This rave story will teach you more about marketing than any MBA.

I didn’t expect a lesson in brand building to come from a lollipop this week.
Or from a rave, for that matter. But here we are!

I came across the origin story of a new brand called Buss (questionable name but I’m here for it), created by an agency known for its surreal visuals and design that feels more like Dali had access to an iPhone and Midjourney.

Anyway, what stopped me wasn’t the branding itself, even though it is super striking with its seductive red. It was the MOMENT that sparked the entire idea, because it is exactly the kind of real-world insight most founders overlook.

One of the founders arrived late to a Boiler Room rave. By the time he got inside, the place was completely full and he wanted to get to the front.

So instead of giving up and settling in at the back, he reached into his bag, pulled out a handful of lollipops, and offered one to anyone who let him go in front. One by one, he made his way through the crowd until he reached the front.

This was the moment he realised something important. Lollipops are always marketed to kids. That is the assumption the entire category is built on. But what about adults at raves?!!

This moment where human behaviour told the truth more clearly than any marketing framework could.

This is where the story becomes more interesting.

He didn’t just have a funny rave anecdote. He had uncovered a behaviour pattern. Adults, in a high-energy, sensory environment, responded to lollipops with warmth and generosity. They created an immediate social exchange out of it.

This insight would never have appeared in a persona document or a category audit. The traditional lens would say, “Adults are not the primary market for lollies.” What actually happened was the opposite.

Real humans provided real data in real time. And that data was emotional, social, and behavioural. Not theoretical.

What makes Buss clever is that the founders didn’t simply take the insight and create a “cooler” version of a children’s sweet brand. They built a brand that belongs in the subculture where the insight was born.

The visual language feels like a fashion drop or a sci-fi object. It has the kind of texture, colour, and personality you see on dance floors. It looks like something you would spot in a nightclub, not in a supermarket.

They weren’t designing for the candy aisle. They were designing for the rave community. This is what so many founders get wrong. They discover an insight, then distort it to fit the expectations of the category. Buss did the opposite. They let the moment shape the brand.

As a retired rave girlie who can no longer survive seeing 6am on purpose, this story hit a nostalgic nerve. Not because I miss the late nights. But because it reminded me how often our best ideas come from the parts of life we do not label as “strategic.”

Some of the smartest insights appear when you stop trying so hard to find them. They live in your daily life, your small interactions, your memories, your frustrations, and your unplanned moments. This story pulled me back to that truth.

People showed him exactly what they valued. There was no guesswork.

If you only look at what already exists, you limit what you can imagine.

Moments reveal patterns you cannot invent in a workshop.

Your life offers clues constantly. Most founders don’t slow down enough to notice them.

They start with something real, specific, and human, not a generic positioning exercise.

Go back to the moments you have lived through.
The unexpected ones. The inconvenient ones. The ones that made you laugh or hesitate or rethink something. The ones that revealed how people actually behave.

Those are your insights. Those are your stories. Those are what makes you different.

Not the category. Not the competitor set. Not the persona document.

The REAL moments.