brand-as-business bit:  Hindsight is 20/20. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the history books of failed brands.  Julian Day, RadioShack’s former Chairman-CEO, probably has a few regrets.  Although Day has been out of RadioShack’s hot seat for a year, his leadership marked the beginning of the brand’s demise. With Best Buy fighting for its […]

If you’re looking for hot topics and insights on brands, businesses, and the people who work on them, here’s a digest of my content from the past month: brand experience: McDonald’s Metro: Lipstick on a Pig – a post about how McDonald’s new Metro concept only looks better, when it needs to actually be better […]

04.18.12

Why Brand?

brand-as-business bit:  In my contribution to OPEN Forum this month, Why Brand?, I lay out what strong brands do for small businesses.  Although I usually work with larger companies/brands, I believe a brand is any business leader’s most powerful tool for accelerating and sustaining growth.  And so, small businesses should invest in brand development from […]

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Hi folks!  Trying a new feature this year — a monthly round-up of my published content. It’s a mental buffet of ideas that may seem schizophrenic at times (I do work on fast food restaurants as well as fitness brands, after all!), but it’s all in the service of helping companies understand and apply the […]

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brand-as-business bit:  I just taught “Why Small Businesses Need Brands and How to Build Them,” a session in Marketing Profs University course on Marketing Your Small Business. I talked about how brands don’t only create value for large companies — they’re also important to small businesses.  A couple of reasons: Small businesses need to build relationships […]

brand-as-business bit:  Next week I’m teaching a webinar, Why Small Business Needs Brands and How to Build Them, as part of a Marketing Profs University course on Marketing Your Small Business.  Here’s a sneak preview: One of the topics I will cover is how to differentiate — and among the approaches I will discuss is […]

brand-as-business bit:  Stephen Denny and I have just done a blog-exchange on retail and small business.  Check out his post on Killing Retail Giants, and mine on new retail opportunities.  Both pieces speak to the unique advantage small businesses have in winning at retail, in part because they are more likely to make the retail […]

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(The following is the first in a two-part blog-exchange I’m doing with Stephen Denny, author of Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath in Your Industry.  Because Steve and I are among those teaching the upcoming Marketing Profs University course, Marketing Your Small Business, we decided to address retailers’ issues and opportunities in these […]

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Jason Fried, CEO of 37signals, knows a thing or two about small business.  His company has been developing apps for small businesses for seven years.  But it’s how he runs his own company that reveals his keen insight for how to be a successful small business. […]