand of someone riding on one wheel and blowing a flamethrower bagpipe.

Marriage is the corporate brand, the mass marketed expectation of being a good example that encourages others to give up their wicked ways and learn to love someone other than themselves . . . for the rest of their entire lives.

Does that sound like, “Run away, run,” or is it just me?

Microbrand marriage isn’t about being all things all of the time to one person and one person only. It’s more about learning what someone else likes and needs, and finding new ways to address them.

I read a Minnesota meme about snow that went something like, “We Need To Find More Joy In Snow. If we don’t we’ll still have the same amount of snow, but less joy.”

If the likes and needs of two people feels more like gasoline and flames, microbrand marriage to the rescue. People have problems, but one tips the scale, and it’s not the main problem. The microbrand marriage agrees on the main problem at the start. Only one.

Agree on that one problem for each partner, just one, and the stage is set. Yes, I hear your, “But Dave, which one?”

Problems Change, So Do Solutions

Adult people don’t just show up all shiny and new. The ones who do have had too much work done inside and and out. Shiny and new is their business card, and it’s all about business.

But, marriage isn’t a business. I’ve heard it called a business, but only by disgruntled employees in their marriage company. That’s a problem, not a starting point.

What you’re looking for is a problem you can never solve, and sharing it.

Man: I never understood why fraternities were full of guys with big teeth and turned up collars.

Woman: I was rejected by every sorority I rushed and ended up in a co-op across the street.

A microbrand marriage builds a clubhouse with dining hall for one frat brother and one sorority sister.

Or,

Man: I wish I would have served my country.

Woman: My hero is Clara Barton and I’ll never be as good as her.

A microbrand marriage finds each other in the PX.

And finally,

Man: I wanted to play high school football but I was afraid to get hurt.

Woman: Our cheerleaders were a cult I didn’t want to be a part of, but I loved to cheer.

What would a microbrand marriage do?