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Highlights from the conversationAny public institution has a brand and is a brandThe Constitution has a lavish and generous set of values...but it comes down to the promise of human dignityIt doesn't matter if you've got this amazing message and amazing marketing collateral – if you don't actually do the thing that you said you would do, it all failsOne shouldn't over mythologize the element of public participationIt doesn't matter about its provenance, the fact is that it was an evocative and moving charter on the part of those struggling against ApartheidThe question is what was produced? Whether it's a flag, a set of values, did it have resonant integrity?  More about Judge CameronEdwin Cameron retired in August 2019, after 25 years’ service as a judge, the last eleven in South Africa's highest court, the Constitutional Court. Before that, he served in the Supreme Court of Appeal for eight years, and the High Court for six. He was educated at Pretoria Boys' High, Stellenbosch and as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxf

Highlights from the conversation:In the comic book world, there are thousands of characters but only a handful rise above. My theory is they've done a better job of telling their story. We can identify with them.Great characters have a strong story. Their strengths and their weaknesses are almost mirror opposites of each other.Perfect is boring. Perfect is inauthentic. Perfect is unrelatablePeople do not fall in love with corporations. They fall in love with personalityOur purpose in life is to find our true voice and be comfortable with thatWhen you have your story, you have to think about – I stand for these things and I stand against these things More about Chris DoChris Do is a loud introvert, an Emmy award-winning designer and director, CEO and founder of The Futur—an online education platform that teaches people how to make a living doing what they love.Mr. Do has given talks and conducted workshops on: Marketing, Sales, Negotiations, Pricing & Budgeting, Mindset, Content Marketing, Community Buildi

Highlights from the conversation:A brand is an organism composed of hundreds of elements, logos, copywriting, photography, colours, and of course, typographyBig companies spend millions of dollars on their fucking brand. Why can't they spend a little bit more money to make sure they have a font that is recognisable?They don't even have to say anything. They just have to put type on a page and people would immediately recognise the brand It's very difficult to maintain what's good about the brandThey're rooted in this idea of being digital-friendly but they're falling in line with everybody elseIf you spend $250,000 for a photo campaign, that gets used for one season. If you spend the same amount for a font that you use for 20 years, the cost is negligible More about MatteoMatteo Bologna is the Founder and Creative Director of New York-based branding studio Mucca, a singular personality whose multidisciplinary background in architecture, graphic design, illustration, and typography has helped him build one of

Highlights from the conversation:You collect ideas by looking around the world and doing things, and all of those things form a vocabulary of ideas that you then come to useI always try and encourage young designers to not just look at design – to look wide and experience wideThings lead to other things. The more you collect ideas, the more you will have opportunities to make them happenIt's important that we create systems that are open and easy to flex to accommodate audiences as they participate in what you've createdWe shouldn't just do ‘adaptable’ for the sake of it, we should understand the role that each organisation playsThe work is also the journey. The difficult thing is to make brave ideas survive the process + make make into the real world More about Marina Marina Willer is a graphic designer and filmmaker with an MA in Graphic Design from the Royal College of Art. Before joining Pentagram as a partner, she was head creative director for Wolff Olins in London.During the course of her career, Wille

Highlights from the conversation:Your brand is this decentralised thing that essentially exists in other people's heads. It’s this thing that you're building in other people's mindsWhere you really start to feel the compound effect of brand [is] 12-18 months down the lineIt really does take a long time to win that battle of attention and fire off the sequence of neurons when someone sees your work. We underestimate how long it takes to get there. But we also underestimate what it's worth when you pass that thresholdThe only way to maintain the edge, long term, is just to dig your heels in and try and be clever, make better work and hope that it's obvious in the outputI didn't need 1000 people to believe in it for it to work. I needed to find five people a year that were interested in hiring me as a consultantThe power of consistency, and just going at something and tackling it, again and again, can produce value More about JackJack spent 10 years working in corporate advertising in NYC as a graphic designer f

Highlights from the conversation[On rebranding] You don't change from one day to the other. But I do think that makes a wave of different thinkingIt means something. They work their asses off for a purpose, and that logo signifies the purpose.We tend to pretend that a brand needs to portray something more positive than it is, and I think, No – beauty is honestyDesign is about goods and about capitalism, there is no doubt about that[On doing what’s best for a brand] People change, but the company stays. So it's not about your personal tasteDesign [has] this opportunity to do that for a collective of people – which is a company – you can make that company feel, look, or behave a certain wayMore about RejaneRejane is an award-winning designer with a history of iconic work. She has 23 years experience in graphic design and branding, including stints at renowned agencies such as Wolff Olins (UK) and Studio Dumbar (NL).Rejane studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York and St Joost Art Academy in Holland and h

Highlights from the conversationWhen you're on the client side there are so many priorities to handle other than brand buildingIt's about encouraging a culture of not just being on repetition, but a culture that is about making things better and making things happenThe important thing is to know that a lot of people on the client side aren't brand buildersYou just hope that senior leadership has enough vision, communication ability and consistency in the narrative that they're telling that everyone in the company starts thinking with a holistic mindAs a business owner, he's like, I can't do any of that. I can't be the best marketer for my brand because I don't have the money to do thatIn an agency, you want to put a dent in the universe, you want to do something cool and breakthrough that people take notice. But when you're inside the company, you just want to survive to the next day and be a little better tomorrow More about LelandLeland is a designer and business executive fascinated with incredible innovat

Highlights from the conversationThe most successful relationships we have are the ones where the internal team have done the work to prime the key decision makers with what to expectThat's where balance is really crucial – we can support them and give them all the ammo needed. But at the end of the day [we need] their expertise for those crucial conversationsAs there's more access to design, [maybe] not designing is going to be differentiatedSome people just want to be part of some of the conversations along the way Part of it is figuring it out along the way. You find a rhythm or your stride a little bit into the processThere's only so much that we can do if your CEO has worked with his executive team for years. He's going to trust them way more than someone who's just come in More about BrentBrent Couchman is a graphic designer, creative director, and founder at Moniker, a brand design studio based in San Francisco.Moniker works with an international team that focuses on connecting future-thinking brands to

Highlights from the conversation:We all have the same time in the day, but some people get exponential resultsYou can go on a completely different path and you can define what 'winning' isWe believe if we stop being self-critical, we're just gonna become a sloth...which is a complete lieGreat communities are not actually focused on communities, they're focused on a missionA lot of people get so focused on their benefits and features [of] their product, they forget that what people want to do is feel a particular wayPeople remember moments – life is a bunch of moments. What we're trying to do as marketers is, give people these moments More about FinnianAs a sought-after speaker, event facilitator and executive coach, Finnian has been dubbed “the Business Mystic” because of his unique ability to put consciousness into business and inspire leaders to find new levels of meaning and purpose through their creative endeavours.  This approach flowed through his term as President of the Colorado Chapter of Entrepreneu

Highlights from the conversationThey're not gonna care, and they shouldn't, because they don't need more thingsIf you play it safe and you go the easy route it falls on deaf earsIt's about the people that do it. We want to be in the right relationships with the right people. The product and all that other stuff are important, but great people build great brands and great companies, and I think that's where it starts.I think it takes courage to be presented with four potential brand identities in a first client presentation and take the one that's the most crazyA great brand has impact on the world and people and culture. It doesn't have to fundamentally make us all better humans, but it should hopefully, bring joy, happiness, connectivity to people's livesIt's not one thing, it's so many individual moments where you have to make decisions. And you know, and all those decisions add up. And Vitamin Water is a perfect example. It's like, if you get everything right, where you treat every single moment, as an opp

Highlights from the conversation:We have to give a shit. And our employees have to give a shit about the things we give a shit aboutAny great brand is a convergence of both functional and emotional componentsWhen everybody's going heavily into their data, it leaves space for a really good storyYou’re not for all. Generalisation isn't doing anybody any favoursBe super specific about what's important to you and who you serve, because that can be a gamechangerI drive a lot of motivation from what I want to change, what I'm frustrated with, or angry atMore about KarinUnder 15% of global executive creative agency leaders are women — Karin Fyhrie is one of them. She confidently steers Top 50 brands, globally renowned cultural institutions, and market-leading start-ups into the future, thanks to her unconventional path. Over two decades, she’s evolved as quickly as the industry has, building a uniquely diverse perspective as expansive as the word ‘design’ has become thanks to tenures at COLLINS, IDEO, Google Creativ

Highlights from the conversation:Just like brands and companies, people need to have the right mindset about what could be rather than a preservation mindset or a victim mindsetTo think less about resources and more about being resourceful is the kind of change we need to make in our heads.What does the world need right now? it needs more fresh, entrepreneurial thinkers who are willing to turn things upside down and change the status quoThe people in a company are more brand builders than anything else you doRather carve out deeper, more meaningful relationships with people who truly get youGive guardrails but fewer rules to people, and more liberation to make their own decisionsMore about DavidDavid is an experienced strategy practitioner having led significant Brand, Insight, Marketing, People, Research and Technology projects across more than 20 countries. He founded DeltaVictorBravo in September 2018 and also represents eatbigfish across Africa Middle East.David’s prior experience is as CEO of Yellowwood,

Highlights from the conversation:A rebrand doesn't have to be extreme. It could be the right decision to just modernise or refreshWe want to give up and coming businesses a fighting chanceNo one cared about them. They were visual spam all over the city, no one engaged with them. The whole point of them was to inform the public, but no one caredBrand identity really can just attract people in that front door. A lot of those small or mid-sized growing organisations lack thatA lot of organisations can't see the obvious right in front of them. And creatives, especially at an agency, have the gift of being an outsider. We can bring a fresh, unique perspectiveWhen clients rebrand, they often forget the context out of which they came [...] When you're tone-deaf to where you've come from, it can be quite dangerous from a relationship perspective More about Blake Blake is the Creative Director and Cofounder of Matchstic, an Atlanta-based brand identity firm. For nearly 20 years, he’s focused on helping growing compani

Highlights from the conversation:I like the idea that a couple moves from me help fuck with the people who had 100 moves to makeMan, I'm just going to have fun with this. I'm not going to worry about what is and isn't the right thing to you know, to get me into the cool room. I'm just gonna do itIf you're just starting out, it's about knowing how to play the deck of cards, when to play them, how to enjoy them, and how to make this stuff funYou look at a brand, you want to trust it, and you want to believe in it. And you don't want them to let you down. If they make lots of profit, a little profit, I don't really care. This helps me make my life better.Brands can just be decent humans, and companies can be decent humans and they can just treat humans the way they want to be treated. That makes for a better world,  a better experience, more loyal customers, and, in the long run, more moneySlow and steady wins the race, and also feeds the soul More about Aaron Bred from the loins of the proud Midwest, this littl

Highlights from the conversation:You're lucky if you find a name or concept that upsets a certain number of peopleWe did a lot of work to ensure that our customers thought that we hung the moon. And the advantage of that [was] our fans sold for twice what anybody else's didWe talked to every single customer that we had — 10s of thousands of people over a period of years — to see how we could make the experience betterThe product is almost secondary to the experience. The product is your ticket to entry. The experience of receiving the product, buying the product is what people ultimately take away — that’s where your brand comes to life.Prospective customers would call us, and we would answer HVLS fan company and there would be a pause...they'd say, are you those guys that make those big ass fans? The majority of what we got in payment was for the brand, because, I mean — we made money, but honestly, we did not make that much money. More about CareyA career entrepreneur, Carey Smith founded Big Ass Fans in 19

Highlights from the conversation:"Design is not what we make. Design is what we make possible for others.""Craft is just consideration of every detail. And scale is often about finding efficiencies. And those two notions are kind of at odds with each other.""Craft at scale is the same as craft anywhere else. It's just trying to bring intentionality and consideration to every decision.""We feel the tension between good business and good design constantly. Good design is so often a factor of time.""It's critical to have the leadership team in the room because the more understanding you build, the more likely you are to build something that fits the problem.""I don't believe in the idea that you need to find a compromise, because I think compromise implies that both sides of the equation gave up on something to meet in the middle."More about Ben Originally from Australia, Ben relocated to the United States eight years ago in pursuit of a specific vision for branding — to bring the creative quality and craft usua

Highlights from the conversation:Most of my clients didn't embrace collaboration in a deep way, there was shallow collaboration. But that wasn't really about genuine collaboration.Working with your competitors is going to get you there faster,Brand owners have misunderstood the degree to which people care or don't care about themThat ambition is too important for me to suppress. I need to step back and reconsider how I'm going to deliver that ambition under that constraintConstraints seem to spur them on. They're more open to braver design – they have to pop out, they can't fall into that sea of sameness.It's less about challenging somebody. It's more about challenging something, something in the category, something in contemporary culture. More about Adam “Adam Morgan, is the founder of international brand consultancy eatbigfish, the world’s leading expert on Challenger Brands. His latest book “Overthrow II: 10 strategies from a new generation of challengers” is out now.”Find Adam here:LinkedIn | Twitter | W

Highlights from the conversation:David Ogilvy had lamented that if advertising agencies were a dairy farm, you had more milkers than you had cows.We were removed from the people who were most invested in the brands that we servedI was shocked at how great the product was and equally sad about how poorly it was being presentedSo even they themselves didn't come in to make shit up. They just defined what was already there, and focused on itIn a completely transparent electronic world where everybody's first step is to Google you, you'd better be telling the truthBut now brand has to be personality, it has to be what's your beliefs? What are your principles? What are your values? What's your stance on sustainability? All those come into play. MORE ABOUT SCOTT&VICTOR When you work with Scott&Victor you get Scott and Victor. We embed ourselves in your brand and function as your creative directors. We will guide and participate in the creation of every aspect of your marketing communications, from strategic

Highlights from the conversation:I think that everything is a remix of something else. So we love to see when other agencies are similar to us because it only means that there are more people believing. So they come to us with a brief — we always rewrite it. Most of the time, we make them realise that what you think you need is not what you need, or maybe that comes in stage three.Companies love data these days. It's always like — Oh, it's gonna tell us the truth. But look at your marriage— do you want to use data for changing your marriage?People in companies are afraid of making enemies with consumers. And they want fans. But they don't understand that in order to get fans you need enemies because you need to stand up for something. And when you stand up for something that you believe in, whether it's your private person or company, you will get enemies. But you will get the right kind of enemies, enemies that you don't want as fans anyway. So, the thing for us is that if someone has a low budget, we demand

Highlights from the episode:Their Head of Brand position didn't exist. And in fact, there was no brand team, Yoco, in the startup phase that they were at, and in many respects, we're still at, the mentality is usually growth hacking, it's performance marketingThe core job of a brand team is to build a really strong competitive moat around yourself. So that if competitors do come in with a really low price product, or some fantastic promotion, or some campaign, you're not going to feel the effects of that. There was a realisation for me early on in this process, that the real gold that we had at Yoco was our customer's stories, not our own story.The concept of having a strong community of customers who are at the centre of that community and can become your evangelists over time, and you have the ability to have two way conversations all the time is absolutely critical for brand building, but also just building your business.We were a bit pissed off, to be honest, because we realised that the decision-makers i