Your Brand Needs Therapy

Graham North is a brand consultant who thinks the brand strategy process is in dire need of reinvention. He works at San Francisco agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners, where he invented and leads a brand strategy called Brand Camp, which combines rigorous research, radical collaboration, and a touch of brand therapy to help leadership teams make hard tradeoffs to align on better brand strategies. For his role in building Brand Camp, he was named Campaign’s 2020 Strategic Planner of the Year. 

Graham is also Founder of The Weekend, a weekend-long brand accelerator consultancy.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• The textbook definition of what ‘brand’ is

• Graham’s definition of what ‘brand’ is

• The quote from Jeff Bezos similarly stated by Jeff Goodby that best defines a brand

• Why honesty, therapy, and strategy are more applicable to finding your brand than sheer creativity

• What ‘singularity of purpose’ has to do with your brand

• How brands are a relationship with people

• Why intentional listening is a lost art and a necessary part of defining your brand

• What two people Graham would most like to sit down and talk with

• Why we all need to hold space for people’s truths - and especially when you’re finding your brand

In this episode….

Graham North says his title is itself a branding issue. He would know as he’s something of a brand consultancy expert. According to Jeff Goodby of Goodby Silverstein & Partners, “Graham is spearheading a new way of thinking and approach to clients’ problems. It is exactly what clients need in this time of crisis and rapid reinvention.”

In a 2016 article titled How the Advertising Industry is Wasting Talent, Graham posits the following thought: “Listen more. Doggedly remove barriers in the creative process, and stop trying to swoop in with all the answers.” He remains firm on this point and restates in this interview that his number one piece of advice is to “listen like you’re wrong”.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and Graham North dive into what exactly makes (and breaks) a brand. They discuss what a brand is and is not, how to get to the core of what you actually do that defines your brand, why listening is a necessary part of identifying your brand, and some of Graham’s processes in defining brands for clients.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• URGEO

• Contact email: info@urgeo.com

• Martin Hunter on LinkedIn

• Graham North

• Graham North on LinkedIn

• Strategic Planner of the Year 2020

• Brand Camp

• Goodby Silverstein & Partners

• Patagonia

• ‘The Art of Gathering’ by Priya Parker

Sponsor for this episode...

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

Are you READY to free up your time?
Optimize your Organization?
Grow revenue and reduce costs?
Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven  methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today.