About Our Relationship

Dear Amex,

I was thrilled to get a “gift offer” from you in the mail the other day. It’s been quite some time since we’ve connected, and I miss those days when we were so close. When I opened your …

Steve Jones Knows Brand Experience

Great brand experiences occur without warning, at places we might not anticipate or expect. There’s tremendous power in the element of surprise, and great companies thrive in identifying those touchpoints where opportunity exists to provide added value, to tell their …

Do It Yourself. (Really)

Apparently the home improvement big-boxes, namely Lowe’s and Home Depot, have decided to take “do-it-yourself” to a new level. If you’ve been a patron of these stores over the past year or so, you’ve surely noticed the gradual replacement …

When Sh*t Hits the Fan: Why Brands Matter, but “Branding” is Bull

Bill Dawson of XK9, an LA design group, recently published a blog post titled, The Deceit of Branding (or Branding is Bulls#!+). As a partner of a brand strategy and design firm, it may come as a …

Big Box Brand Blunder

After a minimum of ten rings, a woman finally answers, making no effort to disguise her irritation at being bothered by yet another call. It was, in fact, her job, I thought to myself.

Building (or Denying) the Possibility of Greatness

Most companies will never become great brands. It’s an unfortunate truth. I don’t measure greatness by size, profitability, or number of office locations. While these may be byproducts of great companies, they are not measures of great brands.