A branding expert - David Russell

I had the opportunity to have lunch yesterday with branding expert David Russell. David's an advertising industry veteran who's worked with some of the biggest names in the business. We were talking about new media verses traditional media and the new promotional outlets verses the old promotional outlets. One of those old promotional outlets we were talking about was newspapers. He had a great one liner that I had to share here...

"You'll find newspaper readers every day in the obituaries."

The point was, obviously, that if you're still looking to newspapers (and many other traditional media) to reach your audience, you're promoting through a declining medium. It's declining in reach which means it's declining in focus, impact, and effectiveness. David spoke of the old promotion paradigm where advertisers could place an ad on television or in newspapers and know it was reaching a large percentage of their target audience. David knows that world no longer exists and it was extremely interesting to talk with a guy who's lived in the old advertising/marketing world but recognizes the new one filled with niche markets, new media, high interactivity, and narrowly focused promotional strategies. I believe he's a rare exception to the rest of the industry which is in many way digging in and trying to push the old methods as if they are still as effective today as they used to be.

Additional note: David certainly didn't ask me to do this but I feel compelled to mention that if you are looking for branding development or clarity, David is absolutely your guy. He has a method and perspective on branding that is both simple and profound and applies to just about every organization whether they realize it or not.