The Branding Episode
Weekend Reading (October 3, 2025): It's the week of branding and so many things stand out in the world of brand activations, oopsies, and
Brand Activations: Move over Chime and Zelle … Venmo is back in town
When I moved to New York City in 2011, I didn’t know a thing about Venmo or Spotify. But I quickly found that when you live on the coasts, new tech hits you first. I joined Venmo to pay my coworkers for lunch more than a decade before Zelle was even born. Last weekend Venmo joined Penn State with an on-campus activation for the rowdy college football fans. It is a smart, targeted, and executed brand partnership. » Read more at PR Newswire
When a brand forgets it’s values, you break.
A few weeks back, it was announced that fifty year (50!) veteran and co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, Jerry Greenfield, would be leaving the company. There was no farewell ice-cream party. He left under duress as new owner, Unilever has slowly but steadily (according to Greenfield), reduced the social mission of the world famous ice cream company. As we have seen with a lot of the DEI business impacts (it’s a positive position for a company to have, in case you were curious), I venture that purveyers of Ben & Jerry’s will be watching their social mission a bit closer to ensure they get back on course. » Read the Story and Greenfield’s Comments
Branding: A WICKED brand partnership
After many years of wanting to upgrade our kitchen cookware, we finally did it: LeCreuset. And what do we find after we have unpacked, read the instructions, and made a few meals? A WICKED branded Dutch Oven. I am a sucker for a good (yeah, good. There are standards to these things) brand partnership and while I’m not sure the connection between cooking and Elphaba just yet, this is sweet. » See for Yourself
BONUS: Join my webinar with Experian & Micronotes.ai where we dive into how technology and AI are rapidly bridging the gap between community banks and credit unions and the big banks. We will cover how to reach the right prospects at the right time, how to scale marketing efforts without scaling your team, and how to drive measurable loan and member growth. »Register for Free
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