Lessons from a brand strategist
Essays on brand leadership, published weekly. Organized by the four pillars — Creative & Design, Business & Strategy, Marketing & Communication, and Leadership & Management.
I think about brand leadership in four pillars.
Creative + Design
The product experience. The first handshake. Design as communication, not decoration.
Business + Strategy
The economic engine. Margins, pricing psychology, the tough calls that make the brand sustainable.
Marketing + Communications
The positioning. Speaking to the right people, fostering loyalty, turning customers into advocates.
Leadership + Management
The alignment. Clarity, the right people in the right roles, and execution that doesn’t drift.
Command & Create
When should an in-house design team centralize command — and when should it let go? The answer determines everything from
The Brand Control Stack: Where to Hold the Line, Where to Build a System, and Where to Let Go
There’s a meeting that happens inside almost every growing company, usually around the time the headcount crosses fifty people. Someone
The Company That Never Forgot What It Was
A lesson in core identity from a 135-year-old card company that changed the world. In 1889, a craftsman in Kyoto
Reading the Room
A practical workshop for stripping inherited narratives and writing brand stories that actually serve The first article in this series
The Problem With Problems
How inherited narratives are limiting your brand thinking — and what to do instead There is a philosopher and coach
AI Will Raise the Floor. It Won’t Touch the Ceiling.
On what AI does to the quality of marketing — and what it will never be able to do. There
Why Your Brand Team and Marketing Team Are Speaking Different Languages
And why no amount of better communication will fix it. There’s a meeting that happens at almost every mid-size company.
The Boat Captain & the Cartographer
On the irreplaceable edge of the operator who owns the water — not just the map. There is a particular
The Inception Principle: Why the Best Marketing Plants Ideas, It Doesn’t Push Them
There’s a scene in Christopher Nolan’s Inception where the characters debate whether it’s possible to make someone believe an idea
Pricing Is a Story
Eight principles for setting numbers that do real work Most operators set prices the same way. Add up the costs,
The Lorax in the Boardroom: Why Marketing Needs an Equal Voice
When I was a CMO, I used to tell the executive team I was the Lorax. I spoke for the
The 90% Rule: Why Good Enough Beats Perfect in Modern Business
Perfection is expensive. In this article, Matt breaks down the “90% Rule”: once your product is good enough, chasing the final 10% wastes time, money, and momentum. Learn how Apple, Southwest, and others win by balancing marketing, ops, and experience—and avoiding costly perfection traps.
The Four Pillars of Brand Leadership: Lessons from a Brand Strategist
Most teams don’t fail because they lack talent. They fail because they over-invest in one kind of excellence and neglect the rest. In this post, I share a four-pillar framework that keeps brands balanced: product experience, economics, positioning, and organizational alignment. Get all four working together, and growth gets easier.
The Brand Expedition: A Framework for Building Brand Identity That Lasts
A Guided Ascent to Brand Identity Every brand I’ve helped build — from scrappy rural startups to mature regional operators
There’s a big difference between building a business and building yourself a job.
Most of the founders I’ve worked with didn’t realize they’d made the choice until it was already made. The choice:
The Creative Team Map: Understanding the Roles Inside a Boutique Design Agency
Over the course of my career, I’ve sat in hundreds of discovery calls that opened the same way: “We just
Without a Compass, You’re Just Wandering
Most of the marketing failures I’ve seen weren’t creative failures. They were directional failures. Leadership teams hand down vague, feel-good
Beyond the Basics: Campaigns that Elevate a Brand
At a certain point in a brand’s life, it no longer needs to introduce itself. The heavy lifting of name recognition, product