Building Distinctive Brands with Gary Singer, Chief Strategy Officer of Kobre & Kim LLP

“What makes your brand unique is a combination of tangible and intangible things,” explains Gary Singer, Chief Strategy Officer at Kobre & Kim LLP, who joins The Future is Bright podcast. Gary shares the remarkable story of driving the Altoids brand, which was virtually unknown outside the United States, to astronomical sales. In today’s episode, he discusses his unique approach to branding, which he calls “meaningful differentiation,” and explains the “outside-in” approach that has contributed to his success.

Many entrepreneurs focus on themselves and the ‘what’ they offer consumers, but Gary emphasizes the importance of focusing on ‘who’—identifying a need and learning how to fill it. He shares how, during research for Altoids, they created a target customer named Dan and even had consumers write obituaries for the product to gauge emotional connections.

Gary brought his unique branding approach to the law firm Kobre & Kim LLP. Learn about the innovations happening there and why Gary believes the hardest choice is what to say no to.

Episode Player:

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Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Introduction: Law firm positioning, branding & guest background

01:00 Gary’s journey: From student newspaper to advertising leader

03:00 Agency life & switch to consulting (mckinsey, interbrand, biology)

04:45 The altoids case: Branding, emotional connection, and expansion

10:00 Launching altoids nationally: Community, marketing innovations

12:50 What is a brand? Meaningful differentiation & target audience

15:00 The who-what-why of brand strategy

17:45 Inside-out vs. outside-in brand perspectives

20:25 Cobra & kim: Founding, business model, and differentiation

24:55 Saying “no”: Strategy through deliberate choices & culture

Quotes

“As the product management industry matured, agencies became more and more focused on the creative side and a little less focused on the strategy side. So that’s when I decided I didn’t feel like I continued to have a big enough seat at the table. So, made the switch to McKinsey as a partner, as a direct-to-life partner focused on financial service institutions. And there the idea was the intersection of the creative thinking that I had done at an agency with the linear analytic part of me that came from places like University of Chicago.” (3:59 | Gary Singer)

“Brand is your unique collection of tangible and intangible benefits. In my mind, for a brand to matter, it needs to communicate meaningful differences versus the alternative. So, if Brand A and Brand B are identical, then the brand doesn’t matter, because I have the same tangible and emotional connections to both of them.” (13:24 | Gary Singer)

“There’s a little bit of Dan in all of us. I’m a lot older than 26 right now, but I still would like to be a college kid with resources, and that’s what appealed to this broad group of people. As it’s become more and more of a mass brand, I think it’s losing Dan a little bit and it’s trying to appeal to everybody and maybe losing a little bit of it’s magic.” (16:52 | Gary Singer)

“Strategy is making choices and the hardest choice to make is the choice of what you’re not going to do.” (26:32 | Gary Singer)

Links

Connect with Gary Singer:

Connect with Gary on LinkedIn

Firm Website Bio

Columbia Business School Adjunct Professor website

Connect with Chris Batz:

Connect with Chris on LinkedIn

Follow Columbus Street on LinkedIn

Follow MergerWatch on LinkedIn

Columbus Street Website

MergerWatch.com

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