The Powers: Ten Factors for Building an Exponentially More Powerful Brand

The Powers is an exploration of ten key factors to create and manage a strong, resonant brand in either the B2B or B2C space. Gone are the days when advertising gurus, research firms, and management consultants told a brand what to do and where to go. Today’s top brands are built from the inside out, rooted in an authenticity that resonates deeply with employees, business partners, and customers. Through their use of vivid examples and real-life, in-the-trenches experience, Tony Wessling and Peter van Aartrijk make brand-building enjoyable, interesting, and engaging. Never before has branding been so succinctly broken down into essential components. Leaders and marketers who apply these concepts will find their own brands becoming exponentially more powerful and their destiny firmly under their control.

Tony Wessling is co-founder of Chromium, a San Francisco-based strategic brand+culture consultancy that works with leadership and marketing teams of regional, national, and international brands. He has spent over two decades in marketing and advertising, first as a freelance creative professional (photographer, designer, and copywriter) and then as an agency principal with The Wessling Group, a boutique advertising agency he founded in 1996 and ran until the launch of Chromium. His articles on brand and culture have appeared in Brand Quarterly, as well as numerous trade publications, and he hosts This is The Point, a quarterly YouTube program that examines brands in the media. An enthusiastic public speaker, Tony has delivered keynote addresses for organizations such as the Financial Communications Society of New York, UC Berkeley Sudartja Center for Entrepreneurship, Academy of Art University, and San Francisco State University School of Business, among others. Tony resides in San Francisco, CA.

Peter van Aartrijk is co-founder of Chromium, a San Francisco-based strategic brand+culture consultancy that works with leadership and marketing teams of regional, national, and international brands. He started his career as a newspaper reporter, where he first learned how to question the status quo. Prior to forming Chromium in 2011 and insurance marketing firm Aartrijk in 1999, Peter served as VP, Communications for the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, a leading association of 300,000 members. There he developed a research-based groundwork for a consumer brand, Trusted Choice®, that now connects consumers with local agents via a digital platform. As a spokesperson for industry, Peter has appeared on CNN, CNBC, Fox, and network TV, and has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine and other national media. Peter resides in Washington, DC.