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At BrandCulture, we don't stand on ceremony, celebrate conventional wisdom or honor sacred cows. Peruse cheers and jeers for the best, worst, oldest and very latest branding theory and practice...all with the assurance that every post here has passed our "Branding. Not Bull" promise. Won't you please join us?

Emerge From the Verge

Refining Your Purpose to Find a Way Forward Forward can be a relative direction. In business we always want to be moving forward, but unlike North or West, each business has to define forward for itself. Apple Computer thought its forward lay in the launch of a new product. Based on an innovative touchscreen technology, […]

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Ash to Innovation

Planning for the New Normal The public debate about reopening — whether businesses or beaches — shows no signs of a quick resolution and decision makers are finding that they will have to decide the right way to rebuild. This was a problem the city of Chicago faced in 1871 when a cow on the […]

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Ready for Liftoff

Staying Prepared When You’re Stuck on the Ground Uncertain times are the reason we work so hard to define ourselves – a clear, simple purpose is a deceptively difficult thing to distill but it provides something solid to hold on to when everything else is shaking. When one of Apollo 13’s oxygen tanks exploded, Ken […]

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M&A Cultural Considerations

M&A decisions are based on multiple factors, principally expected financial benefit, operational synergies, the acquisition of a new user or client base, etc. However, companies must take into account the impact on brand, since the outward face of the post-M&A integration can have serious repercussions for both external market perception and internal organizational culture, not […]

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“Away” Luggage – When Millennial Brands Go Toxic

Successful brands combine both tangible and intangible qualities to evoke deep associations that engender loyalty among consumers. Among the most important intangible qualities are the people behind the brands and organizations we love most. These creators and keepers of the culture align the organization around the values and behaviors that form the outward brand personification […]

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Supporting A Brand During M&A – A How-To Guide

Essential Brand Stewardship During M & A Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) activity has accelerated for the last several years, supported by an unprecedented economic rebound in the US. M&A activity continues to drive forward new companies and combinations of previously existing ones, necessitating concerted effort to conserve and extend brand value throughout the M&A processes. […]

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New Year’s Resolutions For Brands – 2020

Just like for their human stewards, the start of a new year (and decade!) provides a propitious promontory for brands to reflect back and evaluate all they’ve accomplished – and envision how they’d want the following year to look. What were some of the biggest achievements this year? What are some of the things we […]

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1920s vs. 2020s – A Happy 100 Years to These Brands

Brands come and go, some as ephemeral and fleeting as a quickly-glimpsed subway ad, others as durable and long-lasting as the classic Coca-Cola logo. What was once the height of fashion can quickly fall to the discount-rack of abandonment. But there are some brands that have an enduring ability to resonate with us, an atemporality […]

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