Celebrating 10 years of the brandgym blog

Bloody hell.

Is it really 10 years since the first brandgym blog post? Really?

Yup.

A decade has flown by since the first post saw the light of the day, back in a time when YouTube had just launched, Facebook was only two years old, and we'd not even heard of Twitter or Instagram.

And here we still are, slaving over a hot keyboard to produce two stories a week, every week, for you dear readers, come rain or shine, workday or holiday. A total of over 1,250 posts, all searchable using the little search box on the right of the blog.

I thought it fitting to re-publish the first ever post written on the blog, titled "Where's the Sausage? Building brands on substance, not spin". We've seem some examples of brands delivering great products or service in an emotionally compelling way during the first 10 years of the blog. But we've also seen some shockers too, with lots of sizzle but not sausage.

So, the campaign for more substance continues! Here's to the next 10 years.

"Where's the Sausage? Building brands on substance, not spin" (August 25th, 2006)

This new blog is part of a bigger brandgym campaign for building brands on substance, not spin. We think brands should focus more on the "sausage" of branding, relevant product features and benefits, and rely less on the "sizzle" of emotional values for differentiation. Sure, sizzle can help to sell, but it should reinforce the product idea, not work separately from it. More broadly, "sausage" also refers to delivering more substance and less spin for both employees and shareholders.

This blog aims to cut through the over-intellectual bull**** that waste so much of the time, energy and money spent on branding, taking the same practical, down-to-earth approach used in the brandgym books I've written. It will use topical brand examples to deliver bite-sized nuggets of insight, and each post will have "workouts" to help you apply the ideas to your brand. The blog should be a practical source of branding tips and tricks, not just a personal soapbox.