How Brands Are Built

When Adam Morgan wrote Eating the Big Fish: How Challenger Brands Can Compete Against Brand Leaders in 1999, he introduced a new term to the marketing, advertising, and branding worlds: "challenger brand." Avis, with their "When you're only No. 2, you try harder" campaign from the 60s, is the most commonly cited example of this concept. But Adam, also the founder of a brand consultancy named eatbigfish, is quick to point out challenger brands need not be No. 2 in their category. Instead, he defines a challenger brand as "about mindset and attitude…Do you have business ambitions that are bigger than your conventional marketing resources and are you prepared to do something bold and ambitious to close the implications of that gap?" I was curious about 10 challenger brand "stances" Adam has proposed, such as The Irreverent Maverick, who uses "wit, humor, and sometimes even shock tactics to puncture the category complacency" or The Next Generation, who challenges "the appropriateness of the market leader for the new times we live in." I asked him whether his list of challenger stances ever changes (it does) and whether he considers the stances mutually exclusive (he doesn't). I also asked him how he uses the list of challenger stances with clients. Adam explained: "We use it as a shortcut to make [clients] understand that being a challenger is not about 'me versus another player.' It's about challenging something rather than somebody. What we tend to do is choose four of them, just as examples, and say, 'Let's look at each of these four lenses in turn and see what it would mean to think like this kind of challenger and that kind of challenger…[It] allows them to start to get a sense of the kind of challenger they feel most comfortable being and then sets the tone for the much more significant piece of work about how you bring that to life." In terms of process, Adam is a big fan of workshops because "you have to create a culture around a strategy at the same time as developing the strategy itself." In workshops, he likes to help clients articulate what they believe by first asking what they reject or hate in their category. He also recommends an exercise called the "pre-mortem," advocated by economist Daniel Kahneman. We wrapped up talking about one of Adam's favorite brands, BrewDog, and his advice for new strategists and brand consultants: Have an angle.

To learn more about Adam, visit eatbigfish.com and thechallengerproject.com. All his books are available for sale online:

• Eating the Big Fish
• The Pirate Inside
• Overthrow
• A Beautiful Constraint

Below, you'll find the full transcript of the episode (may contain typos and/or transcription errors). Click above to listen to the episode, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or elsewhere to hear every episode of How Brands Are Built.

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• Squadhelp. To begin a business name contest with hundreds of business naming experts, check out their services to get a fresh perspective on your company.
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Gareth Kay believes brands should show, not just tell Gareth Kay is cofounder of Chapter, a San Francisco-based creative studio. Before Chapter, he was Chief Strategy Officer at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, the advertising agency known for work such as 1993's iconic "Got Milk?" campaign for the California Milk Processors Board. I was excited to talk to Gareth because, while he's a strategist, he doesn't come from the world of traditional brand consulting that I come from (and so many of my other guests come from). In fact, one of my first questions for him was, "What do you think the general perception of the brand consulting world is amongst people in the advertising world?" Gareth says advertising agencies are increasingly seeing clients that have already been through a brand consultancy, and "when [the brand consultancy's work] was good you would be a little bit miffed because [cracking the strategy] was something, as a strategist, you really loved doing." On the flip-side, he'd sometimes see brand consultancy work that looked "clever on a piece of paper but…frankly, it was un-executable or, worse still, was a piece of thinking that was clearly designed to get through the armies of different interests inside a client organization and it kind of got watered down…through rounds and rounds of meetings and consensus-building." I asked Gareth about an article he published in WARC, titled "The 'brand' word." When you think about how we throw the term [brand] about, more often than not we are describing something we do-a brand strategy or campaign, not the associations we are trying to create. … We use it too often to create a false sense of control and a mistaken belief that we manage the brand. The models we use reinforce this: the tools of temples and pyramids are about what we build, not how people respond to them. The tools we use to shape brands are not fit for purpose. They are used to create simplicity and consistency which run counter to a culture of complexity and change. This led us to a fascinating conversation on what agencies should be using instead of these "temples and pyramids." Gareth argues consultancies should:

• "Show the thing," a mantra at Chapter-essentially prototyping real-world applications to showcase brand ideas rather than trying to capture them with words alone, which he calls "a very lossy form of compression."
• Avoid wordsmithing. He quotes a friend, Russel Davies, "you'll be discussing whether a brand is funny or…humorous." "Is that really the best use of our time, of our money, of our resources?" he asks.

The brand model used at Chapter is a "Brand Operating System," the underlying code and principles that define everything a brand does. The framework includes three layers:

1. Belief: What does this brand genuinely believe in the world? This is the problem it's trying to solve or the opportunity it sees.
2. Purpose: What do you do as a brand given your belief?
3. Pursuits: Because we believe X (our Belief) and we're going to do Y about it in the world (our Purpose), we will do the following things. The Pursuits are normally three, action-oriented principles.

Gareth provided a detailed example of the Brand Operating System by talking through Chapter's work for Silent Circle. We ended the conversation talking about brands Gareth thinks get all the fundamentals right (Hiut Denim and Allbirds) and his advice to young strategists and planners. For more of Gareth's insights, read his posts on Medium and follow him on Twitter. Below, you'll find the full transcript of the episode (may contain typos and/or transcription errors). Click above to listen to the episode, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or elsewhere to hear every episode of How Brands Are Built. Episode sponsors · Squadhelp. To begin a business name contest with hundreds of business naming experts, check out their services to get a fresh perspective on your company. · Rev.com. Rev offers fast, reliable, and accurate audio transcriptions. Right now, Rev is offering listeners $10 off their first order. Follow this link for your $10-off coupon.

The concept of brand positioning was introduced to the marketing and advertising world in the 70s and 80s by Al Ries and Jack Trout in a series of Ad Age articles and a subsequent book titled Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind. (If you haven't read it, Positioning is definitely recommended reading for anyone in the branding world.)

Today's episode features Laura Ries. Laura is Al Ries's daughter, and has been his business partner for 25 years at their consulting firm, Ries & Ries, where they advise clients such as Disney, Ford, Frito-Lay, Papa John's, Samsung, and Unilever. Laura is a bestselling author in her own right. She's co-authored five books with Al, including The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, and she's also written her own books: Visual Hammer and Battlecry. We discuss both during the episode.

Laura and I start with her definition of brand positioning (it's about "owning an idea in the mind"), and the introduction of an illustrative example we come back to again and again during the conversation: Red Bull. Laura says Red Bull "owns the energy drink category because it is the leader," while Monster Energy Drink positioned itself as the opposite of Red Bull by launching with a much larger can. 5-hour Energy, on the other hand, created their own, related category by positioning as an "energy shot." Throughout the course of the conversation, Laura presented her six principles of positioning:

1. Find an open hole. "If somebody owns a position, you're not going to take it away from them. You have to look for another open hole that you can take advantage of...by being the opposite of the leader."
2. Narrow the focus. "Too often, brands and companies, they want to be everything to everybody."
3. The name is so important and significant. "Not just the brand name but the category name."
4. Visual hammer. "Not just a pretty logo or a person-the product itself can be the visual [hammer]. It's something that communicates an idea about the brand."
5. Verbal battlecry. "Not just a slogan, although it might be a slogan or tagline, but it's really the battlecry that'll be used both internally and externally to really understand the brand."
6. PR, not advertising, is what builds brands. "New brands and new categories have more news value to them. That's where new brands need to leverage that opportunity for PR."

To learn more about Laura, her books, and her consulting services, visit visit www.ries.com. You'll find some great content on her blog, and more information on their consulting practice. With the exception of an upcoming, revised edition of Positioning, all the books we mentioned on the episode are available online:

• Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
• The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding
• Visual Hammer
• Battlecry

Below, you'll find the full transcript of the episode (may contain typos and/or transcription errors). Click above to listen to the episode, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or elsewhere to hear every episode of How Brands Are Built. Episode sponsors

• Squadhelp. To begin a business name contest with hundreds of business naming experts, check out their services to get a fresh perspective on your company.
• Rev.com. Rev offers fast, reliable, and accurate audio transcriptions. Right now, Rev is offering listeners $10 off their first order. Follow this link for your $10-off coupon.

Within the branding community, Marty Neumeier needs no introduction. But just for good measure, here's a quick rundown:

- Director of Transformation for the Liquid Agency

- Author of The Brand Gap, hailed as one of the best 100 Business Books of All Time

- Also wrote Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands, and Brand A-Z

Marty and I kicked things off talking about his latest book Scramble: A Business Thriller, which launches today on Amazon. What makes Scramble different from Marty's previous books is that it's a fictional story. It tells the tale of a CEO and leadership team in peril, with five weeks to turn things around. The story becomes a vehicle for the two core themes of the book:

1. Agile strategy; and

2. Design thinking.

Marty and I talked about what inspired him to try out a different format and how the book explores the branding process in a realistic and deeper way than most traditional business books.

So, what is agile strategy? Marty uses five strategy Qs (questions) and five design-thinking Ps (principles) to break it down:

The five Qs of strategy

- What is our purpose?

- Who do we serve?

- Where should we compete?

- How will we win?

- How will we grow?

The five Ps of design thinking

- Problemizing

- Pinballing

- Probing

- Prototyping

- Proofing

The design thinking principles can be used to help answer some of the strategy questions in a way that forces you to go beyond conventional thinking.

I asked Marty about positioning and brand strategy frameworks., and he brought up a model he introduced in his previous book, The Brand Flip: the Brand Commitment Matrix. The Matrix features six boxes, each to be filled with the answer to one of six corresponding questions.

To learn more about Marty and his work visit his website, www.martyneumeier.com. I suggest signing up for his newsletter while you're there.

Scramble is now available on Amazon as a paperback, audiobook, or ebook. Or, if you're interested in a beautiful version with an embossed cover and French folds, visit 800ceoread.com. Even better, if you order two or more copies, you'll receive a 40% discount!

Below, you'll find the full transcript of the episode (may contain typos and/or transcription errors).

Click above to listen to the episode, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or elsewhere to hear every episode of How Brands Are Built.

Today's episode is sponsored by Squadhelp. To begin a business name contest with hundreds of business naming experts, check out their services to get a fresh perspective on your company.

Today's episode marks the end of season one, but certainly not the end of this podcast. Plans for season two are already underway, and I'm very excited about some of the guests who've already signed on. But I won't be ready to release those episodes for a little while, so…to make sure you're the first to know when they're available, please make sure you've signed up for the newsletter at HowBrandsAreBuilt.com. And between now and season two, we'll still be posting new articles and information on the website. You can follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook to make sure your seeing the latest content.

I've organized this season-one wrap-up episode loosely around the naming process: the naming brief, name generation (as well as a few tips on what to do if you get stuck), shortlisting, prescreening, and presenting names. For each step, I'll call out some comments I found especially interesting or informative from interviews with nine naming experts: Anthony Shore of Operative Words; Shannon DeJong of House of Who; Clive Chafer of Namebrand; Steven Price of Tessera Trademark Screening; Amanda Peterson, formerly of Google; Jonathan Bell of WANT; Laurel Sutton of Sutton Strategy (and formerly of Catchword); Scott Milano of Tanj; and Eli Altman of A Hundred Monkeys.

Eli Altman runs A Hundred Monkeys, a naming and branding agency in Berkeley, California. A Hundred Monkeys was founded by Eli's dad, Danny Altman, in 1990. Eli grew up helping his dad come up with name ideas, and the second he was old enough to sound like an adult on the phone, he was taking on freelance naming projects. In addition to running A Hundred Monkeys, Eli wrote the Amazon bestselling naming workbook, Don't Call it That. He has a new book coming out soon called Run Studio Run, all about the business of running a small creative studio.

On this episode of How Brands Are Built, Eli talks about his "naming workbook" (Don't Call It That), the naming process he uses at A Hundred Monkeys, pitfalls for new namers, and what it was like growing up the son of a professional namer.

Scott Milano is Founder and Managing Director of Tanj, a boutique brand language firm specializing in names, taglines, stories, messaging and voice strategies, and copy. Scott has over 15 years of experience in verbal identity and has worked on names like Scott's worked on some big brand names, like Nintendo Wii, Ally Bank, Sony Bravia, and Film Struck, among many others.

Scott and I talked about the naming guides Tanj makes available online, the naming process, tools he uses (like stock photography sites and the MRC Psycholinguistic Database from University of Western Australia), and some naming trends. We ended the conversation talking about what Scott likes best about being a namer: "It's essential for any business to go to market. If you don't have a name, you don't have a business. So we're helping people, and businesses, take flight. And being able to do that, right at their inception, or so early on, and having such a big impact, is cool."

Laurel Sutton is a co-founder of Catchword, a Bay Area naming firm behind names like Asana, Vudu, and many of the activity trackers from Fitbit, like Zip, One, Flex, and Force. She is also the Information Officer for the American Name Society; but Laurel's not only a naming expert. She's also a trained linguist, with a Master's Degree in linguistics from UC Berkeley.

Laurel's expertise in naming and linguistics make her perfectly suited for her current role: She now runs Sutton Strategy, where she focuses on providing linguistic analysis on name ideas. Linguistic analysis is a crucial step in the naming process, ensuring you (or your client) don't end up with a name on one of those listicles of "worst naming disasters" because you failed to realize your brand name was slang for something offensive. For some reason, the most famous example of a linguistic disaster in naming is actually fake news: the story of Chevy Nova selling poorly in Spanish-speaking countries because it translates to "doesn't go." Never happened. But there are real examples, too, like Zyklon, Incubus, LaCrosse, and Strange Fruit.

Laurel kicked off our conversation by defining linguistic analysis as "pieces of research that are designed to make sure that any name is going to work globally." She then shared her process, what it means to do a "global" check, whether it's still important to do linguistic checks when your brand will only sell in the US (it is), and the difference between translation and transliteration.

Jonathan Bell is Managing Director of Want Branding, a brand consultancy with offices in Miami, Denver, and New York, and clients like Bose, Royal Caribbean, and Call of Duty. Jonathan has about 30 years of experience in the branding industry, during which he's completed over 800 projects and worked with over a third of the companies in the Fortune 100—companies like Google, Apple, Coca-Cola, Mercedes-Benz, and Disney. He's also a visiting professor at Wharton and a frequent conference speaker, including a 2016 TED talk, "How to create a great brand name."

Jonathan shares clear, straightforward thoughts and advice on naming, including his four-step naming process, an approach to shortlisting, recommendations for presenting names, and more.

On this episode, I spoke with Amanda Peterson, formerly the Head of Naming and Leader of Brand Management at Google. While there, she helped establish Alphabet, Google's parent company, as well as sister companies like Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving car company. Before Google, Amanda headed up naming at HP—before I held that role—and also worked at Logitech and Landor. She recently left Silicon Valley and is now Head of Marketing and Communications at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Amanda and I go way back. I first met her when I was Director of Verbal Identity at Interbrand San Francisco and she was my client at HP. And then, funny enough, when she went to Google, I went over and took her place as Global Head of Naming at HP.

Amanda and I talked about naming briefs, her approach to name generation, one of her favorite names (Bluetooth), her pet peeves in brand names, and what she likes most about being a namer.