economin development

Strengthening America as a brand

A few weeks ago, I was approached by Edward Burghard, who runs a project called Strengthening Brand America. According to his website, the purpose of the project is as follows:

“…to dramatically improve the level of place brand mastery in the U.S. by catalyzing a discussion between private sector experts and economic development professionals on the reapplication of proven product and corporate branding principles.”

Edward had read The Ad-Free Brand and was interested in having a discussion about how some of the principles from the book might apply to place branding (meaning branding a city, state, country or other community as opposed to a product or organization) at a country level.

While we’ve done some economic development work here at New Kind, this was one of the rare times I’d actually spent time thinking about how the principles of branding might apply to building the brand of the United States.

It was a fun conversation, and one I’d like to continue. If you find the subject interesting, please go check out the interview on the Strengthening Brand America website.