Principles of Brand Leadership

Scott Bedbury is someone I’d like to meet. He wrote a great little book called A New Brand World: 8 Principles for achieving brand leadership in the 21st century.

Who is Scott? He was the brand architect behind Nike & Starbucks. No question these are two phenomenally successful brands (both are personal Lovemarks).

A New Brand World is not a new book, it is actually a few years old but remains relevant. Scott takes on the challenge of breaking down the mystique behind successful brands and reveals how they break through to become legends.

These are likely not the key takeaways Scott would officially list as his "big" points, but are a few items I remembered:
· Every brand has a genetic code. Successful brands crack the code then communicate one clear message internally and externally.
· A creative brief should be no longer than two pages maximum. Never more than two pages, one if you are really good.
· Creative people need special handling. There is a discipline to generate great creative ideas that are aligned with client expectations. The trick is to be a bit like a sheepdog, directing them to an opening where they need to go, then get out of the way and let them take all the credit.
· Use emotion to transcend product-only relationships with customers

Here is an article written by Scott from the Fast Company archives: Nine ways to fix a broken brand.

If the world is now truly Six Pixels of Separation (thanks for coining that one Mitch), I hope Scott reads this and leaves a comment here in the future.