By Alan M. Webber 8.31.1997

In an seminal interview with Alan Weber, cofounder of Fast Company, Scott shared his beliefs about brand building while serving as Chief Marketing Officer at Starbucks. “What Great Brands Do” foreshadows his first book, A New Brand World, published five years later.

“A great brand is hard to find. “I walked through a hardware store last night and I came across 50 brands I didn’t know existed,” says Scott Bedbury. “They may be great products, but they’re not great brands…”

PSFK 2017:

20 years later, Scott’s speech at the PSFK conference in NYC in May 2017, an annual gathering of marketing leaders, is a call to arms for brands, their storytellers and marketers, to confront the war on truth and trust that has since become endemic. Ini this speech AI meets EI (evil intent), foreshadowing the fallout from the social web’s feckless ways and the enormous impact of big data used to micro target consumers, as evidenced in the Facebook user privacy breach that aided Cambridge Analytica’s influence on the 2016 democratic presidential elections.

BBC Radio 4 Podcast: 

Scott interviewed with BBC Radio 4 in May 2018 on the creation of the "Just Do It" campaign. "Selling a Philosophy" is the the first in a series for BBC's "Marketing: Hacking the Unconscious" in which several brands are examined for their ability to engage more deeply than others.

PSFK Interview: 

Prior to speaking at the PSFK 2017 Conference, the New York-based insights and strategy firm interviewed Scott about the theme of his speech (hint: it's transparency), how brands have changed since his days at Nike and Starbucks and what he's working on now. 

Nimble Hippo Podcast:

Scott's podcast from Communitech, one of the largest tech incubators in North America in October 2016, where Scott spoke at a conference to a mix of engineers, marketers, chief executives, and product developers.

Scott Bedbury: Mixing Art And Science To Achieve Brand Leadership

Scott’s speech for PSFK in December of 2012 about the mix of art and science, to balance the magic and the logic, for effective brand leadership.

Shoulders of Giants Interview: 2008

Scott Bedbury, formerly of Nike and Starbucks, is one of the featured Giants in the Brand Communications series, he shares his wisdom on developing great brand communications.