Laura Ries is a globally recognized branding strategist and bestselling author of the book, The Strategic Enemy: How to Build and Position a Brand Worth Fighting For. Since 2022, Laura has continued her father’s legacy, serving as the chairwoman of RIES, a consultancy that aims to lead brands to clarity and focus by using proven positioning strategies that help them stand out in the minds of consumers.

On this episode of On Scope, Laura sits down with host Mike Berberich for a compelling conversation on visual hammers, brand anchors, and strategic enemies. Together the duo covers what most marketers get wrong about brand positioning, what a strategic enemy is and how it can actually be a force multiplier for branding, and the most common missteps brands take when with their positioning as they expand the business.

On “This Week in ANA Magazine,” Matthew Schwartz, editor of the magazine, joins the show to spotlight a new article on the great B2B marketing reset and how AI is upending search. Matthew outlines the ways in which B2B brands will have to adapt to this new reality, including a need to lean into more human activations like live events to build meaningful relationships with buyers.

Your brand strategy can only go as far as your execution allows. And right now, AI is changing what great execution looks like. The ANA Generative AI Essentials for Marketers Certificate Program gives you exactly what you need to keep up. In just ninety minutes, our six focused courses will provide real practitioner experience you can apply directly to your work. Get certified by visiting us at www.ana.net/AICert26.

The On Scope team would love to hear from you! If you have a topic or guest idea, you can email them at onscope@ana.net.

Kellie Pean and Alyssa Convertini Lindquist are the co-founders of Brand New: A Collective, a bicoastal and award-winning marketing agency with disciplines across creative, strategy, experiential production, and talent partnerships. The agency is guided by a penchant for cultural mastery, using its team’s deep understanding of culture to craft stellar campaigns and activations that drive meaningful business results.

On this episode of On Scope, the women behind Brand New join host Mike Berberich to share their founders’ story and explain how company culture is the ultimate catalyst for producing great work. Together, the trio covers the realities of being a female entrepreneur in a patriarchal society, the silent killers Kellie and Alyssa believe pull down company culture, how smaller brands can participate in and own culture without needing a massive media budget, and how brands of all sizes can engage in culture without coming off as cringe.

On “News You Might Have Missed,” Mike and show producer Ryan Dinger discuss a story from ANA Magazine covering key takeaways from the ANA’s latest report, “The Continued Acceleration of Principal Media.” The report shows that marketers are leveraging principal media more, despite their growing concerns. Mike and Ryan discuss why this contradiction might be occurring, highlight how marketers are still dropping the ball when it comes to media governance, and point out how misguided, top-down organizational pressure might be forcing marketers to invest in media buys that they don’t have the utmost confidence in.

As you’ll learn during this episode, culture moves quickly, and the cost of getting it wrong is real. The best marketers build stronger cultural instincts by learning from people who are doing the work at the highest level. ANA National Industry Conferences put marketers in the room with CMOs and senior leaders shaping what’s next, with practical takeaways and connections that carry beyond the event. Check out the full lineup of upcoming conferences by visiting www.ana.net/conferences.

The On Scope team would love to hear from you! If you have a topic or guest idea, you can email them at onscope@ana.net.

Rita Ramakrishnan is an executive coach with more than 15 years’ experience leading people strategy and helping neurodivergent executives turn their cognitive differences into competitive advantages. Through the years, she has developed a keen understanding of how team structures can be designed to maximize the strengths of all individuals, but especially those who are neurodivergent.

On this episode of On Scope, Rita, who is the founder and CEO at Iksana Consulting, joins host Mike Berberich to discuss what brands and business leaders can do to tap into the superpowers of their neurodivergent workforce, an increasingly critical business imperative, as more than half of gen Z now identify as neurodivergent. Together, Mike and Rita discuss the specific advantages of creating a work environment where neurodivergent employees can thrive, what steps companies can take to create this type of environment, and how those lower down on the corporate ladder can convince leadership that making accommodations for neurodivergent individuals is not about entitlement but rather about maximizing the potential of the entire team.

On “News You Might Have Missed,” Mike and show producer Ryan Dinger discuss an article from ADWEEK on the persistent gender wage gap in advertising, with a new study showing women working at ad agencies still earn 5 percent less than their male counterparts, despite ongoing efforts to achieve pay equity. Mike and Ryan acknowledge that this issue probably exists on the brand side, as well, before hypothesizing on why the industry continues to struggle to make progress, highlighting the culture they both experienced when working at agencies and speculating about the need to rethink leadership models in business.

If the conversation with Rita has you wondering how to get the most out of your own team, then you’ll want to check out the ANA’s Marketing Training and Development Center, which helps build capabilities through open workshops, both online and in-person, and certification programs. Learn more by visiting us at www.ana.net/mtdc.

The On Scope team would love to hear from you! If you have a topic or guest idea, you can email them at onscope@ana.net.