How Brands Are Built

In this episode of How Brands Are Built, I talk with Alexander Foss about research—why it matters, what makes it valuable, and a few pitfalls to avoid. Alex and I first worked together at Interbrand , where he was on the strategy team before moving more deeply into research and insights. In our conversation, he explains what pulled him in that direction: the feeling of backing up recommendations w...

On today's episode of How Brands Are Built, host Rob Meyerson of Heirloom speaks with Robin Goffman—brand thinker, design strategist, and founder of  Studio RBG —about her career path, her approach to creative work, and her experience designing multiple editions of Designing Brand Identity . Robin shares the story of how she first entered the world of design, from early hands-on tutorials in Adobe...

A few weeks back, on LinkedIn and Instagram, I asked whether anyone had questions about branding, naming, or other topics I might be able to speak to. My plan was to do a Q&A episode—and this is it. On this episode, I answer questions from branding professionals and others about branding, naming, and book publishing. Here's a sample of what was asked: How do you manage clients wanting to wordsmith...

In today's episode of How Brands Are Built, host Rob Meyerson speaks with Jacob Cass, designer, brand strategist, and founder of Just Creative , about his recent venture: the Brand Builders Summit . This innovative, four-day virtual event featured 24 speakers and attracted over 20,000 attendees from 156 countries, significantly surpassing Jacob's initial goals. Jacob discusses the unique format of...

Today's guest is Alex Center , a designer and podcaster and founder of the award-winning design and branding studio, CENTER . From 2006 to 2017, Center worked for the Coca-Cola Company, helping build the brands Vitaminwater, Powerade, and Smartwater. Today, he and the team at CENTER are building the next generation of icon brands partnering with companies like United Sodas of America, Apple, HEYWE...

This episode of How Brands Are Built is a live recording of an April 25, 2024 book launch for Designing Brand Identity, sixth edition, held at Noise 13 in San Francisco. The event included a panel discussion moderated by Rob Goodman. The panelists were Dava Guthmiller, founder of Noise 13, Rob Meyerson co-author of the sixth edition of Designing Brand Identity , and Robin Goffman, creative directo...

Back in February of this year, I released the first Brand Names Report, an analysis of polling data on brand names from Brand New, the leading brand identity review site edited and written by Armin Vit. From July 2020 to June 2023, visitors to Brand New cast a total of 22,769 votes across 131 brand names, rating each as Great, Fine, or Bad. These polls are the only easily available opinion data on...

Rob Meyerson and Fabian Geyrhalter discuss brand strategy's balance of innovation and foundational rules, touching on brand creation challenges and successful launches in the evolving marketing landscape. Today's episode is special. It's an edited version of a LinkedIn livestream chat with Fabian Geyrhalter, founder and principal at FINIEN, "a purposefully small consultancy based in Los Angeles."...

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 content calendars for these companies and other clients, helping brands transform into publishers built for engaging today's audiences. Rob also hosts his ow...

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 Are Built. But in the wake of George Floyd's murder and protests around the world, my plan changed a bit. 2020 was already a pretty awful year for most peo...

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 out of high school, and what it's like being an apprentice at a prestigious branding and design company. This is the second part of a two-part series; th...

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 first day on the job at Labbrand , where I worked in Shanghai. I already knew the book, but seeing it in use, so far from home—that's when I really underst...

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 Interbrand, Nirm earned his MBA from London Business School and worked in advertising, at firms like Mullen and McCann. He also ran his own, independent age...

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 established brands like American Express, HBO, Google, and Gap. Emily was named among the Most Important Entrepreneurs of the Decade by Inc. Magazine, and has als...

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 his wife and partner, Bryony Gomez-Palacio—have created multiple other design blogs, co-authored books, and organized events like the annual Brand New Co...

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 first book,  Rare Breed: A Guide to Success for the Defiant, Dangerous, and Different .  Sunny says the book started with a question: "What if you could ta...

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 of design and creativity, and In/Visible Project, which includes a collection of other events that bring people together over the process, inspiration,...

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. In other words, are brands a good thing for society, overall? In light of what's happened in 2020-the pandemic, protests for racial justice, increasingly ext...

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 classes (available on his site and Skillshare ). Given Ilya's design background and Rob's naming experience, the conversation often covered similarities between d...

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, and consumer. Rob shared actionable tips and real-world examples that will help you build a better brand.

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 articles about branding. Last time David was on the podcast , we talked about two of his books, Aaker on Branding, 20 Principles that Drive Success, and Creatin...

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—is still relevant. But this episode is different. It's April, 2020, and we're in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. To say the least, it's been disruptive....

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 product names that sell . Regular listeners know that  naming  is an area of focus for me, so when I heard about Brad's book, I couldn't want to read it an...

This is the first of several "mini episodes" of  How Brands Are Built. H opefully, 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 consistent through-line, just some interesting, snack-sized branding content. I reached out on Instagram , Twitter , LinkedIn , and Facebook asking for feedba...

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, like Jeremy Miller and Denise Lee Yohn, as well as some people I've worked with closely at agencies like  Interbrand ,  Siegel+Gale , and  BrandingBusiness...