Universal Principles of Branding

Mark Kingsley is a creative director and strategist with a wide range of experience and recognition. He is a faculty member in the School of Visual Arts Masters in Branding program and currently holds the endowed Melbert B. Cary Professorship in Graphic Arts at the Rochester Institute of Technology. As Executive Strategy Director at Collins, he developed the new global positioning for Ogilvy and helped Equinox enter the luxury hotel business. For over 17 years, his studio Greenberg Kingsley specialized in music and arts, including several years of branding and advertising for Central Park SummerStage; work for the Guggenheim Museum store; and music packaging for John Coltrane, Pat Metheny, and Quincy Jones. His current studio, Malcontent, serves global advertising firms, fin-tech startups, arts organizations, living legends, and Pulitzer Prize winners.

 

Abstraction
Anthropology / Ethnography
Association
Authenticity
Bandits and robots
Beauty, not beautification
The Big Five 
Black box or scientific method
Blurring 
Body of work
Brand architecture
Brands are a technology
Branded Unconscious
Campaigns
Case studies
Celebrities
Character 
Comfort
Commit to the bit
Conflict
Context
Crafty creativity
Customer journey
Delivery
Difference and Différance
Digital to social strategist
Disaggregated data 
Do no harm
Don’t fear the audit
Ecosystem
Engagement
Environment/Anti-environment
Erotics of brands
Everybody lives in a body
Everyone works in branding
Flexing
Frameworks
Framing
Gathering (and dividing)
Generosity (and humility)
Go outside your lane
Haptics
Hearing voices
History and genealogy
Heterogeneity
How you say it
Identity 
Influencers are a racket
Intimacy
Jargon (and fear)
Jungian-ish archetypes 
Kill the Human
Let's put on a show
Magic and superstition
Management 
The Master Narrative Problem
Mystery is sexy
Naming is knowing
No such place as “away”
Nostalgia
Observation
One ______ fallacy
Out of Home, but in the Mind
Parody is a sign of success
Party people
Permission
Playtime
Politics
Professionalism second
Relationships
Render unto Caesar
Repair and age
Repetition and syncopation
Retinal / non-retinal
Rituals and routine
Scoping 
Semantic infiltration 
Signals
Skepticism
Social Responsibility
Standards 
Strategy
Tag, you’re it
Take me home
Talk to the gatekeepers
Taste the rainbow
Tension
Thinking over wisdom
Time 
Touchpoints
Values
Valuation
Viruses and variants
War Language
Weakest link
What if your logo was a drum pattern?
What is the product?
World-building
You are not a brand
Zany, cute and informative