From man to brand: When ideology sells, truth is the first casualty

The London protest made one thing clear; ideology doesn’t just spread through politics; it spreads through design. Names, symbols, slogans; all the tools of branding. Combine this with the psychology of belonging and identity to sell not just a message but a movement. It’s where design meets psychoeducation and where truth is often the first casualty.

Tommy Robinson isn’t just a man. He’s a brand. A manufactured identity with its own slogans, symbols and loyal customer base. Strip away the politics for a moment and what you see is a masterclass in how branding principles, usually reserved for selling products can be used to sell ideology and how human behaviour responds in ways that can blind us.

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon understood early on that names carry power. ‘Tommy Robinson’ sounds like the bloke down the pub, the neighbour who ‘tells it straight.’ It’s simple, memorable and relatable. Qualities marketers dream of. The image is equally deliberate – working class clothes, flags draped across shoulders, always the visual of an ordinary man standing up to an overbearing establishment. Add to that the repeated messaging; ‘Free speech,’ ‘truth’ ‘they don’t want you to know’ and suddenly truth itself becomes a marketing tool; bent to fit the brand campaign.

But branding alone doesn’t create devotion. What elevates Robinson’s following into something closer to a cult is the psychology beneath it.

Tribalism – he draws clear lines of ‘us versus them’ – this binary thinking makes people feel part of a group, with a shared enemy to rally against.

Belonging – for disillusioned people who feel unheard, he offers a ready-made community. A sense of being seen.

Charisma and martyrdom – positioning himself as the ‘truth teller silenced by the state’ taps into deep emotions of distrust and injustice. Each arrest or court case only strengthens the narrative of victimhood – and martyrdom is a powerful recruitment tool.

Human behaviour in these spaces can be both fascinating and frightening. Followers often demonstrate:

Confirmation bias – Seeking out only the evidence that supports his claims, while dismissing everything else as lies.

Cognitive dissonance – Even when confronted with contradictory facts, many double down rather than question

Social proof – Large rallies and follower counts create the illusion of legitimacy ‘if so many people believe it, it must be true’

Cult dynamics – Loyalty to the leader outweighs rational judgement. In this space, truth becomes secondary; belief fused with identity takes precedence and questioning the leader feels like questioning the self.

Like any successful brand, Robinson’s has been monetised; books, donations, merchandise, crowdfunding. Social media supercharged this – outrage becoming a form of currency, shares and likes acting as free advertising. Even bans and deplatforming fuel the brand story; proof, in the brands saying that truth is whatever the system doesn’t want you to hear.

 Robinson’s rise is less a story about him and more a mirror to society. It reveals how susceptible humans are to simple branding when the world feels complex. How easy belonging outweighs truth and how the mechanics of marketing can turn ideology into belief at the expense of reality.

The question isn’t’ just How did Tommy Robinson build a cult-like brand? But What does our willingness to follow it say about human behaviour and about the blind spots we carry?

The risk isn’t Robinson himself but how easily branding can hijack human blind spots. When ideology sells, truth is the first casualty.