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.

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

Finding an excuse not to buy a brand can be just as enjoyable as finding an excuse to buy one. That, too, is human nature.

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

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.

Every brand builder will face a million temptations to obscure, dilute, or confuse his or her brand message. These temptations fall under two general headings: boredom and the desire for growth.