All Posts By

BJ Bueno

Why Creative Risk is the Lifeblood of Brand Building

I can’t think of a more special breed of people than creatives.

Every time a creative pitches a bold campaign, challenges the status quo, or takes a big risk, they’re standing exposed in front of thousands of consumers, peers, shareholders, and competitors.

And yet, they keep doing it.

Thank goodness.

Because if there’s one thing we all know, it’s this: playing it safe is the fastest route to irrelevance.

In The Cult Branding Workbook, I call this the Golden Rule of Courage: cult brands are built by leaders and creatives who dare to be different, even when the world is skeptical. Liquid Death turned canned water into a counterculture icon. Glossier reimagined beauty by handing the microphone to its community. Supreme built a global following by embracing scarcity and audacity. None of them played it safe.

That knot in your stomach before you launch something new?
That nagging voice asking, “Have we gone too far?”

Those aren’t warnings. They’re your creative compass pointing true north.

Sure, you could settle for cookie-cutter campaigns and beige messaging. But where’s the magic in that? The most meaningful breakthroughs in branding come from someone raising their hand and saying, “What if?” even when their voice shakes, even when the data isn’t crystal clear, even when failure is a real possibility.

The truth is simple: living small is not only boring, it’s a disservice to the brands we serve and the customers who trust us.

So let’s stop punishing creative risk. Let’s celebrate it. Because behind every brand that earns cult-like loyalty is a creative who dared to push further than the rest.

The question is: what risks will you take this week?

Decision-Making at the Speed of Code

If you can model a principle, test it against history, and refine it, you’ve just taken your decision-making to another level. Suddenly, emotion stops hijacking the process. Bias gets sidelined. You get clarity.

That’s the beauty of algorithms. They’re nothing more than precise instructions, like words, but in a language computers can execute. If you don’t speak this language, either learn it or keep someone close who does. Because whether you’re running a global enterprise or raising kids, fluency in the language of algorithms is about to rival fluency in English or Mandarin.

Here’s the kicker: the same principle applies in brand building. In The Cult Branding Workbook, we teach leaders to “model” loyalty by understanding Brand Lovers and mapping their needs. That model becomes your algorithm for human connection, a decision framework that removes guesswork, prevents overreaction to fads, and compounds understanding over time.

In short: Algorithms for machines. Brand models for humans. Both protect you from costly, emotional mistakes. Both are languages you can’t afford to ignore.

Your Culture Is Your Brand Delivery System

Your marketing can promise the moon, but if your people can’t deliver it, the brand breaks. Every CEO I’ve worked with who built a cult brand started by aligning culture with the brand promise.

Salesforce’s Dreamforce is a masterclass; even the volunteers feel like part of the leadership team because they carry the same story.

My recommendations:

  1. Clarify your brand purpose. Every employee should be able to say it without hesitation.
  2. Create internal brand rituals. Monthly story sessions where employees share how they live the brand.
  3. Tie incentives to brand behavior. Reward employees for delivering experiences that embody your values.

When employees live the promise, customers feel it instantly. That’s how you build loyalty from the inside out.

Lead Both Brands: Your Company’s and Your Own

If you’re in the CEO chair, you’re carrying two brands at once: your corporate brand and your personal one. And they’re inseparable.

What you say, post, or endorse can strengthen trust or shake it overnight. Cult Branding teaches us the principle of Openness, be intentional and consistent with your values across both brands.

Do this:

  1. Align your narratives. Your personal voice should reinforce your corporate promise.
  2. Have a crisis ritual. Be ready with a values-driven, consistent response before you need it.
  3. Build a loyal community now. When you have true Brand Lovers, they’ll defend you before you even speak.

Your personal presence should be an asset that amplifies trust in your company, not a risk that undermines it.

Get Your C-Suite Telling One Story

The customer doesn’t care about your org chart. They don’t separate the “marketing experience” from the “operations experience.” It’s all the brand experience.

The most effective CEOs I know break down turf wars and get the C-suite aligned around a single narrative.

Here’s how:

  1. Create a Brand Council. Bring every major function into one regular meeting focused on the customer experience.
  2. Speak their language. Show finance how loyalty impacts CAC, HR how it boosts retention, ops how it drives efficiency.
  3. Share credit. Make wins collective, so every leader has a stake in brand health.

When the C-suite is united, the marketplace feels the confidence — and customers respond.

Make AI About Humans, Not Just Data

AI is everywhere in the CEO conversation. The mistake I see? Treating AI like a cost-cutting tool rather than a connection-deepening tool.

The cult brands don’t bolt technology onto an old culture; they integrate it to make the customer feel known and valued. Top brands used data to understand riding habits, not just inventory needs. That’s how you create loyalty at scale.

Three moves I recommend:

  1. Break down silos. Put marketing, ops, and IT in the same room to design customer experiences together.
  2. Use AI for personalization. Make interactions feel like you’ve been listening all along.
  3. Build digital rituals. Create predictable, shareable moments that customers look forward to, like holidays.

AI is only as valuable as the emotional connection it amplifies.

Stop Letting the Quarter Dictate Your Brand’s Future

If you’re a CEO, you already know the quarterly game can trap you. I’ve watched too many leaders mortgage their brand’s long-term equity to please the market in the short term. That’s a slow path to irrelevance.

Brands that last, such as Apple and Patagonia, resist that pull. They know the real power is in earning customers for life, not just for this quarter.

Here’s my advice:

  1. Audit the emotional side of your brand. Know exactly what you mean to your most profitable customers.
  2. Identify your Brand Lovers. The top 20% who generate most of your profit and advocacy.
  3. Redesign your KPIs. Track loyalty metrics, including Net Promoter Score and engagement rates, alongside your financials.

If you keep sacrificing loyalty for quick wins, you’re training the market to treat you as a commodity. Shift the focus, and you’ll find your short-term numbers actually get stronger.

3 Strategies for When You Feel Life Has Lost Meaning

Reclaim the Inner Child
Play. Create. Touch the parts of you untouched by judgment. Life becomes dull when you abandon the one who still dreams. Pick up a brush, a journal, a guitar, anything that brings wonder back to your fingertips.

Confront the Shadow
Don’t look away. Turn inward. Face the parts of you you’d rather ignore. The sadness, the boredom, the anger. Invite them in. Let them speak. In the dark lies the key to meaning. You are not whole without your shadow.

Choose Becoming
You are not a fixed self. You are a process. Movement. Potential. Viktor Frankl said meaning is something we make, not something we find. So make it. Choose the next right thing. Help someone. Build something. Love fiercely.

Meaning isn’t given.

It’s forged.

In play. In shadow.

In becoming.

Discovering Your Brand Lover: The Shortcut to Loyalty, Clarity, and Growth

Many brands chase growth by casting the widest possible net. More impressions. More clicks. More eyeballs. But in the race for reach, they often miss the people who matter most—their Brand Lovers.

From The Cult Branding Workbook:

“The sole purpose of business is to create a customer.”


But not just any customer—a customer who loves you.

Who Is a Brand Lover?

Your Brand Lover is your most passionate customer.
They buy more often.
They stay longer.
They forgive your mistakes.
And most importantly, they tell others.

They don’t need to be convinced—they’re already convinced. Their enthusiasm turns them into unpaid marketers, internal motivators, and walking billboards. They’re not just customers. They’re your community.

And yet, most businesses overlook them in favor of “target markets” and generic personas. They trade resonance for reach.

Why Brand Lovers Matter More Than Market Share

When you discover your Brand Lover, everything gets easier:

  • Marketing becomes sharper because you know who you’re talking to.
  • Innovation becomes focused because you stop guessing what matters.
  • Brand culture becomes clearer because your team rallies around a shared purpose.

You stop trying to be everything to everyone—and start becoming essential to someone.

Ulta Knows Their Brand Lover

Take Ulta Beauty. They don’t chase every beauty trend. They know their Brand Lover is diverse, exploratory, and values both play and practicality. Ulta has built a business that welcomes beauty lovers at every stage—teen experimenters, working moms, skincare obsessives.

Instead of trying to be Sephora, Ulta leans into community, accessibility, and joy. The result? One of the most loyal customer bases in the industry.

That’s the power of knowing who you’re really building for.

How to Discover Yours

Start by asking:

  • Who is already obsessed with us?
  • What do they say when they recommend us to a friend?
  • What emotional need are we actually fulfilling?
  • What do they love—not just like—about us?

You’re not looking for broad averages. You’re looking for patterns of passion.

Don’t Build for the Crowd. Build for the Lover.

Most brands are terrified of alienating anyone.
Cult Brands focus on being irreplaceable to someone.

When you discover and commit to your Brand Lover, you don’t just get loyalty—you get clarity. The kind of clarity that shapes decisions, fuels innovation, and creates lasting impact.You don’t need to be loved by everyone.

You just need to be loved deeply by the right ones.

Fast Growth or Lasting Brand? Why CEOs Must Refuse to Choose

“How do we grow fast and build a brand that lasts?”

This is one of the most important questions modern CEOs face.

Every quarter brings new revenue targets, performance dashboards, and boardroom pressures to deliver now. Yet, every brand that truly matters—Nike, Apple, Patagonia, Trader Joe’s—was built on a foundation of long-term thinking.

So how do you balance the urgent with the enduring? The answer isn’t either/or.

It’s learning how to win short-term battles without losing the long-term war

The Pitfall: Performance Marketing Without a Soul

In the age of ROAS, CAC, LTV, and A/B testing, it’s easy to lose sight of something critical:

Your brand is not your campaign. It’s your reputation in motion.

Many companies fall into the trap of tactical marketing:

  • Every message is optimized for clicks, not connection.
  • Every channel is optimized for transactions, not transformation.
  • Brand strategy is put on hold because it “doesn’t move the needle fast enough.”

This short-termism creates brands that may convert today—but disappear tomorrow.

Cult Brands think differently.

They understand that emotional loyalty compounds. Each meaningful moment builds equity that no competitor can copy and no price cut can steal.

Brand is the Only Moat That Gets Stronger Over Time

When you invest in brand, you’re investing in:

  • Relevance: staying emotionally attuned to your Brand Lover’s needs
  • Trust: the single most important driver of long-term profitability
  • Community: customers who promote you without being paid
  • Pricing power: because brands that are loved don’t get commoditized

In short, brand is your business’s gravity. It pulls people in and keeps them close.

But like gravity, it’s invisible—until you don’t have it.

Quantifying What “Can’t Be Measured”

One of the greatest challenges CEOs face is defending brand investments in rooms obsessed with quarterly metrics.

The Cult Branding Workbook offers a powerful reframe:

“Just because your customers love you doesn’t mean you’re loving them back.”

Performance metrics measure clicks. Brand metrics measure care.

  • Care in how you show up.
  • Care in how you communicate.
  • Care in how you solve real human needs.

Yes, you should track performance. But don’t mistake the map for the terrain. A 3% lift in CTR means nothing if your brand becomes forgettable.

Fast and Forever: Building Brand into the Business Model

Here’s the good news: You don’t have to choose between growth and equity.

The best brands build growth into their identity:

  • Trader Joe’s doesn’t run ads—they build stores that feel like treasure hunts.
  • Liquid Death doesn’t rely on discounting—they use irreverent storytelling that fuels word of mouth.
  • Apple doesn’t shout “buy now”—they make products people line up for.

Each of these companies plays the long game in how they generate revenue.

You can too. But it takes discipline.

The Cult Brand Approach to Sustainable Growth

Want to grow fast and build a brand that lasts? Start here:

✅ Define your Brand Lover. Build your strategy around serving them—not the algorithm.

✅ Align all customer touchpoints with your emotional promise. Don’t let sales and service feel like different companies.

✅ Invest in human needs, not just product features. As the Workbook says: “People love companies that love them.”

✅ Measure what matters: loyalty, advocacy, repeat rate—not just conversions.

✅ Make internal alignment a growth lever. Your culture is your delivery system.

Brand Is a Strategy, Not a Slogan

Fast growth and lasting impact aren’t opposites. In fact, they require each other.

Growth without a brand creates churn. A brand without growth becomes nostalgia.

But when you blend the two—you build a business people love, remember, and return to.

Before you approve the next campaign or quarterly push, ask:

“Does this move us closer to becoming the only brand our customers would choose—even if we disappeared from the shelf?”

That’s not just brand equity. That’s future-proofing.