Branding Breakthroughs – Mario Natarelli, Managing Partner at MBLM – Awakening Your Company's Brand for the 21st Century

Mario Natarelli, Managing Partner at MBLM, delivers an insightful overview of branding, discussing how businesses can evolve and grow.

Natarelli is a seasoned professional in the business world and he has advised numerous executives of Fortune 500 companies who seek to grow their businesses and leverage their brands. Utilizing his past training as an architect, Natarelli employs the essential fundamentals of art and design to enhance brands, building out from a brand's strategic core. Natarelli has launched his own successful businesses and he is tuned in to the role that digital plays in achieving great success.

Natarelli sums up his thoughts on brands and branding, discussing the bonds we build with products and services that are nurtured over time, and sometimes severed if things go awry. Natarelli delivers his insights on what entails a solid brand. He cautions us to be aware that a brand is not a logo, but a brand is an essence (the foundation of a brand that doesn't change), story (how does the brand communicate, what is its voice, style, tone, etc.) and experience (how does a brand come to life, what are its touchpoints—digital or real-world). Great brands have all of these factors. Natarelli discusses how Disney is an example of a very successful brand, in all of its functioning.

The marketing and branding expert discusses Amazon and the many independent brands that are under its wing. He relates how very large corporations with multiple areas of business are challenged to push their narrative in a cohesive way. Natarelli discusses major brands that have fallen, such as Sears, and others. He discusses how Sears missed the opportunity to move into the digital environment. Natarelli talks about how nothing lasts forever, and even longstanding family businesses moving into their 3rd or further generations sometimes have trouble maintaining the core vision and spirit that accelerated them in earlier years.

Natarelli discusses the ways that his company, MBLM, works with clients, helping them with services, research, and software/tools. For more than 17 years, Natarelli has led multiple teams spanning three continents, working for varying clients in the technology, travel, real estate, sports, and hospitality spaces.