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Three Ingredients for M&A Brand Systems
I love watching that Netflix show, “Chef’s Table”. In a Michelin-starred restaurant’s kitchen, every person has a station. Every station has a role. Every dish has a prep list. I…
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Branding by Committee: You Don’t Ask Everyone Where the Couch Goes
I was scrolling the other day and read that a medical device business got carved out of its parent company this month. Two private equity firms, a new name, a…
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Sleep Scores and Search Rankings: Over-Optimized and Under-Felt
As a society, we’ve started letting the metric make the decision instead of informing it. I’m a recovering NCAA athlete. I spent the first 24 years of my life chasing…
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How We Built Our Website With AI (Oh Yeah, and People)
Fifteen years is a long time to have the same website. Our old website did the job. It brought us qualified leads every week, housed two thousand blog posts and…
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A Repeatable Marketing Strategy Framework
Originally published in February 2015. Rewritten in July 2026, because AI changes marketing execution. When I first became interested in design, I was obsessed with grids and patterns. Grids are…
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We Rewrote Our Healthcare Marketing Guide for the AI Era
Back in 2016, we published a guide called Content Marketing: A Guide for Healthcare Marketing Managers. It told you to know your brand, know your audience, blog consistently and share…
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Rebranding versus Brand Strategy: Knowing Which One Your Business Actually Needs
A client call last week reminded me of a question I hear all the time: rebranding versus brand strategy, and which one a business actually needs. A VP of Marketing…
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Brand Due Diligence: The Risk You’re Not Measuring
This is for my friends in private equity. From my experience, private equity firms stress-test everything. Cap tables. EBITDA multiples. Customer concentration risk. Tech debt. You run scenarios until the…
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Marketing Planning for 2026: Everything You Need to Know
Recently, the American Marketing Association St. Louis Chapter asked me to speak on a panel about marketing planning—specifically, how I build marketing plans for my agency and our clients. I…
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The Future of Brand Strategy Is Rooted in the Past
Why timeless design principles still matter in a world obsessed with trends. The Problem with Modern Branding A few years ago, I was in a meeting where a client asked…
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Why Your Brand Sounds Like Everyone Else’s (And How Brand Voice Development Can Save You)
You know that sinking feeling: You’re reading your competitor’s website, and the messaging sounds… familiar. Too familiar. You realize you could swap logos and no one would notice the difference.…
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Your Competitor Rebranded. Now What?
The notification pops up on LinkedIn: Your biggest competitor just dropped a rebrand. It’s sleek. Bold. Everywhere. Your phone buzzes—the CEO’s asking, “Did you see what they did?” Your stomach…
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