brand strategy Archives - Wakeman Consulting Group

The Bud Light Effect: A Warning to the Next CEO of Brown-Forman

August 25, 2026
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Welcome to your new job. What a challenge. What an opportunity. You are the steward of some of the world’s greatest liquor brands: Jack Daniel’s, Old Forester, and Chambord, to name just three. But your appointment comes at a moment of serious peril for the company. Brown-Forman’s stock is down 60% in the last five […]

The GWS Giants Don’t Need a Rebrand. They Need a Real Strategy.

The GWS Giants are reportedly considering a name change. “Greater Western Sydney” doesn’t pop. The club president says that people don’t identify with it. It doesn’t support the brand. He’s not wrong about the symptom. He is wrong about the solution. When someone says, “Let’s rebrand!” Your answer should always be, “No.” The Vessel Is Empty. […]

February 20, 2026
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I’ve been watching the Metropolitan Opera’s situation for a while. The status of the organization is personal to me. I love New York and those huge cultural institutions. When I moved to New York City, I bought memberships and subscriptions to all of the major cultural institutions I could afford at the time. I sucked […]

January 16, 2023
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I’ve been asked to teach a course in applied brand strategy to executive MBAs at a major business school This means that I need to plan for the class and the things I want to teach MBA students. Also, I want to create a foundational home for my thinking and writing about brand strategy. That’s […]

January 11, 2023
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I look at Peter Drucker’s Wikipedia page from time to time to research an idea or remind myself of some idea that he shared with us that still feels fresh today. The section that really sticks with me is the one that shares his major topics. From time to time, I like to revisit my […]

January 5, 2023
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I’ve taken to making lists and today I was thinking about putting together a tip sheet for an upcoming MBA-level brand management class I’m going to teach. Here are 7 quick tips to help you manage your brand effectively in 2023: Learn more about brands, branding, and brand management in my weekly newsletter: ‘The Business […]

Strategy at 3 Levels

In doing research for the relaunch of my site, I did a bunch of research into what CEO’s and their executive team thought about their strategy and discovered that they often see strategy three ways: at a corporate level, at a brand level, and at a marketing level. The challenge that most organizations are dealing […]

brand strategy

The Bud Light Effect: A Warning to the Next CEO of Brown-Forman

The GWS Giants Don’t Need a Rebrand. They Need a Real Strategy.

The Met Opera’s Crisis Isn’t About Art. It’s About Strategy.

Foundations of Successful Brand Strategy

2023: My areas of thinking and focus…

7 Tips to Manage Your Brand Effectively in 2023

Strategy at 3 Levels

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