Branding Strategy Insider

As we approach America’s 250th birthday, our celebrations reflect on the greatness of our country. Inherent in our celebrations is the belief that America is a great land. America is a great brand. As Americans, we are owners of brand America. As a brand owner, you might have ideas about what a great brand is. What does being a great brand mean to us? Putting politics aside, please, let’s look at the components of a...

Just notice something. Think of a team you’ve been part of. Or maybe the one you’re in right now. And ask yourself, honestly: does it feel clear? Not organized. Not busy. But clear. Many of us were originally taught to treat clarity as a communication problem. Something to fix with a better meeting, a sharper brief, a more aligned deck. And so we kept adjusting words, hoping that feeling would follow. Over the years, working...

Allbirds, the sustainable sneaker brand once the de rigueur shoe for Seattle and Silicon Valley Techs, has sold its assets and intellectual property at a shocking discount. The once high-flying sneaker brand has finally lost its wings. This is not a surprise. For the last four or five years, Allbirds has been struggling and constantly selling on deal. Four years ago, I wrote about Allbirds: “According to The Wall Street Journal, Allbirds, once a Silicon...

Entertainment and brand architecture are now front and center as the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger unfolds. New York Magazine has a story about David Ellison and what Mr. Ellison may or may not do with Paramount and Warner Bros. once the Warner Bros. purchase finalizes. If you are interested in brands, skip the juicy parts of the New York Magazine story and hone in on this paragraph: “Ellison now has $79 billion in debt and a...

There is much angst about the state of advertising. Various commentators in the industry and in the general media have bemoaned a creativity crisis, which is attributed to everything from short-termism to artificial intelligence to the fragmentation of media. There is some evidence that advertising’s persuasive power has declined in recent years. It is less clear that this decline is attributable to a lessening of creativity in advertising. If advertising fails to deliver results, the...

Bain publishes a good analysis every year of so-called insurgent brands in the U.S. FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) market. For the past few years, these small brands have captured a disproportionate share of annual growth. This year’s analysis reports that in 2025 insurgent brands accounted for 36% of aggregate growth across all FMCG categories, which seems pretty impressive given that they comprise an aggregate share of less than 2%. But this headline-grabbing factoid leaves the...

For C-suite leaders facing massive disruption whether from AI, tariffs, or global realignment the question of brand positioning is no longer just a marketing issue. It falls on the shoulders of senior leaders to guide the brand, like raising a child new to the world. At the heart of branding is the question: Who are you, really? The unique way you answer that question defines your brand. As a professional mom, I have found guiding...

Peloton, Kohl’s, Target, General Mills, Macy’s have something in common. These brands are engaged in brand turnarounds. Some of these brand turnarounds are brand turnaround-turnarounds, led by smart executive teams, some with new CEOs who offer new strategic approaches. These teams appear to be diligent and creative in improving product offerings. There is just one problem. A product is not a brand. A product is the truth of a brand’s promise. A brand is a...

Amazing about face. In a world where deals and promotions abound, where “conquesting and conquering” customers has become the modus operandi (viz, the streaming brands, the automotive industry) and where value continues to be equated with price alone, Barron’s, the financial newspaper, tells us brand loyalty is “in” again. At least in fast food. Barron’s review indicates that fast food chains are “revamping” their loyalty programs. Fast food chains such as Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Chipotle...

Marketing teams have become exceptionally sophisticated at acquiring traffic. Media efficiency improves each year. Creative testing is constant. Audience targeting continues to evolve. But an overlooked constraint often sits immediately after the click. When website performance deteriorates, it quietly becomes the weakest link in marketing. Slow page loads, broken customer journeys, and inconsistent tracking reduce the value of every marketing dollar before the organization even notices. The damage rarely appears all at once. Instead, it...

Kraft Heinz is having another “brand-wagon moment.” Its new CEO, Steve Cahillane, announced that the organization would be postponing the previously announced split into two separate companies. This was a split that Wall Street hailed as marvelous. CEO Cahillane believes that a resource-funded focus on its stable of core Americana brands  – getting back on the brand wagon – can bring Kraft Heinz back to profitability and, hence, generate shareholder value. Shareholder value has been...

Consumers are using AI as a brand hack. Which says as much about consumers as AI. None of which is good for brands absent significant innovation. In the past, there has been an inherent — and exhaustively studied — asymmetry of information, access, and accountability in every sort of exchange, especially the consumer marketplace. One party to an exchange has always known or controlled more than the other party, giving rise to opportunities and risks....

A brand needs a vision. A brand vision is not just an idea. A brand vision is a determined goal. A brand vision is your definition of a future world in which your brand will win. Without a brand vision, your brand is aimless. The brand vision is the groundwork for your brand strategies. A brand vision is a powerful component for enduring profitable growth. The American jurist and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court,...

The Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl, as we all know. Numerous video recaps of the game, a wide variety of articles, and a lot of insights from observers, sports analysts, and Monday-morning quarterbacks focused on the Seahawks formidable on-field strengths. So, let’s segue to The New York Times, which wrote an intriguing story. It was observed that the Seahawks’ win is also based on building a culture that contemporizes its heritage. Contemporizing a heritage...

Decades ago, in the annals of advertising agency history, BBDO had an approach to creating winning communications. It was called The Four Point Process. The Four Point Process was a really big deal because, at the time, ad agencies had the best, most innovatively profitable research departments in town. The Four Point process made use of BBDO’s groundbreaking – and since widely-copied – Problem Detection Study. On the surface, the BBDO Four Point Process seems...

I have a special spot in my heart for Memory Brands, because I have worked on so many of them and found them to be rather misunderstood. Memory brands are not smaller benchmark brands. They have high awareness. They have distribution. They often have decades of household penetration under their belts. This is comparable to benchmark brands. What they lack is active relevance, which a benchmark often has. They are remembered. They are not chosen...

For years of working with organizations to refine and implement vision and core values, I’ve told the Johnson & Johnson Tylenol story. You’ve probably heard it. In 1982, seven people in the Chicago area mysteriously died after consuming Tylenol. An investigation quickly revealed the victims’ capsules had been laced with cyanide, with no indication of how widespread the threat was. The manufacturer of Tylenol, the legendary company Johnson & Johnson, took no chance. They pulled...

There is no shortage of criticism of marketing organizations. The declining length of tenure of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) and the absence of marketing on boards of directors are well-documented. Such facts seem odd when demand generation and management are the lifeblood of organizations, at least those with a high probability of long-term survival. While such a circumstance may suggest some problems with marketing organizations, it very clearly identifies a problem at the level of...

In 1968, computer scientist Melvin Conway made an observation that’s been shaping how we understand teams and technology ever since: Any system’s design will reflect the communication structure of the organization that created it. Engineers call this Conway’s Law. This article is part of Branding Strategy Insider’s newsletter. Join the world’s smartest marketers and subscribe here for actionable insights delivered directly to your inbox. But it doesn’t just apply to system architecture. It applies to the feel of...

Today, heritage brands occupy a difficult position. Squeezed between private label that sets value and insurgent brands that speak to values. Having worked on several, I have found that they often take the same approach of maximizing margins, targeting younger consumers, and launching line extensions and PPA. But in my experience, “heritage” is not a ‘one size fits all’ strategy. It is a starting condition, and different starting conditions require different discipline*, especially when budgets...