As B2C brands invest more in direct, short-term B2B approaches, and B2B is looking more to longer-term B2C-style approaches in marketing, it is important to remember that brand building delivers long term growth and some short-term lifts, but the true value of brand building is how it compounds over time and influences future sales from future buyers.

Archetypes are essential links to brand personality, and critical when considering product and line extensions. The Archetype Expansion Dimension (AED) provides a pressure test new ideas against to ensure alignment and consistency for the long-term health and relevance of the brand (or band).

How to get over the trepidation and status quo stasis that keeps organizations from fully activating a new strategy.

In product marketing, the question is how far can you push the story forward before you lose the audience? If you reach too far and get too obtuse, too clever, you’ll spend more time and money explaining the concept than selling it. Fundamentally, humans avoid what we don’t understand, so you have to stay proximate to the prospect’s experience while demonstrating progress, evolution, and disruption. Tricky balance.

Strong convictions deserve and require strong language. Used sparingly and strategically, obscenity can impact and inspire action.

Marketing, in all its forms, impacts consumer brand perception and value as the connection between the brand components and the customer’s associations. If the marketing is weak then so too are the affiliations or differentiations established with the customer, with no additional value earned in the market.

In Gartner’s 2020 CMO Spend Survey, CMOs ranked “Brand Strategy” as “The most vital marketing capability”, beating perennial favorites “Market Analytics”, “Marketing Operations” and even “Digital Commerce. Here are five factors, trends, and current events that are pushing CMOs to feel the need to act with more intent.