Dive deep into business, brand and strategy.
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You don’t really build a brand
This post is a commentary on this and this. This is a fascinating take on brand building, but I think there’s a deeper insight hiding beneath the surface that few are discussing. Yes, great brands are built by entire organizations, not just marketing teams. But here’s the counterintuitive part –…
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Help! My LinkedIn feed is drowning in ‘experts’
Ever notice how surgeons don’t put “Heart Expert 🫀” in their LinkedIn bio? They’re too busy, you know, doing actual heart surgery. Yet scroll through LinkedIn for 30 seconds, and you’ll drown in a sea of “thought leaders,” “visionaries,” and, my personal favourite, “expert strategists” who love to say, “We’re…
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The Delusion of “Brand Positioning”
The world has gone bananas. Let’s end this nonsense. If you’re using the term “brand positioning,” you’re probably thinking about it wrong. Here’s why this matters more than you think. First, let’s clear something up: There’s no such thing as “brand positioning.” There’s just positioning. And the difference isn’t just…
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the first 180 days as the Sr. Director of Brand Strategy at Ford Motor Company
See Elle McCarthy’s post first. What caught my attention was the framing of “brand as an operating system.” This isn’t just semantics, it’s a fundamental shift from viewing brand as marketing to understanding it as the atomic core that drives every business decision. The first six months in this role…
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Starbucks’ Positioning Crisis
Mark Ritson’s analysis of Starbucks’ positioning struggles reveals a fundamental truth about modern business: positioning isn’t about mission statements or marketing – it’s about what a business fundamentally is. The coffee giant’s challenge goes deeper than flowery language; it’s about the gap between aspiration and reality. The Fundamental Misunderstanding Look…
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You’re Asking The Wrong Question About Brand Identity
Dave Gerhardt recently shared insights from CMOs about what keeps them up at night. One response caught my attention: “Positioning. We have a new brand and identity. How do we position the company’s new identity to both our existing customers and the market? While not disrupting everything else in the…
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If you think you’re an expert you’re full of shit
I don’t believe in experts, and neither should you. In a world captivated by expertise, it might seem audacious, even reckless, to question the value of being an “expert.” Yet, calling oneself an expert can be as limiting as it is empowering. It implies an endpoint to learning, a belief…
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How Four Car Brands Own Your Mind
If you think safety, you think Volvo. It’s automatic. Instant. You didn’t choose this association – it’s simply there, living rent-free in your mind. And that’s not an accident. It’s the result of perfect positioning. But here’s what most people get wrong about positioning: They think it’s about marketing messages,…
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How to transform a publicly traded company in three easy steps
TLDR: it’s not rocket science; relax. Recently, I did a live series on YouTube called DesignOver—Business Transformation Live. The goal was simple: Show, don’t tell. In season one, I guided the audience through a business transformation for DCM, a publicly traded company. Throughout the series, we focused on a comprehensive…
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From can to content: selling superhuman
In 1992, a jet-lagged Austrian businessman slumps in a Bangkok hotel room. Dietrich Mateschitz, a toothpaste marketing expert, reaches for a local energy tonic, Krating Daeng. The effect is immediate, almost miraculous. “I was jet-lagged, but suddenly, I was wide awake,” Mateschitz recalled. At that moment, a global phenomenon was…
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Do you have a positioning problem?
In a hyper-competitive business landscape, companies rise and fall based on a single, often misunderstood concept: positioning. Far from being just another marketing buzzword, positioning is the very essence of your business, the DNA that determines your company’s success or failure. In this article, together, we’ll dive head first into…
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Founder mode
In his essay “Founder Mode,” Paul Graham argues that the conventional wisdom about scaling startups — by hiring professional managers and delegating authority — often does more harm than good. He suggests that founders must stay deeply involved in their companies’ operations, even if it means upending traditional org charts…
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