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There are brands we genuinely love choosing. They make our work easier. They help us perform better. They may even say something meaningful about who we are. In the beginning, the dynamic is simple and elegant: the brand creates real value, and in return, we \u{2026}

The one thing we marketers want more than anything else is people’s time. We have all kinds of metrics to track it. Indeed, it’s the thing we track most, more so than spending and usage. We want people to like, follow, share and comment. We \u{2026}

It is difficult to avoid politics these days. Right now, both political brands are becoming parties that do not stand for anything but stand against everything or stand for everything. Having a relevant, differentiated brand promise applies whether you are a political entity or a \u{2026}

The role of CEO is a success label. Wall Street and investors view the CEO as the fiduciary leader who will drive an enterprise’s performance to greater shareholder financial results. The shareholder mindset tends to be short-term rather than long-term, which puts brands at a \u{2026}

There once was an upheaval at IBM; a David and Goliath moment. That was when personal computers, namely Apple, entered our landscape. The world became divided into Macs and IBM PC’s. The genericization of the Mac alternative led to a proliferation of non-IBM PC offerings \u{2026}

One of the most difficult tasks for brand marketers is aligning an enterprise around a corporate Brand Purpose (North Star) and Brand Promise. Gaining adherents rather than mere acceptors is a difficult goal. Regions and local sectors tend to push back on global brand dictates, \u{2026}

You are likely focused on the next round of innovations in the pipeline and how you will elevate and communicate the attributes and features of these new products at launch. Familiar territory for the vast majority of day-to-day marketing assignments and priorities. Yet the consumer \u{2026}

Bear with me as I wax philosophical. It’s a circuitous path, but it will loop us to AI. So here goes. In his sweeping, turn-of-the-century account of Western culture and ideas since the Enlightenment, From Dawn to Decadence, historian Jacques Barzun used the term decadence \u{2026}

Branding Strategy Insider helps marketing-oriented leaders and professionals build stronger brands and make better brand decisions. Over the years, BSI readers have brought us questions about positioning, differentiation, customer relevance, brand leadership, growth, and the changing role of marketing. Today’s question comes from Jennifer, a \u{2026}

The most consequential brand decisions are often made before anyone calls them brand decisions. Leadership chooses markets, customers, products, pricing, acquisitions, distribution, and growth priorities. Marketing is then asked to develop a brand strategy around those choices. At that point, the brand has already been \u{2026}

Companies think of website performance as a technical KPI. It’s something developers measure after launch and marketers glance at when Core Web Vitals reports come in. That’s understandable, but it misses something important. This article is part of Branding Strategy Insider’s FREE newsletter. Join the \u{2026}

The adage that history repeats itself is no more apparent than the current state of affairs at Nissan North America. The Wall Street Journal’s interview with Christian Meunier, head of Nissan NA, is so frighteningly similar to 1999 that I had to catch my breath. \u{2026}

In the early 1990s, two Russian artists, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, took the unusual step of hiring a market research firm. Their brief was simple. Understand what Americans desire most in a work of art. Over 11 days, the researchers at Marttila & Kiley \u{2026}

Jack Welch, renowned CEO of General Electric, used to say that your business should be #1 or #2 in your market. If not, get out. This belief was derived from the famous PIMS work begun in the 1960s. Initiated at General Electric, PIMS, Profit Impact \u{2026}

AI can create content. It can analyze markets. It can generate ideas, optimize campaigns, personalize experiences, and increasingly act on behalf of customers. But it cannot decide what a brand should stand for. It cannot determine which opportunities are worth pursuing, which promises should remain \u{2026}

In 1967, the song “San Francisco” by Scott McKenzie described “a whole generation, with a new explanation.” The line still captures a central challenge for brands today. Customers continually redefine what they want from the products they choose: more health, less sugar, greater functionality, better \u{2026}

Some of the most consequential decisions a brand makes never arrive looking consequential. They appear as cost decisions. Growth plans. New operating models. Policy changes. Shifts in KPIs. Over time, these choices accumulate into patterns that shape what is rewarded and what is overlooked; what \u{2026}

The buzzword in marketing right now is AI. Well, acronym, that is. But either way, AI is all the rage. Every firm of every sort is working hard to incorporate AI into every process, every output and every pitch. It’s AI or bust. It’s not \u{2026}

Perhaps the most interesting thing about AI is that it is new yet nothing new. AI is certainly new to marketing, and bringing all sorts of new challenges with it, although it may not be as big as headlines would have us believe. Last year, \u{2026}

With audience attention becoming increasingly fragmented across platforms and formats, visibility alone is no longer sufficient to ensure meaningful engagement. Brands continue to produce a high volume of content and activations, but the gap between output and audience response has widened. Exposure does not guarantee \u{2026}