Welcome to the Branding Matters Blog!

Of the world's most loved brands, many have been in the market for generations while some have just recently come onto the scene. Regardless of their history, the people responsible for managing these brands have to be opportunistic, nimble and decisive. No one has the luxury of endless deliberation and debate these days, lest they allow the window of opportunity to slam shut.

For this reason, we offer our best current thinking on the Branding Matters blog, so that our visitors can keep up with conversations on the hottest topics in the branding world.

We're especially excited to hear from visitors from the Higher Education arena, as we know your world is changing faster than a NASCAR pit crew. Many schools we've talked with have used the same go-to-market model for over 100 years! How many industries have been able to resist market evolution for even 20 years? This is why adoption of a brand strategy for a college or university is so vital, as it points the way to an externally-focused view of the world that is necessary to be competitive and relevant.

Similarly, we offer our help to those companies who are committed to achieving broader corporate goals that include new activities re: sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility. If ever there was an area where companies should proudly copy the practices of others, CSR is the one. The fundamental tradeoffs between short-term financial goals and longer-term sustainability goals, and the dilemma of how to establish the right processes and resources to be effective is shared by virtually every company in business today. Our quick advice here: before you do anything proactive in the CSR arena, benchmark against other similar companies first. The buddy system works.

To paraphrase Scott Bedbury, when it comes to managing a brand, everything matters. So you can expect that we'll be covering an amazingly broad expanse of ground in this space.