Just branding - Best of season 6

Season 6 of the JUST Branding Podcast was… epic. (In the best possible way).

Somehow, co-host Jacob Cass and I managed to pull together a lineup that still makes me slightly shake my head when I see it written down. We’re talking genuine heavy hitters in the world of brand, strategy, and behavioural science:

• Mark Ritson

• Rory Sutherland

• Laura Ries

• Marty Neumeier

• David Aaker

• …plus a stack of other world class brilliant operators, thinkers, and builders who are actually doing the work day in, day out.

Different backgrounds. Different perspectives. Different opinions.

But interestingly, some very consistent themes.

The Best of 2025

We’ve recently released our Best of 2025 episode - a tight highlight reel pulling together the sharpest moments, strongest arguments, and most useful provocations from across the season.

We head into 2026, the crazy world of branding feels like it’s at a crossroads. AI is reshaping discovery. Performance marketing is getting noisier and more expensive. Trust is harder to earn. Attention is scarcer than ever.

Which made these recurring ideas feel… important.

The Themes That Wouldn’t Go Away

Across conversations with some of the smartest people in the industry, a few truths kept resurfacing:

Branding is about meaning, relevance, and relationships.

Not logos. Not colour palettes. Not “vibes.” Brands win when they mean something specific to someone specific.

Positioning isn’t the goal - it’s the starting line.

Too many teams treat positioning as the end of the project. In reality, it’s the foundation that everything else stacks on top of: product, messaging, culture, growth.

Culture is the brand - internally first.

Before you worry about what the market thinks, look at what your people believe, reward, tolerate, and repeat. The gap between internal reality and external promise always shows.

Not everyone is your customer (thank goodness).

Trying to appeal to everyone doesn’t make you bigger, it makes you blurry. Focus creates power. Exclusion creates clarity.

SEO is harder in an AI world - brand demand matters more.

When AI intermediates discovery, brands that are already wanted win. Awareness, memory structures, and demand creation are no longer “soft” ideas, they’re survival skills.

Audience ≠ community.

An audience listens. A community participates. Confusing the two leads to shallow engagement and disappointing results.

Why We Do This Podcast

JUST Branding exists because strategy deserves more depth than soundbites and also more practicality than theory for theory’s sake.

This season reminded us that while channels, tools, and tactics will keep changing, the fundamentals of brand don’t. If anything, they matter more when everything else speeds up. Branding is the management of meaning - so how are you managing yours?

If you’re a founder, leader, strategist, or marketer trying to build something that lasts - not just something that performs this quarter - this episode is for you.

🎧 Search “JUST Branding Podcast” on all the best podcast platforms and dive into the Best of 2025.

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