A collection of thoughts on brands, business, design and consumers.

A Brand Needs a Point of View Before It Needs More Content

More campaigns, more content and more channels do not necessarily make a brand stronger.

Before adding execution, I usually want to know what the brand is trying to say, what it wants to be known for, and why people should care.

Without that, more activity often just creates more noise.

Design Should Make Strategy Easier to Understand

I do not see design as the stage where strategy gets decorated.

Good design should make an idea more immediate — helping people understand the product, the brand and why it matters with less explanation.

If a strategy becomes harder to understand once it is designed, something has probably gone wrong.

Heritage Has to Be Useful

Heritage is valuable, but age alone is not a reason for consumers to care.

The question is what from the past still has meaning today — and whether it can help the brand create something relevant for the future.

Sometimes preserving heritage means changing how it is expressed.

Global Consistency Is About Knowing What Not to Change

I do not think every market needs to look or behave exactly the same.

A global brand needs a clear center: a small number of things that define what the brand is and should not be compromised.

Once those are clear, local adaptation can often make the brand stronger rather than weaker.

Not Every Brand Should Be Measured the Same Way

A new brand entering a market should not be judged by the same scorecard as an established one.

Awareness, trial, distribution, repeat, brand equity and sales matter at different times and for different reasons.

Metrics are useful only when they are connected to what the brand is actually trying to achieve at that stage.

Sometimes the Problem Is How the Category Is Defined

When growth slows, the instinct is often to improve the product or communicate it harder.

But sometimes the bigger opportunity is to change the role the product plays in people's lives — or even how people think about the category itself.

A different frame can create more room than a better claim.

Good Strategy Has to Survive the Organization

A strategy is not very useful if only the people who created the presentation understand it.

It eventually has to work across management, marketing, design, sales, local markets and external partners — all of whom see the business differently.

The real test is whether the idea remains clear after it passes through all of them.

The Senior Brand Role Is Often a Translation Job

Management speaks in growth, investment and risk.

Consumers rarely do.

Designers, marketers, sales teams and agencies all approach the same problem from different angles.

A large part of my job today is connecting those languages without losing what mattered in the original idea.