Will enlightened consumers stop buying your brand promise?20211221184049
Will enlightened consumers stop buying your brand promise?
December 21, 20210 comments
Consumers have relationships with brands. But if they stop buying into the brand promise, it’s bad news for the relationship. Brands were created to make us happy – for a fleeting moment, ...
Want powerful brand communication? Just ask.20210823181134
Want powerful brand communication? Just ask.
August 23, 20210 comments
Here’s my deepest, darkest secret. I’ve never actually created brand communication for a client. They do all the work themselves. No, they don’t mail in sketches and taglines. I just chat with t...
Evaluating creative ideas20210823041612
Evaluating creative ideas
August 23, 20210 comments
When it comes to developing breakthrough brand work, evaluating ideas is crucial. After all, what might seem like a brilliant creative idea at first blush could turn out to all flash and no persuasion...
The seven commandments of brand management20210329180134
The seven commandments of brand management
March 29, 20210 comments
If you want to do brand management right, you can’t be afraid of playing with the DNA a bit (actually, that’s commandment number 3 below). Thus ‘seven commandments’ instead of ...
Building a brand with soul20210322180952
Building a brand with soul
March 22, 20210 comments
The definition of icon is ‘a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol or worthy of veneration’. A brand represents your company. So, technically, it’s an icon. But is it worthy of ven...
Everything you want to know about brand positioning.20210210010428
Everything you want to know about brand positioning.
February 10, 20210 comments
Some brand issues never lose relevance, never go out of fashion, never get ‘solved’ – brand positioning is at the top of that heap. No matter how shiny your technology, lack of prope...
Brand power: building it in a lowest-bid-wins world20201207002943
Brand power: building it in a lowest-bid-wins world
December 7, 20200 comments
Building brand power. Easy? No. Possible? Absolutely. Brands have been with us since the dawn of humanity. Even in prehistoric times, things like face paint and feathers in our hair identified our tri...
Inspired marketing: enter the manifesto brand20201018230026
Inspired marketing: enter the manifesto brand
October 18, 20200 comments
Could a manifesto brand be the secret to bringing clarity, alignment and reinforcement to your company? A focused brand simplifies your marketing. Like a person, it tells you how it likes to dress, wa...
Getting your brand story right… finally!20200916184240
Getting your brand story right… finally!
September 16, 20200 comments
A great brand story is pure voodoo. It ‘sticks’ in the listener’s mind better than any brand features or benefits. In fact, this makes the brand story the perfect vehicle for conveyi...
Can you explain your brand in 90 seconds?20200720021522
Can you explain your brand in 90 seconds?
July 20, 20200 comments
People love to connect with other people. We’re wired to pick up subtle cues from their words and body language, which enable us to quickly determine if they’re trustworthy or not. It̵...
Does your Brand Name Need Fixing? (P.S. It’s Easy)20200611000700
Does your Brand Name Need Fixing? (P.S. It’s Easy)
June 11, 20200 comments
A bad brand name is one of the most consistent forms of self-sabotage I see in marketing today. Ironically, it’s also one of the easiest fixes around. There’s is no reason to stick with a ...
How does your brand respond to corona virus?20200315183018
How does your brand respond to corona virus?
March 15, 20200 comments
Taking affirmative action to protect your brand’s customers is the right thing to do. But is there an opportunity to leverage your brand attributes to do… more? The world is in the grip of...
Brand positioning: a great shortcut20200310224638
Brand positioning: a great shortcut
March 10, 20200 comments
If you market for a living, you understand brand positioning is a complex process where you read the tea leaves on your brand, your competitors’ brands, and (most important) consumer preferences...
Using creative dissonance to build surprising brands20200109161024
Using creative dissonance to build surprising brands
January 9, 20200 comments
When you’re building a brand, what makes it truly spectacular? A great brand can be the culmination of a single minded vision. But in my experience, the best, most surprising brands come from br...
Make your next presentation a brand promise20200104184500
Make your next presentation a brand promise
January 4, 20200 comments
In my experience, brand promise and keynote speech are rarely treated as one in the same. That’s a terrific waste of a wonderful opportunity. Yes, executives deliver keynotes to profile their co...
How to hone your authentic brand20200103205107
How to hone your authentic brand
January 3, 20200 comments
‘Authentic brand’ is the cliche du jour – everyone wants one, but few people understand what it really entails. Google ‘Create an authentic brand’, and you get plenty of ...
What’s in this coffee? The unlikely rise of McDonald’s brand brew.20190514230937
What’s in this coffee? The unlikely rise of McDonald’s brand brew.
May 14, 20190 comments
The other day, I was strolling through Costco, and saw McDonald’s brand coffee pods on sale. I was amazed – not so long ago, I was working on the McDonald’s account as a creative dir...
Fear, Halloween, and Brand Thinking20181101222311
Fear, Halloween, and Brand Thinking
November 1, 20180 comments
I love connecting tangents that don’t obviously belong together. That’s why, in honour of Halloween, I did a bit of research into the correlation between fear and brand thinking. Crazy? Ac...
Is it time your brand reinvented the ordinary?20180919033035
Is it time your brand reinvented the ordinary?
September 19, 20180 comments
Paul Lavoie, an old friend of mine, built an incredibly successful ad agency brand. Lavoie is a brand unto himself, as anyone who has ever seen him or heard him speak will attest. But when he retired ...
What do authoritarians and brands have in common?20180718012213
What do authoritarians and brands have in common?
July 18, 20180 comments
This week, politics took a turn for the surreal as US President Trump kowtowed before Russian President Putin in Helsinki. What is the allure of Putin? And why are we witnessing the proliferation of a...
Make your landing page your hardest-working brand tool20180604201950
Make your landing page your hardest-working brand tool
June 4, 20180 comments
Long, long ago, in a time before landing pages, I used to build brand bibles for my clients. These ‘bibles’ were repositories of everything great and good about their brand, including: The...
How to brand in the gig economy20180528045157
How to brand in the gig economy
May 28, 20180 comments
A brand is, by definition, the equivalent of reputation – and in today’s gig economy, reputation is what enables solopreneurs and entrepreneurs to survive and thrive. But there’s a f...
Why you don’t need to be the product expert to be the product marketer20180219041325
Why you don’t need to be the product expert to be the product marketer
February 19, 20180 comments
My job as a product marketer is to find the core truth in the brand we’re selling. The core truth is what people say about our product, unprompted and off the cuff. If we can capture that truth ...
Let your competitors do your brand positioning for you20180208055612
Let your competitors do your brand positioning for you
February 8, 20180 comments
Brand positioning isn’t an esoteric term. It’s all about my mom. My mom was looking for a new mini-SUV. I took her shopping, intent on impressing on her the infinite superiority of my cl...
The power of a visual brand20180118000309
The power of a visual brand
January 18, 20180 comments
There simply is nothing more powerful than a visual brand – a brand you can identify without words by simply seeing a powerful icon. That’s why, as part of virtually every brand project, I...
Storytelling, and the antidote to the accumulation nation20180116005010
Storytelling, and the antidote to the accumulation nation
January 16, 20180 comments
Didn’t See It Coming usually explores brands that learn from the past, look to the future, and profit because of it today. But every once in a while, you meet someone who has such a terrific sto...
Brand shorthand: the power of brand templates20180104001405
Brand shorthand: the power of brand templates
January 4, 20180 comments
Say you’ve just created a powerful campaign to market a complex product (a car, for example, or a real estate development). Then, a couple of key people on the business are transferred onto anot...
Building the solopreneur brand20180102001209
Building the solopreneur brand
January 2, 20180 comments
Building a solopreneur brand is as tough as being a solopreneur. As a solopreneur myself, I know it’s difficult to choose a tight niche, and build my brand around it – it’s simply to...
Which brand platform is best? (Spoiler alert: any of them)20171221001046
Which brand platform is best? (Spoiler alert: any of them)
December 21, 20170 comments
Today, choosing how to effectively communicate can feel like drinking from a firehose. There are simply too many platforms for marketing your message. More often than not, the overabundance of choice ...
From Unique Selling Proposition to Unique Ownable Speciality20171121000830
From Unique Selling Proposition to Unique Ownable Speciality
November 21, 20170 comments
Over the course of the last three BrandDIY posts (you can check them out here, here and here) we’ve done some heavy lifting. Specifically, we’ve figured out what you think your brand does ...
Want to build brand awareness with a publicity stunt? Read this first20171003000501
Want to build brand awareness with a publicity stunt? Read this first
October 3, 20170 comments
(Photo: Lululemon’s legendary ‘Show Up Naked And Get Free Gear’ stunt generated terrific brand awareness) In the age of social media, a publicity stunt can be a boon for your brand a...
Fun with brand research (no, really)20170919004151
Fun with brand research (no, really)
September 19, 20170 comments
If you read my last brandDIY post, you’re probably all revved up about your brand’s Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Truth is, the fun is only half done. In this story, we kick it up a no...
Brand backcasting – envision the future, then plan how to get there.20170718005129
Brand backcasting – envision the future, then plan how to get there.
July 18, 20170 comments
Over the course of 25 years of helping clients build effective brands, I’ve discovered a huge, yawning gap in the market: commonsense brand building techniques aimed at entrepreneurs who want to...
What goes into a Brand Bible?20170620003026
What goes into a Brand Bible?
June 20, 20170 comments
I love launching new brands. In fact, I’m currently helping four startups either conceive their brand from scratch or rethink their brand as they start to get traction and need to position thems...
Brexit, Trump, and the dumbed down brand20170502021623
Brexit, Trump, and the dumbed down brand
May 2, 20170 comments
If you’re a brand builder, your goal is to build a simple brand – not a dumbed down brand. The rationale is easy to grasp. A brand is designed to simplify complex concepts. But in the real...
Brand betrayal: the tale of Tim Hortons20170418004212
Brand betrayal: the tale of Tim Hortons
April 18, 20170 comments
A recent Globe and Mail story described the ‘brutal’ brand betrayal of beloved Canadian restaurant Tim Hortons. The cause of the messy shift? Budget cuts by Tim’s new owners – ...
Pepsi, Kendall Jenner, and brand disaster20170411020050
Pepsi, Kendall Jenner, and brand disaster
April 11, 20170 comments
Recently, Pepsi pulled a monumental brand disaster of an ad starring Kendall Jenner as the girl who, well, solved social injustice with a fist bump and soda. The ad was so wrong on so many fronts. Ins...
How to bring marketing integrity back? Just ask consumers.20170117001012
How to bring marketing integrity back? Just ask consumers.
January 17, 20170 comments
There is no better way to demonstrate marketing integrity than by letting your customers tell your story for you. Sadly, where there’s an opportunity, there’s an opportunity to scam the sy...
The Matchmaker for Better Brand Agency Relationships20161206004612
The Matchmaker for Better Brand Agency Relationships
December 6, 20160 comments
The world of brands – like the world in general – is becoming more complex. Where the rule was once to find an ‘integrated’ agency capable of handling all your brand needs, the...
How to build (and kill) brand image20161115002350
How to build (and kill) brand image
November 15, 20160 comments
With the recent release of the Gustavson Brand Trust Index, I was invited on CFAX talk radio to chat about how to build brand image – and how to destroy it. You can join host Mark Brennae and my...
Trump, Clinton, and the rebirth of Brand USA20161103003624
Trump, Clinton, and the rebirth of Brand USA
November 3, 20160 comments
To the world, brand USA has always been about more than a country – it represented an idea of dreams pursued and happiness attained. Now, with the impending US election, that concept has taken a...
Want a brand that thrives into the future? Learn to decode happiness today.20160601014001
Want a brand that thrives into the future? Learn to decode happiness today.
June 1, 20160 comments
Brands sell happiness. And, of course, brands sell perennial unhappiness. They’re two sides of the same coin – on the one hand, we promise consumers that their next purchase will make them...
Culture and the Futureproof Brand20160520153951
Culture and the Futureproof Brand
May 20, 20160 comments
Culture is a word everyone in the corporate world uses, but few understand. What we do know is that companies with strong cultures outperform their rivals in everything from customer engagement to emp...
Cleantech marketers, simplify your pitch!20160405045948
Cleantech marketers, simplify your pitch!
April 5, 20160 comments
Cleantech Canada asked me to write a series of op-ed pieces on effectively branding technology. This story describes how to make your pitch simpler, and more compelling. Enjoy!...
Are you a digital slave?20160405044940
Are you a digital slave?
April 5, 20160 comments
In this podcast, I brainstorm with behavioral psychologist John Marshall Roberts on the causes of our dependence on our digital devices, what that means for brands, and how we can break free. Enjoy!...
Creating a durable brand in a throwaway world20160120015031
Creating a durable brand in a throwaway world
January 20, 20160 comments
In this podcast, I address the bugbear of modern marketing – planned obsolescence. Personally, I love brands like Patagonia and Blancpain – brands that market themselves as durable and eve...
Turning Ugly Constraints into Beautiful Innovation.20150723160409
Turning Ugly Constraints into Beautiful Innovation.
July 23, 20150 comments
I had the opportunity to interview ‘A Beautiful Constraint’ co-author Mark Barden a short while back (if you’d like to hear the interview, click onto the podcast here). The interview...
What the Heck is an Authentic Brand, Anyway?20150630100009
What the Heck is an Authentic Brand, Anyway?
June 30, 20150 comments
I should know this. I’m a brand specialist. But again and again, I find myself throwing authentic brand around in conversation, enjoying the feeling of gravitas it lends, without actually understandin...
What Dying Brands Do. The Didn’t See It Coming Podcast.20150423231650
What Dying Brands Do. The Didn’t See It Coming Podcast.
April 23, 20150 comments
In this Didn’t See It Coming podcast, host Ian Jessop and I discuss how respected brands die. In actual fact, there are several well-documented hallmarks of brand decay: the shift from ra...
Didn’t See It Coming 1: The Podcast20150417203914
Didn’t See It Coming 1: The Podcast
April 17, 20150 comments
For those of you unfamiliar with my book Didn’t See It Coming, this podcast should help. It’s the first in an ongoing series, pulled from my monthly radio appearances on CFAX radio....
The importance of building a bridge brand.20150309200219
The importance of building a bridge brand.
March 9, 20150 comments
So here’s the scenario. You’ve created a product you believe in, and built a company around it. You’ve gone to the (considerable) trouble of wrapping all that in a beautiful brand – website, logo, adv...
Can your brand survive cultural chaos?20150303043503
Can your brand survive cultural chaos?
March 3, 20150 comments
Culture for people is a bit like water for fish. Most of us don’t know we have one, although we plainly see cultural biases in those outside our group—biases that stop them from seeing the world as it...
You want authenticity? Check the toilet.20150302203435
You want authenticity? Check the toilet.
March 2, 20150 comments
At a recent speaking engagement, I was exploring approaches to building authenticity into brands. My audience, a group of raucous CEO’s jonesing for a quick hit of inspiration, weren’t being shy about...
