The great lesson of the Internet revolution is not that people never want personal service, just that they won't pay for personal service that does not add real value to the transaction.

A strong brand is the only thing that can tip the balance of power between distributors and a manufacturer back into the manufacturer's favor.

Brand is everything, the stuff you want to communicate to consumers and the stuff you communicate despite yourself.

While the importance of a strong brand is widely understood, nothing is as misunderstood in American business as the question of how to use it.

The real lesson Orville (Redenbacher) taught me was the power of a good brand to trump all rhyme or reason in the marketplace.

Good brands do three things for highly stressed out consumers: 1. They save time. 2. They project the right message. 3. They provide an identity.

It is not easy to build a great brand. It takes leadership to persuade the rest of the company to follow your vision. It takes an artistic sense of proportion and timing. It takes a ruthless willingness to distinguish yourself from competing brands and, hopefully, bury them in the process.