As part of my Master of Communication program, I interviewed the owners of the Mazama Store, a small business in Washington with an exceptionally beloved and renowned brand, and wrote a piece about how and why the company’s brand resonates so strongly with their target audience. When we think of examples of strong brands, we picture big names like Apple or Nike. But niche, small businesses that intimately know their customers can also teach us about branding.

Under Armour, New Balance, Brooks, and Hoka are all in the business of selling sneakers. Sneakers are a commodity. To become successful and break through the noise, each of these brands have found their own niche in which to position themselves…

Yes, marketing and branding is about getting people to buy more stuff. But it can also be used for creating social change. In Brene Brown’s recent conversation with branding genius Debbie Millman, Debbie shared how brand building is part of who we are as people…

When brands admit a negative about their product, their customers might end up seeing it as a positive…

When putting together a content editorial plan, it’s easy for marketers to dig into the SEO data and focus on crafting content around keywords with high search volume and low competition to rank for. But this approach will probably hand you a lot of website traffic but few conversions.

The strongest brands hold opinions. Because of their opinions, they build authority. And because of that authority, they establish trust. Patagonia is a classic example…

When I tell people I’m in marketing, I get responses like “so, advertising?” and “isn’t that tricking people into buying things they don’t really need?”

A valuable product will do more for growing your brand than flashy campaigns ever will…

Website homepages are an introduction. They should enable the viewer to understand what you do and what problems you solve. But when companies forget this and start to clutter their homepages with unnecessary information, the homepage feels less like a greeting and more like a tangent-filled monologue…

“Don’t build a marketing team. Build a media company for your niche,” Dave Gerhardt, chief brand officer for Drift, likes to say. More and more companies are doing just that. Especially in the outdoor industry. In October alone, three outdoor companies—The North Face, Houdini, and Kari Traa—have launched campaigns that focus on customer storytelling…

Japan might not be eating salmon sushi today if the Norwegian government hadn’t crafted a certain brand partnership…

“(Steve Jobs) believed that a company’s brand works like a bank account…When there’s a healthy balance in the brand bank, customers are more willing to ride out the tough times. With a low balance, they might be more tempted to cut and run.” This week, with Facebook’s six hour outage and Frances Haugen’s explosive whitstleblower testimony, Facebook’s brand balance took a big blow…

With so many companies churning out new media, it’s tough for marketing teams to find ways to differentiate their content. People-centered stories are one way to do it, but how do you find good stories fast? And how can teams take stories a step forward to make data-backed points?

If you were making a film and your two main characters had to embody Adobe and North Face’s personalities, what would those characters be like? Perhaps one would be a creator and one would be an explorer…

In 2016, I read a piece about harassment women face while they’re exercising outside. The author’s tone was edgy and empowering. Erin Bailey’s voice was clear and strong…

I have a crush on a commercial. Not a character in the ad—the entire thing itself. Descript, a tool that lets you edit audio by editing a transcript (and so much more), put out this killer content to introduce the product. It’s worth the two minute watch. Here’s what I think it gets right:

In my job at a health systems consulting firm, it can be tough to edit the academia-styled, technical writing of the public health industry. Often, I struggle through 50-word sentences written entirely in passive voice. The ideas tucked behind the lines are usually brilliant, but it’s my job to ensure sure readers can understand them. Editing has taught me how not to write and how to make good writing better. And that’s pretty valuable. Some lessons I’ve learned:

I know nothing about glasses, but I bet I’m wearing Warby Parker for their messaging, not because they make the best products. It all comes back to the copy.

Fitness industry entrepreneur Katrina Scott of Tone It Up could’ve hired a social media coordinator to monitor TIU’s social accounts, but she wanted to do it herself. She wanted to understand not just what her community was talking about but why they were talking about it.