The art of building legendary brands | Arielle Jackson (Google, Square, First Round Capital)

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! Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-art-of-building-legendary-brands — 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 — Where to find Arielle Jackson: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/hiiamarielle • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ariellerjackson/ • Maven: https://maven.com/arielle/startupbrandstrategy — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — 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/ — In this episode, we cover: [00:00] About our guest Arielle Jackson [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? — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquires about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.