Branding and Brand Strategy for Growing Companies
Branding for Restless Companies and Driven Entrepreneurs
Most brands are invisible. And they have no idea why they’re invisible. The numbers are brutal. Bain & Company ran the study on more than 350 companies. 80% of brands believe they deliver a great customer experience. Only 8% of customers agree. Eight out of every hundred people you serve think you’re doing what you …
I already published “The 12 Best Billboard Ads of All Time.” Then McDonald’s showed up with cowboy fringe made of French fries, making my whole article on billboards feel instantly incomplete. One image. Three seconds. No logo. No slogan. Just leather strips that, if you look close enough, are golden fries hanging from a Western …
Most brands are invisible. Not because they have a bad product. Because they have no real difference. That’s not a positioning problem. It’s a differentiation problem. And no framework ever invented has solved it. I’ve sat through every branding framework ever invented. Blue Ocean Strategy. Impressive concept. Built for business school presentations. Never grew a …
Everyone can generate a logo in 30 seconds now. Most of them look professionally designed. Clean. Modern. On-trend. Completely forgettable. And that’s not a bug in the AI era of branding. It’s the feature. Because what AI has done is expose the single most dangerous assumption in business: that looking professional is the same as …
Here’s what nobody at Interbrand or Landor is going to tell you. AI is not the threat. AI is a mirror. And what it’s reflecting back at most brands is a wall of beige so thick you could spread it on toast. Better prompts won’t save you. Better tools won’t save you. The brands breaking …
While everyone is busy chasing the AI tool of their choice, here’s a brutal fact: everyone’s chasing the wrong AI tool. To drive this home, the brilliantly talented Caleb Ralston (the secret strategist behind Gary Vee and Alex Hormozi, two of the biggest personal brands in the world) sheds light on this topic: “My goal …
This year, it was an honor working with Taliesin Preservation in Spring Green, Wisconsin, the organization that owns and operates Riverview Terrace Cafe, The Wright Gift Shop, and provides tours of Taliesin — the 800-acre home, studio, and estate of legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Interested in seeing further examples of effective branding? Here’s what …
Welcome to the AI World—where speed is cheap, content is cloned, and originality? Originality. Now that’s premium real estate. But let’s get something straight: AI isn’t coming for your career.It’s coming for our excuses. We’re all in the AI World now. But don’t confuse “automation” with “authority.” In this new world, the biggest differentiatorisn’t your …
CEO excellence is built on something invisible: Ideas. Recently, Stu Sjouwerman, CEO of KnowBe4, the global leader in Security Awareness Training, put out the original version of THE KNOWSTER PLAYBOOK as low-cost as possible to make it super easy for 2000+ Knowsters worldwide to buy it and read their own physical copy. Stu had one …
Jaguar went neon models. Mercedes went chicken. Neither ad showed product. One worked. The other had the lifespan of a crash-dummy test. Jaguar’s recent ad campaign was a spectacle of neon-colored models. Where were the cars? What was the message? It felt more like a fashion show on LSD than a car commercial. By contrast, …
Santa’s got his list, and he’s checking it twice — but this year, there’s a curveball: David Brier’s new book, Rich Brand Poor Brand: How to Unleash Your David in a World of Goliaths. Will David and his book land on the “Nice” list or stir up so much branding controversy that it’s considered downright mischievous? Let’s dive in. …
Loyalty doesn’t mean conformity or tolerating a “cancel culture” environment. Let that sink in. True loyalty involves critical thinking because one is being loyal to the overall purpose, not merely saying “yes” because it’s the acceptable thing to do. Here’s the kicker: Cancel culture doesn’t just “happen.” It thrives where weak leaders reign—where toxic workplaces …
Oh, that new Jaguar logo and rebrand? “Disaster” doesn’t even scratch the surface. They’ve officially downgraded from sleek predator to confused house cat. “What some call strategy, others call tragedy.” This is the brand that gave us the E-Type—literal sex on wheels—once called “the most beautiful car ever made” by Enzo Ferrari. And now? A …
Recently, I wrote an article on “clear brand messaging” and it was so popular, I decided to write this follow-up article on “Clear Brand Messaging in 2024.” Because customers today demand more. They are skeptical. They’ve been overpromised and underdelivered to. How does a brand succeed in this climate? Forget shouting louder. Here’s how to …
Are you one of the nonprofits lost in the sea of sameness? If so, you’re losing donors, supporters, and volunteers. And I am talking about something you have 100% control over: your brand. Having just completed two new nonprofit brands, I decided to write this new article to help nonprofits slay some dragons. Let’s dive in. …
The curly hair market is projected to hit $5.6 billion by 2033. Brands are piling in. Shelves are jammed. Every bottle, every jar, every tube makes the same three promises: definition, moisture, and frizz control. It’s a wall of beige with prettier labels. And sexier promises. So here is the question nobody in beauty is …
In the world of relentless marketing and fleeting attention spans, there are power moves too many businesses ignore or skim over: time exchanged precedes money exchanged. And the most startling part? There are 5 exact stages every prospect goes through: Remember: before exchanging a single dollar, your audience gives you something much more valuable. It’s …
Before I answer what’s next for 2024, I wanted to look at what happened in 2023. I’ve broken this information into the following sections: Let’s get started, shall we? 2023: The Year of AI Of course, AI was on everyone’s radar. AI appealed to everyone’s desire to get the most done with the least effort …
In an age where everyone’s screaming for attention, most brands sound like broken records, replacing “clear brand messaging” with something “cool and clever.” “We’re the best,” they shout. “Choose us!” But here’s a disruptive thought: What if the secret sauce isn’t in shouting louder but speaking more clearly? The Myth of Differentiation: Brand Messaging Liberated …
Businesses today are asking the wrong questions to master storytelling. Business today must know how to frame their conversations. Otherwise, people still look at the world through the same lens and come to the same old conclusions. Having the wrong conversations about their roles and brands costs businesses relevance, sustainability, and customers. Businesses today must …
I recently spoke with Matt George, an executive coach providing Leadership Education at Harvard to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. He’s someone who’s raised tens of millions of dollars for a non-profit he ran for 30 years. Matt is a rare breed who unites empathy and compassion with hungry entrepreneurialism. In our discussion, one thing …
The Two Business Tools to Master: Positioning & Differentiation. Positioning Achieves Familiarity. Difference Achieves Relevance.Here’s how:
Don Draper’s pitch for Kodak’s slide projector, “The Wheel,” is considered by many to be the best pitch in advertising history. Kodak executives had decided to call their invention “The Wheel,” a move Draper considered a major misstep. In the hit television show “Mad Men” set in the ’60s in an era when cigarette smoke …
There’s a problem in branding today, and the #1 reason why small businesses fail: a lack of understanding the difference between branding and marketing and their actual relationship to sales. Ask Gary Vaynerchuk and he’ll tell you: “The difference between branding and sales is simple. Are you trying to convert or are you trying to …
