I still smile when I recall, as a young designer, a client once insisted I fill the white space in his advertisement with ‘content’. Otherwise, he said, he wasn’t getting his money’s worth. These days, I pretty much never hear this argument. White space, as it turns out, has value. …

Once a popular artist’s work enters the public domain, it seems it’s only a matter of time before it’s appropriated by some brand. But when it comes to the art of a celebrated icon, a brand needs to be worthy of the association. Apple’s “Think Different” campaign was associated with…

Over the last few years, our team has been undertaking audience research for a number of institutions which fundraise. For the most part, we’ve uncovered strong audience-institution affinity. However, some of these studies have raised questions about whether certain communications practices might be eroding audience goodwill. While there is plenty…

When I was a young entrepreneur, I was hungry to learn about the ad business. I asked the owner of a large independent ad agency if he’d be open to meet for a drink. He obliged. John built his agency by servicing a market that most agencies ignored — manufacturing…

Being a branding professional, something about Simon Sinek’s iconic book ‘Start with Why’ always felt a tad off. It seems I may be alone on this. Over the last ten years or more, I’ve watched the branding industry happily jump on the ‘why’ bandwagon. At first blush, ‘why’ branding proponents…

The world advances on the collective learning and experience of previous generations. Likewise, in corporate culture, hard-won knowledge is packaged and shared as best practises for the continued benefit of the company. This only becomes a problem when corporate culture inadvertently supports blind adherence to best practises. It’s not hard…

Our best corporate branding engagements start with the CEO. If we are in the same room with the CEO, you can bet that branding strategy is being understood as business strategy. That said, more often we see branding engagements being led by marketing or communications. While this is understandable…

Stories are fundamental in branding. A story can differentiate what would otherwise be an unremarkable brand by anchoring its value proposition emotionally and culturally. I’ve been reading the autobiography of Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. …

I know of a CEO who believes branding is a low priority for her company, a private equity firm, because it enjoys a strong word-of-mouth reputation. While I suspect that her company is prioritizing branding activities without understanding them as such, let’s take what she says at face value. In simple terms, a brand is what the market believes about you, and branding is your ability to shape the market narrative.