About How Brands Are Built
Overview
How Brands Are Built is a blog and podcast where branding professionals get into the details of what they do—and more importantly, how they do it.
Most branding blogs focus on news, opinion, or high-level theory. How Brands Are Built takes a different approach by keeping it practical and tactical. If those other resources give you a 30,000-foot view, this is where the rubber meets the road—where you can find tips, tools, and other useful resources to help you build brands.
The podcast is hosted by Rob Meyerson, a San Francisco-based brand strategist. On each episode, he interviews other strategists, designers, writers, researchers—anyone who’s part of the world of branding. Season one is about naming, season two is about brand positioning, season three is about brand experience, and season four is about how brands and branding professionals can make a positive impact on the world.
On the blog, you’ll find posts by branding experts—from agencies and client-side brand teams—on topics such as brand strategy and positioning, naming, brand architecture, messaging, brand voice, visual identity and logo design, package design, market research, and more. How Brands Are Built will also feature informative series of posts like Definitions, Useful Lists, and Best of the Web, where we scour the internet for the best examples of branding content or tools we can find.
To get in touch with with any questions or comments, please contact us. You can also submit a post, get information about advertising with us, or list your company on our agency directory.
Learn more about How Brands Are Built in the press kit.
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On this site
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On SoundCloud
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Creator and podcast host
Rob Meyerson is principal and founder of Heirloom, an independent brand strategy and identity firm. His specialties include brand strategy and positioning, naming and messaging, brand architecture, qualitative research, and organizational change. Prior to Heirloom, Rob’s previous roles included head of brand architecture and naming at HP, director of verbal identity at Interbrand in San Francisco, and director of strategy at FutureBrand in Southeast Asia. His client experience ranges from the Fortune 500 to Silicon Valley startups, and from San Francisco to Shanghai, including brands such as Flex, GE, J.D. Power, Disney, John Deere, and Intel.
Rob is the author of Brand Naming: The Complete Guide to Creating a Name for Your Company, Product, or Service and has published articles about brand strategy and naming in Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Guardian, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur, and VentureBeat, among others.
Rob’s writing
- Brand Naming: The Complete Guide to Creating a Name for Your Company, Product, or Service
- “Don’t Change Your Brand Name — Unless You Really Have To,” Entrepreneur
- “How to Pick the Best Name for Your Company,” Harvard Business Review
- “How to Evaluate Brand Names – A Simple Name Evaluation Tool,” JUST Creative Blog
- “What’s in a Brand Name?” AMA.org
- “Why Are Brand Names Important?” Branding Strategy Insider
- “What’s a Company Name Really Worth?” StartupNation
- “What does Byron Sharp’s research really tell us about differentiation?” WARC
- “Should You Name Your Business After Yourself?” Entrepreneur
- “Should You Use Your Own Name or Create a Brand Name for Your Business?” Entrepreneur
- “Brand Naming – How to Present Names & Win Every Time,” JUST Creative Blog
- “The Optimal Brand Naming Process,” Branding Strategy Insider
- “I name brands and companies for a living — here’s what it takes to succeed as a ‘professional namer,’” Business Insider
- “The Worst Possible Name For Your Brand And Three Things You Can Learn From It,” TechCrunch
- “Mind, body and sold: bridging the divide between business and brand,” The Guardian
- “Startup names don’t have to be terrible. Here’s the proof.” VentureBeat
- “What makes a great brand name in Singapore?” Singapore Business Review
- “Two Identities, One Logo: How International Brands Integrate Chinese and Non-Chinese Names and Taglines in Logo Design,” BusinessForumChina
- “2010’s Top Five Brand Stories in China,” Labbrand LABReport Vol. 3 Iss. 3
- “Businesspeople Are People Too: The Case for Emotion in B2B Branding,” BtoB Magazine
Additional articles by Rob can be found throughout How Brands Are Built and elsewhere on the web.
Rob’s teaching/presentation experience
- “Fundamentals of Memorable Brand Naming” for Domestika (online course)
- Brand Strategy Workshop at General Assembly (a regular, three-hour, in-person class prior to the pandemic)
- Brand Naming “Artisan Workshop” for Level C
- Guest lecturer, Lehigh Master’s in Technical Entrepreneurship Program
- Office Hours, The Futur Pro Group
- Presentation on podcast naming for Espree Devora‘s “Launch 30 Podcast Episodes in 30 Days” cohort
- Guest speaker, Master in Marketing and Communication program, Bocconi University
- “Intro to Branding – From Definitions to Design,” Designhill (online presentation)
- Guest speaker, USC Marshall School of Business (New Product Development course)
