Branding by author and brand expert David Brier

The Lucky Break J.C. Penney Needed (and How Your Brand Can Benefit from Its Mistakes)

In my Fast Company blog, I discuss the nearly $1 billion dollar loss J.C. Penney had in 2012. I also discuss the ignorantly shortsighted comments by ...

My First Google Hangout Interview: “Branded Alive”

Marketing today is filled with so much double-talk and corporate marketing-speak that it makes the DaVinci Code look like a simple crossword puzzle. So, when ...

Turning Clients Into Rock Stars: 4 Who Made It

Clients look to branding professionals to make them and their brands look good. As in, rock star good. Don't actors catapult their careers on the recognition ...

Is Your Business Using the (Ethical) Science of Persuasion?

James Bond. Ferris Bueller. ET. They all had a certain type of persuasion and influence. Persuasion. Even though it's not a 4-letter word, people have strong ...

With YouTube Closing Down, Who Will Win Its 8-Year Competition?

Being the #1 channel for branding and defying gravity, I was so honored to get the call from YouTube advising me about YouTube closing down. I woke up this ...

13 Brand Killers and Why Startups Must Succeed

Startups rule, yet so much is stacked up against their success. (Fact: in the next 24 hours, there will be 18 new businesses that open their doors with 17 of ...

5 Ways to Create a Brand Anybody Will Give a Sh*t About

When I was asked to speak at the American Marketing Association 2 years ago, I decided (following the live presentation) to share my presentation online. That ...

The Oscars, Anne Hathaway, Prom Night Disasters and Your Brand

There are so many awesome products out there waiting to get noticed. With so many small businesses and a dream, few ever graduate to become a true successful ...

Chocolate Makeover at the Fancy Food Show

The Winter Fancy Food Show has been on full display this week. Per their own site, "17,000+ Winter Fancy Food Show attendees discover more than 80,000 products ...

If growth is the fever, is creativity the cure?

"Let's get @#$%&*! creative!" screamed the CEO. Hey, innocent lives are at stake, and all the usual thinking has failed to result in any ...

The Small Business Growth Killer

You knock yourself out to close that client. They close. You’re pumped. Yet, once the project ends, you never hear from them again. So you rinse and ...

Is Your Brand Set Up To Avoid Its Own Fiscal Cliff?

I was reading a good article in the Huffington Post that explains in understandable English what's meant by the term "fiscal cliff." It is explained this ...

“How the Wrong Logo Nearly Destroyed My Marriage”

"You can't save souls in an empty church.... And you can't bore people into buying your product." David Oglivy. (This slightly embellished but true story ...

3 Questions Every Brand Must Answer

"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge." Stephen Hawking Why do some brands grow explosively when others (that could ...

Social Media vs. Branding: Which One’s Losing and Why?

"We're here tonight with two world-class opponents. "In this corner is the current champion, Social Media, the reigning and defending Champion holding the ...

How To Rebrand: 19 Questions To Ask Before You Start

Companies will at some point come to that milestone known as "the rebrand." For some, it happens early on once they've discovered who they really are while with ...

Content Marketing Strategy — Why Mom’s Not The Best Choice

Content Marketing. A modern marketing term almost as popular as Social Media (and we see the trouble many companies got into over that). Then, there's the ...

What’s Killing Your Brand? 33,995 Reasons to Find Out Now

In a video I recently saw by James Wedmore, he reported that every single minute, there are: 2.8 million videos viewed on YouTube 277,000 logins on ...

5 Ironclad Rules of (Economy-crushing) Business Engagement

The sheer volume of impractical business solutions you can find are nearly endless. Too often, I overhear some stupidly shallow conversation or ridiculously ...

Why Brand Development Fails (And What To Do About It)

A brand has a dialog with the world. Some of these dialogs are smart with excellent ROI while others are fruitless wastes of time and money. Yet brand ...

The Branding Mistake Even Smart People Make

Smart business people are great to have on your side to help isolate and eliminate fundamental branding mistakes. Why else do you think business line up and ...

Sharks and Love (Or How To Come Out Of The Shark Tank Alive)

Last week, Daymond John of Shark Tank shared some love by tweeting about my latest Fast Company post, "Best article ever written about Shark Tank..." He ...

Is Your Brand Ordinary or Extraordinary? [infographic]

“Consumers today have become a cynical mob of buyers who believe the reviews and ratings of complete strangers much more readily than your brand's promises and ...

The Great Divide: Why Does One Brand Win and Another Fail?

“A great brand is a necessity, not a luxury,” stated Scott Bedbury, the brand guru whose work with Nike and Starbucks is legendary. Brands need to—and ...

Do Not View (Unless You Have a Chocolate Fix Nearby)

Chocolate can be wonderful. Really. But with all the decades of chocolate marketing, how do you attempt to rise above the noise? Only options: Add to the ...