Over a million small businesses opened in the US last year. Most won't see their 5th birthday, but the ones that survive get safer every year after that.

Ethan Decker sits down with Brad Klein of BP Texas to talk about why he runs five cleaning brands instead of one, and how "the great and powerful Oz" became his actual sales strategy.

McDonald's rated dead last against In-N-Out, Five Guys, and Culver's on nearly every quality metric, yet it's four times bigger than its nearest competitor.

Ethan Decker sits down with Max Emma of Bookskeeping to talk about the winding road most brands take before they become the version we know.

Should a $250 Scotch feel heavier than a $19 vodka? You'd think so. Turns out price barely predicts bottle weight. And that's a quality cue most brands are leaving on the table.

Ethan Decker sits down with Thomas Sloan, a behavioral science brand strategist just launching his own solo practice.

The internet's filling up with AI-generated "synthetic data," and feeding that back into AI models is a recipe for garbage in, garbage out: squared.

 Ethan Decker sits down with Christian Helms of Helms Workshop to talk about why the best brand work almost never starts with a logo.

We love to believe that mission-driven nonprofits operate on passion and deep loyalty, but are they more like businesses than we even realize?

Ethan Decker talks with Laura Coblentz, founder of Caraline Skincare, about the particular kind of hard it is to market your own brand — and why healthy skin, not anti-aging fear, might be the bigger opportunity in a $50 billion category.

Turns out 4 out of 5 college grads switch schools for their next degree — so if your customers "love" you, don't assume that means they're loyal, because loyalty and love aren't the same thing.

Ethan Decker sits down with Brad Flowers of Bullhorn Creative to talk about what happens when your expertise outgrows your brand — and why professional services firms can't just coast on reputation.

Turns out rich & poor buy the same shampoo. Marketing "common sense" weeps.

Ethan Decker sits down with Lee-Sean Huang, Chief Community Officer of AIGA, to dig into what happens when a 100-year-old institution has to fight for relevance in a world where nobody joins anything anymore.

Planters killed off their 104-year-old mascot. But why?]

Ethan Decker sits down with Bob Jordan, founder of InterimExecs, to untangle a question every growing company eventually trips over: when do you build one brand, and when do you build ten?

What does data from hundreds of companies actually show about the 80/20 rule?

Cat How, founder and Executive Creative Director of How Studio, joins Ethan on Cover Brand to talk about three recent brand launches and chat about some of the science behind the decisions.

We obsess over crafting the perfect brand story — but 99.9% of buyers are mental misers who couldn't tell you their favorite product's backstory.

The smarter you get at your job, the worse you get at explaining it. This week Richard Byrd (Bluebyrd) joins Cover Brand to talk about the curse of knowledge, why your best engineers make your worst salespeople, and what a BMW has to do with any of it.