Developing the Brand Plan

Brad VanAuken is president and founder of BrandForward, Inc., a brand strategy consultancy with clients throughout the world. Previously, Brad was the vice president of marketing for Element K (now Skillsoft), a leading e-learning company and director of brand management and marketing for Hallmark Cards, Inc. During his tenure as Hallmark’s chief brand advocate, Hallmark rose to 4th in the EquiTrend national quality brand ranking and Hallmark received the Brand Management of the Year award. Recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on brand management and marketing, Brad is a much sought-after speaker and writer. He has been interviewed by ADWEEK, CNN, Entrepreneur magazine, Forbes magazine, Fox News, HLN, Investor’s Business Daily, NPR and The Bloomberg Money Show. Brad has served as an expert witness on brands in federal court. He was an adjunct professor of marketing at Avila University and RIT and has been a guest lecturer at many universities including Harvard, Stanford and Northwestern. He wrote Brand Aid, which many business schools use to teach brand management. He authors www.BrandingStrategySource.com, a blog that has been repeatedly recognized as a Top 50 Branding Blog by feedspot, a leading RSS reader. In 2008 and 2009, Invesp identified him as one of the top 100 marketers. Brad has a BS degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from Harvard Business School.