Today's guest is Rob Goodman. Rob specializes in content strategy and creative content production, with experience at companies like Google, Wix, and Webflow. He's delivered award-winning branded content, content strategies, and comprehensive c

Season four wrap-up: How brands (and branding professionals) can do good

Jun 7th, 2021 39m 30s

It's the summer of 2021—one year since the murder of George Floyd. And if you’re wondering what that has to do with the season-four wrap-up of a podcast about branding, let me tell you: in early 2020 I had a plan for season four of How Brands A

Diego Segura goes through the doors that open

Mar 1st, 2021 48m 56s

Diego Segura is a design apprentice at Collins, an independent strategy and brand experience design company with offices in New York City and San Francisco. In this episode, Diego describes how he discovered graphic design, his decision to drop

Brian Collins changed someone’s life by redesigning a uniform

Jan 11th, 2021 51m 14s

Brian Collins is Chief Creative Officer of COLLINS, an independent strategy and brand experience design company with offices in New York City and San Francisco. Prior to founding COLLINS, he spent a decade as Chairman and Chief Creative Officer

Alina Wheeler has a doppelgänger named Blake Deutsch

Dec 21st, 2020 47m 34s

Today’s guest is Alina Wheeler, best known as the author of Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team, now in its fifth edition. One of my favorite memories of this book is seeing it on a desk when I arrived to my

Nirm Shanbhag sees brand architecture from the consumer's perspective

Dec 7th, 2020 53m 45s

Nirm Shanbhag is the Chief Strategy Officer of Sid Lee USA, an international creative company. He’s also my old boss. Back in 2012, he was running the San Francisco office of Interbrand, and he hired me as Director of Verbal Identity. Before In

Emily Heyward builds brands that inspire obsession

Nov 23rd, 2020 40m 46s

Emily Heyward is co-founder and and Chief Brand Officer at Red Antler, the leading brand company for startups and new ventures. Red Antler is the branding firm behind brands like Casper, Allbirds, Keeps, and Burrow. They also work with establis

Armin Vit has a little grid in his mind

Nov 9th, 2020 57m 17s

Today’s guest is Armin Vit, co-founder of UnderConsideration, a graphic design firm, and editor and writer for Brand New, the leading site for reviews of corporate and brand identity design work. Born and raised in Mexico City, Armin—along with

Sunny Bonnell reframes your vices as virtues

Oct 26th, 2020 51m 39s

On the podcast today: Sunny Bonnell, co-founder of Motto, one of the leading branding agencies in the country, with clients like Google, Hershey's, and Twentieth Century Fox. Sunny and her co-founder, Ashleigh Hansberger, recently wrote their f

Dava Guthmiller makes the invisible visible

Oct 12th, 2020 44m 25s

In this episode, I'm talking to Dava Guthmiller, founder and Chief Creative Officer at Noise 13, a brand strategy and design agency based in San Francisco. She's also cofounder of In/Visible Talks, and annual conference that celebrates the art

Dr. Jason Chambers explains the origins of racist brands

Sep 28th, 2020 51m 47s

Season four has arrived, and my first guest is Dr. Jason Chambers of the University of Illinois. The theme for this season will be a bit looser than past seasons, but I'm hoping to get perspectives on the social impact of brands and branding. I

Special episode: Rob on IG Live with Ilya of Studeo

Jul 27th, 2020 58m 36s

On June 11, 2020, Rob (creator and host of How Brands Are Built) joined Ilya Lobanov of Studeo on Instagram Live for a chat about brand strategy and naming. Ilya is an Australia-based designer and strategist who teaches multiple branding classe

Bonus

Special episode: Rob on the JUST Branding Podcast

Jul 13th, 2020 57m 28s

Rob joins Jacob Cass of JUST Creative and Matt Davies on their new podcast, JUST Branding. We explored best practices for naming, positioning statements, and conducting discovery for brand strategy through the lenses of the company, client, an

Bonus

Mini episode: David Aaker on game-changing subcategories

Apr 27th, 2020 20m 8s

Today's episode features a rare repeat guest: none other than David Aaker, Professor Emeritus at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, Vice-Chair at Prophet, a global marketing and branding consultancy, and prolific author of books and arti

Bonus

Mini episode: Brands reacting to COVID-19

Apr 15th, 2020 20m 33s

Generally, I try to make the How Brands Are Built podcast evergreen. I want listeners to be able to go back any old episode and find that the conversation—whether it’s with a namer, a strategist, an author, or some other branding professional—i

Bonus

Mini episode: Brad Flowers and The Naming Book

Apr 9th, 2020 23m 22s

For the second mini episode of the podcast, I’m talking to Brad Flowers, founding partner of Bullhorn, a marketing company in Lexington, Kentucky. Brad is also the author of a new book entitled, The Naming Book: 5 steps to creating brand and pr

Bonus

Mini episode: Career advice

Mar 9th, 2020 13m 12s

This is the first of several "mini episodes" of How Brands Are Built. Hopefully, you saw this mentioned on social media or in the newsletter: between now and the next season (TBA), I'll release a few short episodes on a range of topics—no cons

Season three wrap-up: How to build a brand experience

Jan 15th, 2020 22m 58s

Season three of the podcast featured my most wide-ranging conversations yet. I talked to guests about topics such as naming, social influence, and fusing brand and culture. Like last season, I talked to a mix of popular authors and speakers, li

Denise Lee Yohn fuses brand business and culture

Dec 9th, 2019 42m 51s

My final guest for season three of the podcast is Denise Lee Yohn, author of the bestseller, What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles that Separate the Best from the Rest. She's also an in-demand keynote speaker, and has appear

Myra El-Bayoumi doesn't mind blowing up the process

Dec 2nd, 2019 30m 3s

My guest on today's episode is Myra El-Bayoumi, Strategy Director at Character, a branding and design studio with offices in New York and San Francisco. Before Character, Myra held senior strategy positions at Landor, Siegel+Gale, and Interbran

Alan Brew sees corporate narrative as the evolution of positioning

Nov 18th, 2019 25m 14s

Alan Brew has been in branding since 1985. In this, episode he takes us back to that year to explain how he got into the industry and what he's seen change since then. Along the way, he's worked with clients like Chevron, Elsevier, Tech Data, R

Ana Andjelic helps brands design for social influence

Nov 11th, 2019 35m 37s

Ana Andjelic is a strategy executive with wide-ranging experience on the agency and client sides. Recent roles include Chief Brand Officer at fashion retailer Rebecca Minkoff and SVP, Global Strategy Director at Havas LuxHub. Past agency experi

Dennis Hahn makes brand culture by Swarming

Nov 4th, 2019 35m 9s

Dennis Hahn is Chief Strategy Officer at Liquid Agency, a brand experience, strategy, marketing, and design agency with offices in San Jose, Portland, and New York. Dennis is responsible for the methodologies Liquid uses to address the strategi

Caren Williams plays creative brain games with clients

Oct 28th, 2019 33m 14s

Caren Williams and I met in 2012 at Interbrand San Francisco, where she was a Director of Strategy. Caren's since become an independent brand consultant, working with brands like Google, Sunrun, and Sandbox VR. One reason I wanted to talk to Ca

Fabian Geyrhalter builds a brand platform in one very long day

Oct 21st, 2019 34m 36s

Fabian Geyrhalter is the principal and founder of FINIEN, a Los Angeles-based branding agency. Fabian's also a prolific writer; you can find articles he's authored in Forbes, Inc., The Washington Post, Entrepreneur, and Mashable. He's also writ