On Brand with Nick Westergaard

“Agile marketing is about focus, quality, and planning. We have an ultimate destination. We’re just more flexible about the path we take to get there.” A certified agile leader and practitioner, the focus of Andrea Fryrear’s work is helping marketers find greater focus in their work. We discussed process, planning, and why agile marketing is more important than ever on this week’s episode of the O...

“People are smart about how they can avoid advertising at all costs. You have to present them with a story they want to hear and use the brand in support of that story.” Lee Tone of Alkemy X has spent his career navigating the blurred lines of advertising and entertainment, finding ways to talk about brands without directly talking about brands. This has never been easy but it's even harder today....

“In digital you can constantly keep going—if you had a good play celebrate it and see how you can evolve it from there.” In a career that started with athletics and continued to professional journalism to being a marketing thought leader and author, Christoph Trappe has executed several good plays. Because of this experience, he knows how to build a high-performance content marketing culture. We d...

“In times of crisis, as leaders, we often want to clamp down—command and control. We go into bunker mode.” However, customer loyalty is best built by closing the distance between a brand's leadership and the front lines of employees and customers, explains Rob Markey of Bain & Company. We discussed all of this and more on this week’s episode of the On Brand podcast. About Rob Markey Rob Markey is...

“It’s a time to double down on your value—your why.” During Bill Cates's storied career as an entrepreneur and relationship marketing expert, he’s helped countless businesses achieve exponential growth. Now he’s back with a new book on Radical Relevance and why we need it today more than ever. We discussed all of this and more on this week’s episode of the On Brand podcast. About Bill Cates Bill C...

“It is absolutely a time to help more and to serve more but it is not a time to sell or market any less.” David Newman is all about getting things done. Whether it’s marketing or speaking, his approach helps people organize their work to positively impact their lives. While COVID-19 could make this harder, Newman argues that clarity is more important now than ever before. We discussed what to do n...

It’s a different time for marketers and brand builders across the board. But what about B2B marketers? What’s different for them in the face of COVID-19? I couldn’t wait to ask our guest this week just that. Ana Raynes is the CEO and founder of Simplified Impact, a B2B growth marketing agency. We discussed what B2B marketers can do during these strange times and the various stages of business that...

“People are going to have a favorable impression of your brand or a negative impression of your brand. Then, when you add social media reach on top of that, it can get really great or really crazy.” That’s why you have to brand—with clutter-cutting messaging and compassion—from the inside out, starting with your employees. Especially in the midst of the pandemic we find ourselves battling both per...

“Branding people have not formally gotten into the strategy world.” And vice versa. And that’s a problem according to branding and marketing legend David Aaker, author of several books including his latest Owning Game-Changing Subcategories. It’s a book that's coming out at a game-changing and turbulent time in the world of business and beyond. We discussed all of this and more, this week on the O...

This week’s podcast interview was originally scheduled to take place live on stage at SXSW. Unfortunately, a nasty pandemic got in the way of this. However, I still wanted to talk with VR expert Ashley Crowder about her work as CEO and Co-Founder of VNTANA, a company that helps brands build out new online realities (which may be more relevant now than ever before!). We discussed all of this and mo...

“Attention is the defining business challenge of our time.” This prolific idea was noted by not one but two guests this week. Jamie Mustard is a strategic multimedia consultant who helps create brands, ideas, and messages that stand out. His new book The Iconist features bold examples from the world of business, art, and music including the story of Mindhunter actor Holt McCallany. We’re lucky to...

“Vision and strategy require a lot of thinking about brand.” Mona Bijoor would know. She spends a lot of her time thinking about and helping early-stage founders startup, scale, and grow their businesses, which, as she notes, involves more thinking about brand than most realize. She’s also the author of the new book, Startups and Downs, The Secrets of Resilient Entrepreneurs. We discussed all of t...

“Marketers today have to be data junkies.” Kristin Luck would know. She’s founded two marketing analytics companies that were so successful both ended up being acquired. Today she helps founders and executive teams scale and monetize their businesses. What role does branding play in all of this? We discussed that very topic and more on this week’s episode of the On Brand podcast. About Kristin Luc...

“The biggest disservice we've done with content marketing is giving such high expectations without the tools to fulfill them.” When it comes to upping your content marketing game, most struggle with obstacles related to time, talent, and treasure. Luckily, StoryFuel founder Melanie Deziel's new book The Content Fuel Framework can help you with all of this. We discussed all of this and more this we...

“Your feet take you on these adventures. You should have quality flip flops that you keep for a long time. That really became our core story.” That spark of an idea led Jeremy Stewart and his wife to found premium flip-flop brand Hari-Mari. In doing so, they essentially created a new market that involved changing behavior around what we put on our feet in warm weather. He took some time to share t...

“Bad writing can undermine everything you’re trying to do.” As someone who started out as a marketing copywriter and who still spends a lot of time today teaching business writing and writing books, I couldn’t wait to talk to copywriting and web writing expert Nick Usborne about how the words we use help us build better brands. We discussed this and much more this week on the On Brand podcast. Abo...

“Marketing is your ability to attract and keep customers. Most confuse the definition of marketing with the definition of advertising.” This week on the On Brand podcast, I chatted with Wayne Mullins, Founder of Ugly Mug Marketing. We talked about how to avoid checklist marketing (a favorite topic of mine), investing in the right end of the customer experience, and the role of social media today....

“The secret sauce of brands is purpose.” In a career that’s taken her from wrangling brands at Wieden+Kennedy to launching her own successful global PR shop, futurefactor, Kerrie Finch has spent her career helping brands share their stories with the world. We discussed all of this and more on this week’s episode of the On Brand podcast. About Kerrie Finch Prior to founding futurefactor (formerly F...

What do the Grateful Dead and Harry Potter have in common? Both have huge fandoms that include author David Meerman Scott and his daughter Reiko Scott respectively. “Our thesis was this—are the lessons of fandom relevant to brands?” While most fathers and daughters would use this as a jumping-off point for stimulating after-dinner conversation, the Scotts used it as a jumping-off point in writing...

“We're the BASF of brand story. We don't make it but we bring it life.” This analogy perfectly captures the inflection point where Christopher Wallace has built his business. InnerView helps marketing teams take the brand from the boardroom to the customers on the front line. This isn't as easy as it might sound at first. We discussed all of this and more on this week’s episode of the On Brand pod...

“You don’t want your brand name to be tame. You can’t afford to be tame!” As the verbal identity expert behind names for brands ranging from frozen yogurt to Burger King, Alexandra Watkins knows how to develop names that make people smile—and we talk about that a lot on the On Brand podcast. She’s also the author of the newly revised Hello, My Name is Awesome. We discussed all of this and more on...

“The constant today is still that the consumer is at the heart of everything.” In a career spanning big brands and early-stage companies, Aimee Irwin has been at the forefront of strategic marketing and advertising. Despite the fact that big data is bigger than ever before, it’s nothing without the ability to effectively manage it and create meaningful connections with customers. We discussed all...

“It’s the simple things that I think people overlook because they’re trying to be so complicated or complex.” Beth Trejo is a force. As CEO and Founder of Chatterkick, she works to infuse the world of social media and digital marketing with a human spark. We discussed all of this and more on this week’s episode of the On Brand podcast. About Beth Trejo Beth Trejo is the leader, mentor, torchbearer...

“Collaboration is the next phase of marketing.” And Vlad Calus knows a thing or two about collaboration. A serial entrepreneur, Vlad’s latest venture is as co-founder of Planable, a social media management tool built around the need for greater collaboration among internal and external marketing teams. We discussed all of this and more on this week’s episode of the On Brand podcast. About Vlad Cal...

“How do we make sure there’s a consistency of experience, consistency of messaging, and consistency of feeling?” These are the questions all brand builders grapple with. However, startup brands are building answers to these questions from the ground up. This week I was joined by Jonathan Wassterstrum, founder and CEO of startup brand SquareFoot. We discussed how he tackled these questions and more...