CEOs can have an outsized impact on branding and brand value, from the influence (good and bad) of their personal brands on company performance, to their role as brand champions (or “guardians” as Brand Finance puts it in their annual index of CEO performance). Consequently, your top leader needs to...

Branding, once misperceived as the sole domain of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs), is now a key concern in the corner office, too. CEOs are looking to leverage the positive impact of brand on consumer preference, and the boost to customer loyalty and premium pricing which that preference brings. Chief executives...

As a B2B CEO, you’re responsible for building a strong company – but is the architecture underlying that building plan up to the job? No doubt you’ve got a business strategy in place, but is the brand strategy that must support it clear, strong and flexible enough to accommodate the...

It should be no surprise that thought leadership marketing is an effective tool for supporting a nonprofit’s mission. After all, when your organization is out to make the world a better place, it typically has better-than-average stories to tell. What is surprising is how few nonprofit CEOs take the lead...

The evidence gets clearer every year: diversity pays.  You hear it from academia: “Diversity is associated with increased sales revenue, more customers, greater market share, and greater relative profits,” according to the University of Chicago. And it’s the conclusion of top consultants: “Top-team ethnic and cultural diversity is correlated with...

A recent study identified key new business development skills of high-growth professional services firms, defined as those achieving 20% or greater annual growth over at least a three year period. Perhaps not surprisingly – at least not for a category that sells thinking – four of the seven top skills...

So, you’re the CEO of a consumer brand – especially a big consumer brand – and you don’t want to miss out on the social impact bandwagon. You want to be an activist CEO. You want to be on trend. Big hint: If that’s your motivation, you’ve already missed the bandwagon.  At...

Many CEOs, forever looking to drive growth, curiously overlook one growth driver that is increasingly powerful: thought leadership. Research from Edelman revealed that 64% of B2B CXOs vet organizations through their thought leadership – and for 48% it has directly led to awarding business. This is particularly important in professional...

IPOs came roaring out of the gate in 2018, only to smack into a long-awaited stock market correction. Nonetheless, signs for some sectors, such as tech, remain encouraging.  Seeking Alpha notes that “The tech sector’s average return is 25% from IPO,” and The New York Times forecasts an “IPO wave”...

The idea of corporate stories as strategic assets is a hot topic, as I covered in my interview in these pages with “The Father of Modern Branding,” David Aaker. Stories, however, are “simply” expressions of something deeper. Narrative – often conflated with the term story – is the structure upon which stories (and...