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Brand Campaigns, Part 3: How Does Brand Advertising Work?
“As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.” – John Wheeler To understand how brand advertising works or doesn’t work, we must first understand how all advertising works....
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Why Rebrand? Or Better Yet, Why Not?
If 20-plus years of brand consulting have taught me anything, it’s that rebranding is (and should be) a huge pain in the arse. Taken seriously, a rebrand touches every part of an organisation: It...
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Enter the AI-powered Mascot Paradigm of Brand Personification
Mark Zuckerberg launched Threads as a competitor of the microblogging platform X (formerly Twitter), with the platform gaining 30 million users within the first few hours after launch and crossing 100...
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Brand Campaigns, Part 4: Why and When Should You Use Them?
Every marketer is inspired by famous video commercials, especially early in their career. You know, those emotional, cinematic ads from brands we all know and love. Ads that tug at our heart strings,...
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Disconnected Sound in the License-Obsessed Land of High Fashion
In today’s highly competitive market, luxury fashion brands often seek innovative ways to enhance their brand image and captivate their target audience. One popular method is by association with an...
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Brand Campaigns, Part 5.1: Thinking Different about Apple’s “Think Different”...
In case you got the wrong idea, I’m not anti-advertising, anti-agency, or anti-brand. I just don’t have the luxury of entertaining company activity that doesn’t contribute to the bottom line. That’s...
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Brand Campaigns, Part 5.2: Debunking Apple’s “Greatest Ad of All Time”
“Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.” – Phaedrus This article is a direct follow-on from Part...
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Why Are African Brands Not Going Global at Scale?
I traveled out of Nigeria for the first time in 2019, on a short business trip to Dubai–an experience that left me with a huge aftershock. Though a significant number of Africans (up to 8% of the...
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Solid Branding Means Niching for a Person, Not a Market
“Zoom in and obsess. Zoom out and observe. We get to choose.” Rick Rubin wrote this in his recent book, The Creative Act. And it sums up (almost) perfectly how I feel about branding and how to do it...
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Brand Strategy Spoilers: Stopping the Clock on Consumer Time Barriers
This is the seventh installment in my Brand Strategy Spoilers series, which unpacks the decision-making factors that explain shopper and consumer behavior. Specifically, the four drivers of behavior...
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As with Human Evolution, Brand Growth Is Found Amidst Dichotomies
I centered my high school thesis on the wonderfully-written dichotomies that fill Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. A foreigner myself, I was fascinated by the fact that a non-native speaker could...
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ESG Empowerment: Brands Should Listen to Employees, Not Reactionary Politicians
Despite world temperatures rising and extreme weather instances growing, many governments and politicians are taking the unfortunate step of rowing back on their ESG (environmental, social, and...
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The Cost of a Bad Employer Brand
Employer branders love to talk about the amazing impacts of investing in your employer brand. From attracting more applicants and higher offer acceptance rates to increasing talent retention and...
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Why Fashion Needs to Find Its Voice
There’s no denying it. Visuals have always been in fashion’s driver seat. It makes complete sense, right? The drama of a runway show perfectly executed, culture and subcultures manifested through...
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Blanding: Untangling the nuanced knot of brand design
How I loved going to watch Tottenham Hotspur play at White Hart Lane. I wasn’t a season ticket holder, so all I could afford was the unimportant midweek matches. I’d cycle up High Rd after work and...
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Ever Thought How Service Agreements Define Your Brand Promise?
Insurance company Geico consistently communicates its brand promise of “15 minutes or less can save you 15% or more on car insurance.” Some say it’s masterful because it: Publicly communicates to...
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Brand Outliers: Maggie Murphy & the Equal-Playing Football Club
Maggie Murphy is CEO of Lewes FC, a fan-owned and community focused football club in the UK famous for being the first team in the world to commit to equal playing budgets for their women’s and men’s...
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Employee Value Propositions Aren’t Really Working
Thirty-some years ago, when Simon Barrow brought product marketing and brand thinking to the world of hiring, it was supposed to bring about a revolution in talent acquisition and recruiting. The...
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Connection Through Collaboration: Brand Remix Culture and Gen Z’s Sonic Youth
Gen Z, the generation that has saturated news cycles and dominated social media, wields the unique power to make (or break) brands as they permeate digital channels. This young adult demographic–made...
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Personal Brand Narratives: From Self-Assessment to Strategic Content
The conversation around personal branding is not new, but we’ve seen an increase in interest around the subject in the last few years. This is mainly due to the increasing demand for people to rise...
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