by Miriam Hara | Aug 20, 2025 | Agency, Branding, Business Success, Marketing
My Brand Commandments: The Non-Negotiables
This is the last of my series about my entrepreneurial journey. I truly hope that you enjoyed the last 5 blogs and that it provided you with some incite and value.
Last doesn’t mean least, and in this case, this is perhaps the most important blog of the series. Every brand has big ideas, but what matters most are the non-negotiables that comprise of the values and standards I refuse to bend, no matter the challenge or the client. For me, these brand commandments aren’t just aspirational. They are the guardrails that keep my work honest, my team focused, and my clients confident that what we promise, we deliver. I’ve simplified them to 10 must dos…and here they are:
1. Always Lead With Clarity
Confusion is the enemy of progress. Whether in strategy, creative, or communication, I refuse to settle for muddled thinking. I dig until the message is clear and the plan is actionable, each and every time.
2. Be Bold, But Never Reckless
Bravery is baked into every brand we assist. Encouraging risk-taking, original thinking, and pushing the boundaries of what’s expected, is simply my go-to. But every bold move is backed by insight, not impulse, and that is key.
3. Listen First, Advise Second
Real understanding starts with listening. Invest the time to hear clients’ concerns, ambitions, and blind spots before jumping to solutions. My advice is always rooted in empathy and context.
4. Respect the Process, But Be Prepared to Question Everything
Knowing what works helps, but it’s key that you face each and every mandate like it’s the first time you’ve seen or heard of the challenge facing the brand. Never let habit replace curiosity. There’s nothing fron with following proven steps, yet I’m never afraid to ask, “Is there a better way?” That’s how progress happens.
5. Simply Show Up.Fully. And Be Ready To Play.
Partnership means presence. I bring my full self to every meeting, every brief, and every challenge. I don’t dial it in. I dig in, and I expect that same from my team.
6. Always Overdeliver
Honesty is non-negotiable. I won’t sell quick fixes or magic solutions. I won’t take on a mandate or timeline that is unrealistic and will set the brand up for failure. When timelines are not realistic, or budgets not sufficient to deliver on KPIs, I say so, right at the get go. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll work relentlessly to exceed expectations, every chance me and my team get. But the mandate or the challenge needs to be realistic. Off topic, I’m pretty proud of the fact that my team feels the same way.
7. Own Mistakes and Share Wins
Accountability is at the core of trust. When things go right, I celebrate with the team. And we are a team…which I lead. Showing up everyday to lead means responsibility and building trust. So when things go wrong, I take responsibility and course-correct fast.
8. Stay Human
No brand is built by algorithms alone. And, couple that with AI…. staying human is and will become more on trend than we think. I believe in face-to-face conversations, hand-written notes, and a sense of humour. People do business with people, and building relationships with people… Make sure your brand remains authentic. It’s essential to remember, logos do not make brands.
9. Keep Learning, Keep Growing. Keep Open.
What works today might not work tomorrow. Just like what didn’t work yesterday, may work tomorrow. It’s essential to look at situations with a fresh eye and not be tarnished about the past failures. Keep a fresh perspective.It’s equally important to never stop learning from clients, peers, and yes, competitors. Growth is a lifelong pursuit…and has no end date.
10. Protect the Why
When the work gets hectic or the market shifts, I remind myself and my clients: our purpose is the anchor. We don’t chase trends at the expense of what matters most. It’s not important to jump in on the band wagon, especially if it doesn’t resonate with the brands’s persona.
These brand commandments aren’t just words on a page. They’re the backbone of my brand, the measure of my partnerships, and the reason clients trust me when the stakes are high.
If you’re building a brand, or simply want to show up more boldly, hope these brand commandments inspire you to set your own non-negotiables. Don’t forget and never minimize the importance of understanding what you stand for. Ultimately, it is what will make you and your brand stand out.
by Miriam Hara | Jul 24, 2025 | Advertising, Branding, Marketing
Asking When? when it’s important
In our recent bi-monthly LinkedIn newsletter we received quite a lot of interest and comments. In that newsletter, we emphasized the importance in marketing and branding of asking the question Why?.
That got me thinking about a few other key questions… like When? You can have the right message. The right words. Even the most thoughtful campaign. But if the timing is off, everything can fall flat.
In branding and marketing, asking when matters. It’s not just about delivery. It’s about impact.
We often think of timing as something left to logistics. A calendar detail. A scheduling issue. But when you zoom out, timing is strategy. It shapes how the message is received and how a brand is remembered.
The truth is, asking When? has never been more important.
The world moves fast. Attention spans are shorter. Cultural noise is constant. Brands don’t just compete for relevance, they compete for space in a distracted mind. While Why helps uncover purpose, Why not? propels the creative, and How shapes the execution. However it’s When that ensures the message lands with meaning.
Timing isn’t just about the calendar
Too often, timing gets pushed to the backend of the plan. But when you consider its impact, it belongs at the very beginning. Timing influences perception. It decides whether your audience has the capacity or the interest to care.
Ask yourself: When is our audience most open to this conversation? When is the space too crowded to be heard? When is the brand truly ready to deliver on this promise?
These aren’t tactical questions. They’re strategic ones. They can prevent missteps, protect the message, and preserve brand equity.
Context makes the difference
Great campaigns don’t always win because they’re first. They win because they arrive at the right time.
Nike’s “You Can’t Stop Us” campaign hit when the world was still in lockdown. People weren’t just looking for shoes or sports. They were looking for reassurance. For unity. For a reason to believe in something. That’s what the campaign offered. Not just a product story, but a cultural moment.
Contrast that with campaigns that jump into trending conversations without pause. Even with the best intentions, the message can fall flat or worse, backfire. The timing may feel reactive, rushed, or tone-deaf.
Asking When? forces a necessary pause. It makes space to think, assess, and align before releasing anything into the world.
Sometimes, waiting is the strategy
In a world where everything feels urgent, holding back can feel counterintuitive. But restraint can often be the smarter move.Wait until the product is truly ready. Wait until internal teams are aligned. Wait until the audience has room to listen.
Speed isn’t always a strength. In some cases, it’s the reason campaigns fail. Strategic timing isn’t about delay, it’s a discipline about choosing the right time.
The best moments aren’t in your calendar
Effective marketers don’t just focus on launch dates. They pay attention to micro-moments. When does the customer start to seek out solutions? When are they most likely to engage? When are they most distracted?
You won’t find these answers in a traditional timeline. They show up in data, yes, but also in empathy. In listening. In observing behaviour without forcing your way into it. That’s the difference between internal timing and external relevance. One follows a schedule. The other follows the audience.
The right message needs the right moment
Creative brilliance isn’t enough. Relevance has a shelf life. A good idea, poorly timed, is still a missed opportunity. But when a message and moment meet? That’s when it resonates. It doesn’t feel forced. It feels right. And it works.
Asking When? speaks volumes. It isn’t just a tactical decision. It’s a brand decision. One that signals thoughtfulness, awareness, and a genuine understanding of who your audience is and when they’re ready to listen.
by Miriam Hara | Jul 3, 2025 | Advertising, Branding, Creative, Marketing
The Importance of Asking Why Not?
In our recent bi-monthly LinkedIn newsletter we received a lot of interest and feedback. In that newsletter, we emphasized the importance in marketing and branding of asking the question Why? That got me thinking about a few other key questions… like Why not?
Some of the best ideas don’t start with a pitch or a premise. They start with a pause, or a skeptical, raised eyebrow. The concept of ‘Why not?’ shouldn’t be taken as a rebuttal or a confrontation. In brainstorming sessions, it’s always meant as a thoughtful challenge to the status quo.
The simple question: Why not? is as important as it’s counterpart Why?
Unlike Why, which seeks to understand, Why not? seeks to expand. It allows us to open doors we didn’t know were closed or, dare I say, even existed. It pushes us to question the rules we take for granted. It helps brands go beyond expectation and bridge into relevancy. Now that’s exciting.
Challenging the norm is a good thing.
Whenever a new brand manager comes into a brand, I get excited. There’s nothing like a fresh pair of eyes and a new perspective on a brand that’s been worked on by the same team. A brand manager only has that fresh, almost naïve perspective once, and it’s during the first three months of taking over a brand.
Out of necessity, every brand develops unwritten rules and internal assumptions. These create creative boundaries. Add market conventions and conventional wisdom into the mix and the end result often becomes sameness. And while some of these assumptions are valid, many are simply habits. Habits that go unquestioned because “that’s how it’s always been done.”
Remember the terrible twos? Some of us don’t…but the Whys and Why nots were the only questions we asked!
Asking Why not? doesn’t just poke at norms. It forces us to examine whether they still serve the brand. Why not show vulnerability in a financial brand?
Why not bring humour to healthcare?
Why not simplify where everyone else over-explains?
Asking Why not? isn’t about disruption for disruption’s sake, it’s about staying relevant. And if the market has changed, and it has… then shouldn’t our assumptions change too?
Progress comes from pushback
I believe that the biggest creative breakthroughs come from challenging small constraints.
I always think about the Dove’s Real Beauty campaign. I like to assume that campaign was grounded in the question: Why not show women the way they actually are? That simple challenge reshaped an entire category. This wasn’t a small gesture to appease a certain demographic profile. It was a perspective shift. It moved the conversation away from what the product was, to what the product was meant for. In doing so, it reshaped the brand and its relevance.
Reframe the risk
In marketing, we often treat risk as something to minimize or avoid. But there’s another side to risk and it’s the risk of irrelevance. The risk of sounding like everyone else. Of being easily ignored.
We need to ask ourselves: What’s the risk of staying the same? Or worse, what’s the cost of playing it safe?
Ensure a fresh perspective
When used in brainstorms or strategy sessions, Why not? invites input even when we don’t have all the answers yet. It welcomes different viewpoints. It makes space for questions that don’t have immediate answers but just might lead to better ones.That doesn’t mean we’re tossing the strategy out the window. It means we’re holding it up to the light. True relevance isn’t about fitting in. It’s about showing up with clarity, confidence, and curiosity. Why not? is the first step in getting there.
by Miriam Hara | Jun 24, 2025 | Branding, Marketing
I know that some of you may feel that brand confidence isn’t a real goal. However, I constantly say that brand is a living organism. As such, it must evolve and earn it’s attributes just like any living organism. Brand confidence is not loud. You will not find it in a tagline or a product claim, although perhaps, parts of it elude to its confidence. Brand confidence does not need to shout to be noticed. Instead, it shows up in the clarity of how a brand speaks, moves, and holds space in the market.
If you envision Brand as you would a person, Brand Confidence is a natural fit. Confidence is knowing who you are and staying consistent in that truth. (do I hear the word authentic?). It is the ability to communicate without needing to over-explain. Brands that are confident do not just tell you what they offer, they show you what they believe and who they are.
You can feel it in the tone. In the restraint. In the way they choose their presence over pressure to conform. Confidence lives in the choices a brand makes. But also in the things it chooses to leave out.
Where It Comes From
Brand confidence does not happen by accident. It is shaped over time. It grows through alignment. Between strategy and story. Between what is promised and what is actually delivered.
It begins with clarity. Not just clarity around purpose, but around boundaries. What a brand stands for. What it will say yes to. What it will say no to.
Many brands want to be everything. Confident brands know they do not need to be. They define their value, and reinforce it with consistency. Confidence does not chase. It attracts.
You Feel It Before You Can Name It
There’s a reason confidence gets noticed even when no one talks about it. It lives in its truths, every time, and everywhere. A visual that is unique, as with every person. A line of copy that lands without effort. A product name that doesn’t explain itself, but somehow you get it.
People don’t say, “This feels like a confident brand.” They say things like, “This makes sense.” Or “I trust this.” Or they don’t say anything at all. They just come back.
That’s confidence doing its job.
It’s a Choice. Over and Over Again.
You don’t reach brand confidence once and stay there. Just like a product lifecycle… brand confidence has to maintain, has to evolve. In this fast paced business world, marketing teams change and priorities shift. Confidence gets challenged. And when it does, the instinct might be to respond. Fast. Loud. Bigger than the moment needs.
Confidence is built in layers. You will not find it in a brand book alone. And you cannot manufacture it with a new visual identity. It is the result of decisions made over time. Especially the small ones.
Confidence is choosing to stay quiet when the trend does not align. It is resisting the urge to respond when silence would say more. It is showing up in a way that reflects your values even when the spotlight is elsewhere.
To nurture confidence, a brand must return to its centre. Often. That means having internal clarity before creating external noise. It means asking the right questions before sharing the next message.
Is this still true for us?
Does this align with what we believe?
Are we being clear, or are we just trying to be clever?
These are not checklist items. They are ongoing conversations.
Owning It in the Long Run
Brand confidence is not static. It is something that must be protected. Over time, markets shift. Pressure builds. Competitors speak louder. It can be tempting to match the energy, even if it does not feel right.
Owning confidence means returning to core values again and again. It means being willing to say no. To refine. To pause. Sometimes, it means trusting that the audience you have is more valuable than the one you are trying to reach.
Confidence is not stubbornness. It is discipline. It is knowing what makes the brand work, and staying close to that centre even when the outside world feels uncertain.
Confidence Is a Practice
Brand Confidence is not a declaration, it is something the Brand demonstrates.
A confident brand does not just exist in words or visuals. It exists in consistency. In alignment. In intention. It is a practice, not a personality.
When done well, it becomes something the audience can feel long before they understand why. And that is when the brand begins to lead.
by Miriam Hara | Feb 4, 2025 | Branding, Communications, Content, Creative, Marketing
The marketing space is totally immersed with buzzwords that seem to dominate the collective thinking for a few years and then eventually fade away. Over the past decade, “authentic” has been that word—a term so pervasive that its over use has now made it obsolete and un-authentic.
‘Authentic’ in Marketing
I can distinctly remember that I first came across the Authentic word, in 2015, while working on a re-branding project. I also distinctly remember thinking that if something is authentic, then why do we need state it? But that was just me, remembering one of the creative writers telling me that ‘ if we have to say we are cool, maybe we aren’t?’
All musing aside, pinpointing the exact moment when the marketing world collectively embraced “authentic” as the new buzzword is difficult. Suffice to say, the rise of ‘authentic’ coincides with emerging consumers‘ growing desire for genuine, transparent interactions with brands. Forbes cited in a 2017 article, that consumers didn’t just want a product; they wanted a story, a purpose, and a brand they could believe in.
The Emergence of the Generational Shift
Brand marketers recognized that the up and coming consumers, Millennials and Gen Z, valued transparency and honesty. This word encapsulated the direction and the winds of change of how brands needed to evolved to maintain relevance (another buzzword).This shift led to marketing strategies that showcased behind-the-scenes content, user-generated stories, and missions aligned with social causes. The term “authentic” became synonymous with trustworthiness and relatability.
The Word of the Year 2023
Authentic. I remember writing an article on Merriam-Webster declaring “authentic” as the Word of the Year in 2023. And not only an article, but vlogs as well. The dictionary noted a substantial increase in searches for the word, driven by discussions around AI, celebrity culture, identity, and social media. That same year, Harvard stated “rizz” was the word the year 2023, but that word never gained the notoriety of Authentic.
The Kill of the Buzz
As every brand jumped on the ‘authentic’ bandwagon, the term began to lose its impact. When “authentic” is used to describe everything, it starts to mean nothing. When the emerging consumers no longer are emerging, but becoming the generation with biggest consumer power, reflection and change is natural. As Millennials and Gen Z take leader ownership, questioning the sincerity behind brands’ claims of its ‘authentic state’ was bound to happen.
After all, actions always speak louder than words.
The very essence of being authentic—being true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character—was overshadowed by a promotional approach to appear genuine.
Beyond this Buzzword and the Next
So, what’s beyond this buzzword and the next? It’s to recognize that saying a word doesn’t it make it so. There’s work to do behind any word that becomes the next coined term. In reflecting over the last year, I do believe that there is a shift. Many brands have done the heavy lifting and are really embracing the actions that are synonymous with the concept of authentic. From sustainable packaging to embracing causes that reflect the values of consumers.
The Buzz Kill of Authentic
Although the word may have reached its saturation point in the marketing space, the principles it represents remain vital. It’s time to let go of the jargon and embrace the real essence of the next buzzword in practice, not just in jest. After all… if you are cool, do you need to say you are?
