Transcript
Rob Meyerson (0:05)
Welcome to How Brands Are Built, where branding professionals get into the details of what they do and how they do it. I'm your host Rob Meyerson. Thanks for listening. Just like every other episode in season four, today's episode is brought to you by Squadhelp, the world's number one naming platform. It's June 2021, a little more than a year since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and if you're wondering what that has to do with a podcast about branding, let me explain. In early 2020, I had a plan for season four of How Brands Are Built, but in the wake of George Floyd's murder and protests around the world, my plan changed a bit. 2020 was already a pretty awful year for most people, and it just seemed to be getting worse and worse. So I started thinking about whether there was a way I could use this little platform of mine to do some good, or at least talk about something positive. That led me to reach out to my most diverse set of guests yet, starting with Dr. Jason Chambers, who talked about the origins of racist brand names and what to do about them. I talked to female agency founders like David Guthmiller of Noise 13, Sonny Bunnell of Motto, and Emily Hayward of Red Antler about how they got started and the role of diversity in their agency cultures. The season ended with a two part episode featuring Brian Collins and his agency's design apprentice, Diego Segura, who told me about one way to create opportunities for talented but less privileged designers and strategists. And along the way, I talked to Armin Vit of Brand New, Alina Wheeler, author of Designing Brand Identity, and Nurm Schanbag of Sid Li. While I talked to guests about their agencies, books they'd written, or other topics specific to their areas of expertise. I also asked nearly all of them about what brands and branding professionals could be doing to improve the state of the world in light of COVID 19, in light of racial injustice, and just in general, are brands a force for good? Can they be? Should they even try to be? In this episode, based on what I heard and what I learned this season, I'll share five ways brands and branding professionals like you and me can, sorry to say it, make the world a better place. I'll get to that in a minute. But first, a few housekeeping notes. First off, thank you to all my guests this season and to you for all you do to support this show, Listening, subscribing, leaving a rating and a review, engaging on social media and the blog, and signing up for the newsletter Second, this is the final episode of Season four. You may have noticed the pace of episodes slowed significantly toward the end of this season. There were a number of reasons for that, one of which is that producing a podcast is hard and time consuming. I'm not complaining. I started this podcast simply because I wanted to, and it's been an amazing experience. But I also have client work to do, not to mention other side projects, including a book. I've just finished writing more on that soon. In order to maintain some balance, I'll be hitting pause on the podcast a little while. At least. I may drop the occasional audio recording into this feed, whether it's from something like the Big Brand debate or my appearance on someone else's podcast. But in terms of a season five, that's tbd, and I don't expect it anytime soon. If you've been a listener since the beginning, I can't thank you enough. I wasn't sure anyone would ever tune into a podcast about branding, and I've been overwhelmed by the positive response. So thank you and I hope we can find other ways to stay in touch online. With that, let's talk about how brands and branding professionals can do good in the world. Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben's and the Washington NFL football team. These brands and others announced they'd changed their names or mascots in the wake of George Floyd's murder and the ensuing protests for racial justice. A year later, Aunt Jemima is Pearl Milling Co. Uncle Ben's is Ben's original and the Washington football team is the Washington football team, pending another new name change coming sometime soon. Ish. I asked Dr. Jason Chambers, Associate professor of advertising at the University of Illinois, what might be a bit of an ignorant where do these brand names come from? Why do these racist brand names exist to begin with? Here's his response.
