The art of building legendary brands | Arielle Jackson (Google, Square, Marketer in Residence at First Round Capit…

What makes a great brand? After working at Google and Square, Arielle Jackson has spent the past eight years consulting startups on how to create powerful messaging that works. In this jam-packed episode, she shares how to pick a winning name for your company, create a brand purpose that excites your team and customers, and position your company and its products for success. You don’t want to miss this one!

Listen now on Apple, Spotify, Google, Overcast, Pocket Casts, and YouTube.

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Have questions for Arielle about your brand, naming strategy, positioning, or product marketing broadly? Post it in the comments and Arielle will do her best to help 👇

Leave a comment

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Where to find Arielle Jackson:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/hiiamarielle

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ariellerjackson/

• Course: https://maven.com/arielle/startupbrandstrategy

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:

• Flatfile: https://www.flatfile.com/lenny

• Unit: https://unit.co/lenny

• Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lenny

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Referenced:

• Positioning Your Startup Is Vital—Here’s How to Nail It: https://review.firstround.com/Positioning-Your-Startup-is-Vital-Heres-How-to-Do-It-Right

• Three Moves Every Startup Founder Must Make to Build a Brand That Matters: https://review.firstround.com/three-moves-every-startup-founder-must-make-to-build-a-brand-that-matters

• What I Learned from Developing Branding for Airbnb, Dropbox, and Thumbtack: https://review.firstround.com/what-i-learned-from-developing-branding-for-airbnb-dropbox-and-thumbtack

• Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind: https://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Al-Ries/dp/0071373586

• Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life: https://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Curious-Science-Creating-Business/dp/006238841X

• The Vanishing Half: https://britbennett.com/the-vanishing-half

• The Mothers: https://britbennett.com/the-mothers

• Nik Sharma’s weekly newsletter: https://www.nik.co/subscribe

• How I Built This: https://www.npr.org/series/490248027/how-i-built-this

• In Depth: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

• Unseen Unknown: https://unseen-unknown.simplecast.com/

• Luca: https://movies.disney.com/luca

• Encanto: https://movies.disney.com/encanto

• Old Enough!: https://www.netflix.com/title/81506279

• The Sociology of Business with Ana Andjelic: https://andjelicaaa.substack.com

• David Ogilvy: https://www.oneclub.org/hall-of-fame/-bio/david-ogilvy

• Rory Sutherland: https://twitter.com/rorysutherland

• Seth Godin: https://seths.blog/

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In this episode, we cover:

[04:04] From making jewelry as a side hustle to launching products for Square: Arielle’s background

[12:32] What makes a good name for a product or a startup

[19:17] How to come up with a great name

[24:59] How to run a naming brainstorm for the best results

[31:09] Bad names and naming mistakes

[34:17] Arielle’s brand development framework and when founders should implement it

[36:02] How do you know when brand development is completed?

[41:17] How long should branding take?

[42:42] How to build a brand purpose that ignites excitement

[48:51] Specific tactics for building your brand purpose

[51:12] How to master your positioning

[55:22] Why it’s important to stay niche when you’re mastering your positioning

[59:15] The process of positioning and Arielle’s bar test

[1:02:38] How to build a brand personality using the five big brand descriptions

[1:07:39] Where to put brand and product positioning documents so they’ll actually get used

[1:09:14] How startups can get PR

[1:14:49] When should you hire a marketer?

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Production and marketing: https://penname.co/