Building a model brand starts
with an insightful brand model
The foundation of any successful, compelling brand is the brand model that will organize, focus, and guide decision-making.
I spent a number of years contemplating and writing about various approaches — a quick Google search or ChatGPT query will produce myriad brand-model options — and I keep coming back to the one I developed and brought to two institutions I’ve served: A brand is a conceptual capital asset defined through the fusion of an organization's lived values, its meaning in the market, and the expression of its personality.
Of course, finding the brand model that's right for you and your organization is just the tip of the iceberg. Positioning a brand for optimal success — yielding those all-important “voluntary exchanges” through the work of marketing — requires skillful, evidence-based stewardship day in and day out.
But the fundamental brand model is the starting line, empowering you to be intentional and disciplined in how the brand comes to life through word and deed, design and images, and programs and services.