Ben on Brand

Ben van Rooy
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Great brands don't happen by accident. They're the result of sharp decisions, made by people who understand what brand actually does. Ben van Rooy has spent 20-plus years at the intersection of strategy, culture, and design: GE Capital, American Express, the Bank of England. Ben on Brand is for founders, marketers, and product leaders who want to build something that lasts. Honest thinking. No hype. Weekly.

Episodes

  1. 4d ago

    How leaders build lasting brands with John Miles

    John Miles has spent forty years in marketing, brand, and strategy. He runs the New Zealand Marketing Association and just released his first book, Sod It, Just Do It, built around a seven-step decision framework distilled from decades of watching organisations overthink themselves into inertia.In this conversation: why leadership change is the single biggest risk to brand consistency, what Gap and Jaguar got wrong, why One NZ's rebrand worked, and why AI won't replace the human judgment brand decisions still require.Timestamps00:00 The biggest danger to any brand is a new CMO00:28 Inside Sod It, Just Do It: why ninety-two pages, not four hundred04:03 The cost of indecision (and why it's an epidemic)04:46 Leading the NZ Marketing Association through COVID07:14 Getting to market in five days07:57 Differentiation: how One NZ turned complaints into a brand story11:24 Step two: research the f**k out of it11:45 What Gap got wrong13:45 Jaguar's rebrand and the cost of losing the product18:39 What "product" means in a services business20:10 Fifty years of NZ advertising: where marketing lost its nerve23:21 The Bud Light case and the pub test29:43 What organisations are avoiding right now: AI33:21 Where to find the bookAbout the guestJohn Miles is CEO of the New Zealand Marketing Association and author of Sod It, Just Do It. Book: soditjustdoit.comAbout Ben on BrandWhere leaders discuss the strategies that drive business growth. New episodes weekly.

    35 min

  2. Jun 24

    Sally Davies and Lia Pacquola, MYOB: How Human-Led Research Built Solo

    Accounting software is a category people love to hate. The admin is painful, the language is alienating, and for most small business owners the whole thing sits somewhere between a chore and low-level dread. MYOB read that as a brand opportunity. With 34 years of heritage behind it, and Xero having pulled business owners away from the accountant-led model, MYOB built Solo: a mobile-first product for Australia's 1.6 million sole operators. The people running a business on spreadsheets, paper receipts, and a bank account they share with their personal spending. The win came from listening to real people. Sally Davies, GM of Solo and Embedded Finance, walked the Inverloch Christmas markets and stopped at every stall, asking owners how they worked and what hurt. That is where the real problem surfaced: people turning over good money who did not believe they were running a business. No brief would have found it. Sally Davies and Lia Pacquola, who leads strategic comms, join Ben to walk through what they did with that insight. The endorser brand decision. Running Solo like a startup inside a 34-year-old company. Naming a mental state instead of a feature set. And why a Valentine's Day campaign about loneliness moved a piece of accounting software. What this episode covers: Why a category people dislike is a brand waiting to be rebuiltHuman-led research, and the problem a spreadsheet would never findThe endorser model: what Solo carried from MYOB and what it deliberately left behindImposter syndrome as positioning, validated across 550 sole operatorsAI as practical utility, not a branding exerciseEmbedding comms alongside product from the first day, not after the buildFinding the human tension on any budgetChapters:00:00 The category people love to hate 02:43 Meeting Sally and Lia at ComsCon 04:08 Their roles at MYOB 05:17 34 years of heritage: asset and weight 07:07 Where accountants fit with Solo 08:20 A category under disruption 10:12 Marketing to the owner and the accountant 11:44 Social channels and influencers 12:02 AI as a proof point, not a slogan 13:58 Focusing on the user, not the feature list 14:23 The customer who doesn't think she runs a business 17:01 Building Solo like a greenfield startup 18:53 The endorser brand decision 20:50 How Solo is performing 23:43 The Valentine's Day campaign 26:10 Naming the imposter state 28:50 Brand or product: what drove the result 29:44 Soulmates: community by design 31:17 One takeaway for any brand 32:22 Doing it without a big budget 33:40 The Inverloch markets method 35:49 Ben's closing thoughts Ben on Brand. Where leaders discuss the strategies that drive business growth. Hosted by Ben van Rooy, CEO and Founder of Human Digital. New episodes weekly. Subscribe for more on brand strategy, marketing, and the decisions that define them. #BenOnBrand #BrandStrategy #B2BMarketing #MYOB #MarketingPodcast #SmallBusiness #CustomerInsight #BrandBuilding #Fintech #AIinMarketing

    38 min
  • 2 Episodes

About

Great brands don't happen by accident. They're the result of sharp decisions, made by people who understand what brand actually does. Ben van Rooy has spent 20-plus years at the intersection of strategy, culture, and design: GE Capital, American Express, the Bank of England. Ben on Brand is for founders, marketers, and product leaders who want to build something that lasts. Honest thinking. No hype. Weekly.

Information

  • Creator
    Ben van Rooy
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    2
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Ben van Rooy
  • Show Website
    Ben on Brand