Brand Design Masters Podcast

David Brier - author, 'Rich Brand, Poor Brand'
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Philip VanDusen: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Brand Design Masters podcast. I am your host, Philip Van Dusen. And today I'm super excited because I have with me David Breyer and David is the owner of the branding agency, DBD International, and he's the author of the Amazon Bestseller Brand Intervention. His new book is called Rich Brand, Poor Brand, How to Unleash Your David in a World of Goliaths and is based on a confidential internal memo from Nike that listed the qualities of the kind of culture they needed to build their empire.

He's been featured in Adweek, Fast Company, Forbes, Inc., Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, and the New York Times. He's also generated over 9. 8 billion in revenue for global, regional, and local brands, including worldwide non profits and even cities. And in doing so, he's earned the nickname, The Brandfather. And with that, I'd like to welcome David Breyer.

David Brier: Hey, man, great to see you again.

Philip VanDusen: Great to see you again. So we've known each other for a good long time, actually. Yeah. And I think the last time we saw each other in person was maybe down in Florida at a CPG conference, maybe. But. Is so you've written a new book, but before we get into that, I want to talk about the super interesting news.

That's just set the design world of flurry, which is the Jaguar read rebrand. And so I'd love to hear your point of view on that because it's probably also germane to your book topic.

David Brier: Yeah, it's very it's very interesting. So first of all, it's basically a shit storm. The amount of hatred and dislike and betrayal and all that.

I, it is very off brand. It's a circus. It was basically spitting on the grid. As far as I was concerned, it really is spitting on the grave of the founders and their vision for what they created as far as a luxury lifestyle brand. The interesting thing with all of that's happening is it has resulted in Jaguar being talked about more probably in the last 10 days than has, then it has probably been spoken about in the last 50 years.

Honestly, what, when was the last time anything exciting happened with regard to Jaguar? They really were one of these legacy brands where we finally look at those gorgeously stunning vehicles from the sixties, the E types, et cetera. And you go, Oh. They were just breathtaking. Now, there's two ways that this thing unfolds.

One is, it remains absolutely Bud Light 2. 0, and is an absolute disaster and a disgrace to their entire customer base. Or, and we will find out on December 2nd, when they actually will be doing their big unveil in Miami, and they have not given a clue to this. Or it's the most ingenious prank because right now everyone is talking about them and curious what the hell are they going to unveil on the second?

If it's that, and they come out and they actually go, Oh, that was just a joke guys. Here's what we're really talking about. They would have more eyeballs on their brand than they ever would. They could never have spent this amount of money to ever get that many eyeballs on their brand. If they do that, they're ingenious.

If they don't do that and they're going down this path, and this is really what they meant, then they are the biggest betrayers, to even use the word brand. In what they d did because it was a suicide mission. If that's if it's not a prank, it's a suicide mission.

Philip VanDusen : Yeah. And I'll go out on a limb and I'll say that it's probably not a prank.

I, I heard their new head of brand strategy, you give a speech and there were clip of it. Oh, I heard that too. I heard that too. There was a clip of it on X and I was

David Brier: really, an inside of me died. An inside of me died. When I watched that, I was like, you gotta be kidding me. .

Philip VanDusen : Yeah. Because it was the thing was it was all about me.

It was all about us the brand it was internal It was everything about and this is you know It makes sense really to talk about because your new book rich brand poor back is a lot about company culture and so What he was talking about was how they are completely 180 and going, for one of a very simple term, going super woke with their internal corporate culture, very inclusive, very DEI.

And while I completely respect that. And there was absolutely nothing in what he said about our product or a customer or what is important to them in their lives. It was all me. And I think that was either and I got to say, I didn't see the whole speech. So this was just a clip.

Maybe he did go into all of that, but I think it was really clear that this was really more about them than it was about their market.

David Brier: It also was, they also, first of all, my stand on committees, I'm not a big fan of committees because committees have a fundamental flaw in their structure, but committees are really based on, okay, we're going to have eight, 10, 15, 12 people in a room and they're all going to be treated, all of them have an equal voice and equal say, even if one person has worked here for two days in the cafeteria.

And another person has worked here for, three decades and actually has a remarkable breadth of experience, but they're all treated. And so the whole thing is, how do we come to agreement and that as a fundamental framework is flawed. So that's one point with regard to committees, because committees, the really what committee ever actually produced.

And I'm, and I want to be clear for those that are listening, I'm not saying think tank. Where you've actually brought together smart minds, multidisciplines. I'm talking about a committee, which is responsible for somehow shepherding something along. The ultimate thing is how do we basically dilute it down to a point where we no longer disagree?

That's the ultimate outcome of it, which is horrible. And so what committee ever innovated? Whatever, what committee ever came out with a, wow, we're going to disrupt really brilliantly in an ingeniously innovative way, an industry that has been dormant and asleep, that has never happened. That's never happened.

Man, when I heard that this particular individual you're talking about mentioned that they have, 15 committees that are focused on the issues that you've talked about woke and DEI, which all has to do with committees that are their whole focus is there in making things comfortable for the people internally versus making something exceptional for the people external called customers.

That's the focus is all wrong. It's just fundamentally, there's a foundation that's very wrong.

Philip VanDusen : Yeah. I actually heard somebody who went out on a limb and voiced the super unpopular, what I would say is at the moment, non popular opinion, that It the rebrand was actually to a certain extent, a smart move, and the way that person framed it was that you don't fix something that's not broken.

But the thing is that the Jaguar brand was broken, not the brand identity per se, or their understanding of who their what their. Their brand ethos is, but the fact that their sales were broken, like they've been, year over year for the last dozen years, just cratering in terms of their sales.

And so to a certain extent, you could see this as a Hail Mary. It's Hey, if we don't do anything, we're toast. And so we might as well just like really go out on a limb. And to your point that you started off with, we're generating a whole lot of conversation and a whole lot of news around this. And if anything, we're, we're being elevated to a level of recognition and conversation in the market that could do nothing but help just in terms of brand recognition, even though that brand recognition to a certain extent right now is all negative.

David Brier: It's totally see, and that was the thing I was looking at this morning because I looked at, there was a brilliant Fiat ad from a year ago where they dunked, where they said the, one of the guys like break time, he goes, and he's talking Italian and I can only do basically an Italian sounding accent, but he's going.

So we're looking at our cars and everybody look at, and they like it, the color gray, but we don't want, we don't want them to do gray. We're Italy and we're alive and we love and a passion. And he's talking about all this and that the other, and it's absolutely priceless. And it's all the things we love about Italy.

And then they dunk, they take a freaking car with a crane. They actually dunk it in a big vat of our, of orange paint. And, but it was an ad that celebrated. The culture. And so that's why I was looking at that. And I said, I did this post on this, comparing it to what Jaguar did and what Jaguar did was, and that's why I said, if it's a prank, it's brilliant because like new Coke was a screw up, but the interesting thing that Coca Cola discovered with new Coke and that whole little sort of new chapter that they were trying to freshen up their brand was.

They saw how much allegiance people had to old coke. That's what it unearthed I think the symbol there's a similar dynamic here. Everyone's in an uproar Why are they in an uproar because this violates everything? Brilliant and wonderful and celebrated about jaguar So if it's a prank, it will go down in history as the most brilliant I am not of the school thinking that it is a prank.

I am i'm on the same page as you I think it's I think it's going to be egg in their face and this may be the end of Jaguar period. I just, I don't think that they've got much future if this is the path they're going down.

Philip VanDusen : It'll be interesting to see, because a rollout like this in a, on a global stage takes a lot of time, a lot of money to orchestrate a, those sort of corporate theatrics.

And so they only have a few days To kind of dial back that messaging if they want to dial it back and it'll be really interesting to see if they do if they caveat the message in some sort of you know an undertone of Oh, but we're still remembering our legacy and our their historical customer base and all the passion about our brand and blah blah blah Blah, it'll be interesting to see if they backtrack on that a little bit.

David Brier: I know It will be it totally will be

Philip VanDusen : all right. So now we're gonna let's pivot. Let's talk about you Yeah, let's talk about your new book. You had an amazing book Your first book, Brand Intervention, which if anyone hasn't gotten it, it's on Amazon. It was a bestseller there. And so it's an awesome, really engaging, fun book because it's design wise, it's a, It's just, I'm not going to say it's a light read because it's not, the ideas in it are really super heavy and meaty, but it's easy to, it's approachable.

That's what I want to say.

David Brier: That's right.

Philip VanDusen : And so how did you take what you did in brand intervention and that approach into rich brand, poor brand? What did you learn from brand intervention and that you then applied to rich brand, poor bearing?

David Brier: The basic thing is that, It was a very organic, interesting process.

There were things that I started to hear and notice in conversations after Rich Brand, after Brand Intervention. Because I put together, as soon as that came out, people started pushing me, Oh, David, you've got to do, you've got to do a digital course. You've got to do, you have to do, you have to teach people this stuff.

And so I did for about a year and a half, two years. I did a nine week master class. Put about 110 entrepreneurs or business owners, business leaders through that, and they had generated over about 290 million in revenue as a result of what they learned, right? Now, but at the same time, because I created the program where every Saturday morning for those nine weeks, I spent two hours on a zoom call with all those that were enrolled to just rip through blind spots.

Stupidities, questions, whatever. And I learned a lot being right there on the front lines, seeing the things that again because the magic, I think of brand intervention was that was from 35 years. Of seeing that the same questions came up every time or the same blind spots came by every time. And if there was ever a time that I discounted it saying, Oh, Ralph or Phyllis or whomever, whoever the client is, they know this, they've been in business a long time.

Anytime I did that, it literally bit me in the ass in the next 24 to 72 hours that they, that I assumed because they had. Years of experience, but years of experience did not replace the blind spot of proximity. And what I mean by that is. It's always easier for you or I to help another with their problem.

We're genius when it comes to that. Looking at our own is a little tougher, right? It's it's easier to, you talk to someone else and someone else will have a little more impartiality. I call that passionate impartiality. I really give a shit. When I give a shit with regard to my clients and I'm not.

And at the same time, I'll be the first one to say if they're like, Oh, but this is so cherished. We love this idea, or we love this concept, or we love this notion, or we love this hunch or they come to me with that kind of stuff. And if that's stupid, I'm going to go, your baby's ugly. And they, so it's passionate impartiality.

I am not scared to tell them the truth. And I'm not so blinded and drunk on the Kool Aid that they've been drinking. So I have that passion impartiality. I think there's value in that. That's what brand intervention, what made it so powerful is that these were the things, the exact areas to build a brand good.

So that's brand intervention. What I found was that there's a sort of something that's even underneath that you can, I can give. And you've experienced this. You've been in business long enough. I have as well. I could give a hundred thousand dollars. I could take a hundred thousand dollars cash and give it to one entrepreneur here, and I can take another a hundred thousand dollars cash and give it to another entrepreneur here.

And one of those entrepreneurs is going to come back to me in four and a half months, five months. Hey, we burned through the cash. We just need a little bit more. The other one's going to go, Hey, by the way, we've turned your a hundred thousand into 1. 5 million in sales, and we're on track to do 3 million this year.

There wasn't any difference in the a hundred thousand that I gave them. What was the variable? What what was the variable? Was it the money? No, was it the day of the week that I gave them the money? No, there was something else. That's the culture. That is, do they have, and I'm not just talking about do they have the skill sets and the talent, but I'm talking about the culture because.

I think we were in a very interesting time in business and life where we've all been like taught poorly to only look out for ourselves. And I think that's a weakness. I think there's much greater strength if I show up, not only with the intent of me winning, but the intent of everyone that I'm working with winning.

And not only everyone internal winning, but everyone external. So it's, so if I, if you have a team with everyone showing up with that mindset. That would be pretty much freaking unstoppable. And it was actually even the turning point. I remember Michael Jordan was talking about, he always was working on his game.

Everything changed when it was actually the fact of it wasn't the fact that he was a good performer. It was like, how did he add value and empower the team when he made that pivot? To that was all of a sudden when everything changed. And so that to me is that's the difference. And that's what rich brand poor brand is about.

It's about the power that we each have to breathe life into our groups, our teams, our colleagues. Our vendors, our customers, there's immense power to that. And I think that we're at a point where that the belief and the notion that's even possible has been undermined and I will not tolerate it anymore.

And I'm David Breyer and I approve of this message.

Philip VanDusen : You say that and you shared the internal Nike memo with me because I hadn't seen it before. And you said that a lot of Rich Man, Poor Man is based on this confidential internal memo from Nike that dates way, way back to the beginning of Nike's reign.

Yes. And you said the qualities that are listed in it. Are what they needed to, that they use to build their empire. So why did you latch onto this memo as something that is the underpinning to this book?

David Brier: When I grew up on Converse, Keds, Puma, and Adidas. Those are the sneakers that I grew up on.

And then, as I got into, my early career years, This brand Nike comes along and starts talking about this commodity of sneakers in a way that nobody had ever talked about before. Storytelling, framing, aspiration. There was like, there was something that was like, whatever the heck they were like on, I was like, what the hell is, and it just turned people's heads, it made us all rethink what was possible.

And so if you look at some of the lines, in this memo, it says like some of the lines were we're on a fence. All the time. And that's not a fence that like that you could climb offense as an offense defense. So we're on offense all the time. And then they say, perfect results count, not a perfect process, break the rules, fight the law.

And when they say fight the law, I don't think they're encouraging be illegal, but it's fight the law of like the law of gravity, the law of physics challenge than preconceived notions, because. Too often, the innovation dies on the presumption that it can't happen, right? Or that it's not worth even discovering or questioning.

To me, my most favorite con, just words are, why not? Or what if? Those are really my favorite things, because if we don't question and ask, how do we ever come to a new conclusion? Because people, Will not come in business and life and prospects and selling whatever people won't come to new conclusions with old information.

And too many are carrying along old information and that old information is holding down companies in terms of their culture. It's holding down companies in terms of their brand storytelling. But there's just a few others that I just loved in this memo. It was listed out what they listed out some dangers, specifically five dangerous bureaucracy.

Was one personal ambition was another personal ambition. Look at that personal ambition. That would mean I know that they're not saying don't have personal ambition. No, having personal ambition over the ambition of the group to survive. So what is that? It's all about group empowerment. It's all about knowing that you can actually, you're not just a cog in the wheel, but you are the very, you are the grease that makes everything.

Everything possible, energy takers, another, other dangerous energy takers versus energy givers. Love that. And knowing our weaknesses, just being cognizant of them. No, it's Hey, if I was up, if there's a place where I'm weak and I need to, and I have someone over here and that's their zone of genius.

Good. My rec, me not knowing that's a zone of weakness would be a danger, and don't and one of the, and one of the other things that I just loved. Assume nothing, make sure people keep their promises, push yourself, push yourselves, push others, and this one I love, stretch the possible.

That is the spirit of rich brand and poor brand, because there's immense, there's way more potential. Whether it's a two person company, five person company, fifty person, hundred person, thousand person, there's so much more potential. We live in an age where there's so much potential. Way too much carefulness and thin skinned silliness and pettiness, as opposed to a, you know what, we're all let's own the fact that we're all a little tougher than we actually give ourselves credit for, or we may have convinced others to believe.

And bottom line is if I if you came to me and you said, Hey, David, I have this idea for a new thing. What do you think? And if I'm scared to tell you that's an, that's not a good culture. I should be able to say, Philip, that is shit. Stop drinking whatever you're drinking. And here's a much better bean of coffee.

Have this instead, or whatever. But that would mean I get, I care about you. To be able to tell you that. Rather than, oh no, that's a really good effort, Philip. And if you just try this and that. What is this dancing around? That's not strength. You and I are as strong as we can boldly be forthright with each other and push each other to new highs

Philip VanDusen : And I think that you know to a certain extent The subtitle of your book is how to unleash your David in a world of Goliaths.

And I think that this internal memo from Nike definitely reads like a David. It reads like a company that is going to challenge norms. It's the underdog. It is going to, take no prisoners. It's very competitive when you read through the whole thing and feel super competitive. One of the things that you don't get so much with david size companies are big committees or this design by committee or decide by committee sort of thing and you do get that in incredible ways having worked at a couple of super large companies gap bank and pepsi co i mean i've seen this in action over and over again.

About how committees are where great ideas go to die and so there's this kind of conflict or this cross area challenge between the Davids and the Goliaths and so how can you instill in the Goliaths. This ethos that the Davids have is, do you address that in the book or how do you communicate that?

Because you've told me that the book is very much for teams. It's about teamwork. And so when you're dealing with a Goliath, how do you give it that spirit of the David?

David Brier: Two things with regard to that. One is that the book actually starts out with a quote from Phil Knight from Nike.

And it actually reads it's all right to be Goliath, but always act like David. There you go.

Philip VanDusen : Which

David Brier: I love, that frames it beautifully. And the thing is that sometimes it requires some re education the companies that have gotten large. Because being large size doesn't, should not matter.

Just like volume shouldn't matter. And what I mean by that is this, someone could say something stupidly, but if they say it louder, stupidly does not make it smarter. And so the thing is you go, okay, we're a large company. Da da da da da da da. Yeah. But you are waiting, like you've seen this, I've seen this, there are large companies.

Not unlike the government, but there are large companies that are incredibly wasteful. They've got, there's so cash rich and whatever it's like, whatever they do this and they do this. And a smaller company would be a heck of a lot more deliberate and intentional with regard to the cashflow, the cash outlay and where they're investing time and energy.

So the thing is I remind them, I say, you know what you are, you guys have gotten complacent. You're comfortable with where you are and your comfort is killing you. Your comfort, you are no longer hungry. You're no longer questioning. Is this the best decision you're assuming certain things. So there's a, there's almost like a little bit of a, we can do no wrong.

It's what I call the wonderful notion, the wonderful teenage notion of immortality. Nothing can stop me. Nothing can influence it because I am a teenager now and I will, I can do no wrong when they're doing a lot of wrong, generally, we've all done wrong when we were teenagers.

And there's that sort of arrogance that needs to be, put in its place and I am, believe me, I am completely of the school of being unapologetically brazen. If you're in, if you're going to do something, do it with conviction, right? Don't go half ass and such like that. So I'm all about conviction, but with conviction comes this thing of going, it doesn't mean that I.

Now have to assume or always defend a decision I've made to me. The best conviction is conviction that is married with fluidity and the ability to adapt and pivot.

Philip VanDusen : Yeah. And that I think speaks to the David's a lot because they are, they come out of the gate with a lot of energy, a lot of conviction, a lot of competitiveness, but they also, in order to succeed, have to be agile.

And I think that's something that. Is tougher for the goliaths and so so i have a question so in your book you're talking you talk about culture the kind of base of this book is all around corporate culture so if you have a company a david or a goliath and you have determined or they have determined that somehow their culture is broken what does that cultural repair road map look like how do they approach it.

David Brier: That's the basic, that's the basic thing. And that's the framework of kind of what I've gone over. Like I'll just give you, I think the best way to answer that is. To mention a few of the chapter titles, because they really show what I'm looking at. One of the chapter titles is, chapter number two is, Fanatical Intention.

Chapter three is, The Power of Love. Chapter six is, Shrinkage Your Enemy. And yes, it is referring to Seinfeld. If you know the episodes. No, vs Bullshit. Chapter eight is reciprocation, the super glue that bonds, and so, it's and also how to see around corners and the kind of comfort that kills teams and brands and the smartest answer.

One of the chapters, literally the smartest answer is, I don't know. So to me, this it's, I go through these 20 traits and qualities that a, that any company of any size will benefit from because. It's the healthy balance between being limber and being strong being, it's like organ, it's like organizational polities.

You're able to stretch without too much discomfort.

Philip VanDusen : I love that. So if if a company is thinking, or they have an inkling that something is broken and they're thinking it might be their culture, how do they recognize that? What are the symptoms of a broken culture? Yeah.

David Brier: I love that.

That's a, it's a very good question. So the basic thing is that there are a handful of things that I've seen. And here's a short list. One is if a company is seeing stalled growth, and these are all symptoms, these are all Hey, if we're running into this, we probably have some cultural blind spots that are actually inhibiting our brand from being explosive and the greatest value to everybody.

So one is like just stalled growth. The brand isn't getting the kind of attraction or market share that it had gotten or should be getting. There's brand loyalty. You're seeing that it's eroding, right? Customers are very easily swayed to go to others. That's definitely a red flag.

Another red flag is high employee turnover. It's like either they were not interviewed properly, or there's a big gap between what you're saying in the interview process and what they get to experience when they're actually there for real. There's disconnected customer base, there's inconsistent brand image.

It's like, why would you, why would there be things that would not be in alignment? There's the inability to adapt, which we talked about. And there's also weak competitive advantage. That your brand actually feels generic or replaceable in the market. Those are seven kind of big red flags that I see quite a bit.

And it all starts with this. There's not, it is not a weakness to be a, to actually look yourself in the mirror and go, I could, we could be doing better. That's actually a strength. That is the greatest strength. And for those that have been in business, we've all, almost any one of us has seen when Steve jobs was brought back to apple and he was in that room and he's saying, we really had to do some soul searching.

That was not a moment of weakness. That was a moment of high self awareness guys. We lost our way. That is not weakness to me. That is strength. When you go, you know what we're not up, we're operating to me. The greatest weakness is saying we're operating at a hundred percent. When you know, in your heart, you're operating at 60.

That is weakness.

Philip VanDusen : Yeah. And I think that also comes with, sometimes it comes with large cultures, large corporate cultures that are yes, cultures, or they are happy, crappy cultures, meaning like everything's positive. It's a raw rock culture where, yeah. And it's hard to be a squeaky wheel in a culture that is set up like that.

And in my experience working with the clients that I do, and even in the larger, working with the larger clients I have in my past, what I see is one of the biggest blind spots. For companies is the competitive landscape it shocks me when i work with strategy clients how often they have no real clue about the competitive landscape in which they are operating where there are white spaces red ocean blue ocean you know kind of things and that lack of attention they have paid.

To anything outside of their walls and because we all know that the market does not stand still the competitive landscape certainly does not stand still and someone is working on eating your lunch all the time and that's one of those things that I think is. Certainly a blind spot or can be instilled into a culture and a very negative way that we don't look outside or we don't compare ourselves when i was in the fashion industry one of the most interesting things.

I thought about that industry was the fact that we were always looking outside like we were always because fashion is a it's all based on the next season. It's all based on what everyone else is doing and you're constantly looking at what everyone else is doing because you are in direct competition for that customer in that season and so I think that there are certain.

Industry categories where it's more in the culture to be open to looking outside because it is so it's such a fast turn business and I'd be interesting to hear your feedback on whether you think there are certain categories that are better at culture than others.

David Brier: In my experience, no, it's because the great variable is okay. So someone's decided to go into. The category of health food or wellness or B2B or e commerce or sportswear or a B2B play or B2C play, or even our hospitality, et cetera. I've seen it because I've dealt in so many different industries.

That's the variable it does. It's if they brought their mindset and their mentality to a different industry, it would just manifest the same way in that other industry. So I haven't found that there are certain, I think that there are certain industries that are very

unnecessarily stressful. I think like one, one of the ones that you've mentioned is fashion. I've done, I've done stuff for, Estee Lauder and Revlon and stuff like that. That those spaces are. Oh my God. I, that's not something I would ever choose to do full time for those industries because they're almost, they're obsessed, neurotically, just ah, how do we leapfrog over?

And they're trying to see around the corner when they have no information. The only thing they have is like this anxious, frantic worrying. And it's, I think that's just a, Not a healthy thing, but let's say you took someone who was from that kind of culture and you brought them into Work for a company that was built on innovation and disruption and was comfortable questioning things and where they did have each other's back that person would freaking implode Because they weren't used to looking out for others.

They were just used to waking up frantic and freaking out and always they're on our freak out mode every minute. And it's not a, it's not a pleasant place to be, but they, but that's, but that's just like a characteristic. The greater thing is that

we are each. You and I talked about this the other day. I think that we are at a point where there's a big emphasis on consuming, meaning looking at content, looking at visuals, looking at what others are doing and this, that the other to learn, keep up with, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that we need to shift it into an L element of creating, taking those moments of consumption and converting them into creativity and output.

So it's the input versus output. And the same thing is with regard to the healthiest organizations are going to be the ones that give. The most toxic and destructive and stifling organizations are going to be the ones that just take where they, where the organization takes and that gets the individuals into feeling the only way that I'm ever going to be left with any scraps is that I have to now look out for myself and take.

And so now you literally have an entire ecosystem of takers. That's not a foundation that anything can grow on. Conversely, you take the flip side where it's bang there, people are giving, people are creating, and people are watching out for one another. That doesn't mean that I have less. That means that I have a hell of a lot more.

Because we're rising up and it's not, it's not a forfeiting. I don't want anyone to listen to this and get the idea. Oh, that means like becoming a martyr and selflessly and forfeiting one's personal expression and personal voice. That's hardly what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the exact opposite.

I'm talking about, you've got a voice, you have something to contribute. You have something really worthwhile. And great brands are built with energy, voices, convictions. It's an exciting thing to do. I love challenging my clients. I love telling them when they come to me with something enthusiastic, and they say, oh, da da da da da da da da.

And if it's great, I'll say, that's freaking brilliant and awesome. Now, Factually by statistic, that's usually about less than about 8 percent of the time. The other 92 percent of the time, it's something that I go, thank you for feeling safe enough to present something so stupid to me. And I really want you to know, I still love you.

And it's great that we got that out of the way.

Philip VanDusen : So David, if there is one takeaway that you think people should have from reading rich brand, poor band, what would you say that is?

David Brier: I would say it's that we are each a catalyst, a light, the fuse in one another, and we're also that windproof barrier that prevents that. That flame from being blown out unnecessarily.

Philip VanDusen : David, if people want to get rich, brand, poor brand, where do they find it?

David Brier: Go to amazon.com, go to Barnes and Noble. Go to any of your online retailers, books a million. That's where you can grab it. And I, and if you had not gotten brand intervention, I would personally really encourage you to get both together because those two is a one two punch that you will know.

You will not see the world the same. That's one thing I can absolutely guarantee you.

Philip VanDusen : Absolutely. I love that. And David, thank you so much for coming and talk to us today. David Breyer, head of DDB international and author of rich brand, poor brand, how to unleash your David in a world of Goliaths. Thanks for coming and chatting with us.

David Brier: Absolutely, man. I had a blast.