S05.EP13 - Building Brands with Soul with Maria Brasil artwork
JUST Branding

S05.EP13 - Building Brands with Soul with Maria Brasil

  • S5E13
  • 44:56
  • August 20th 2024

The episode features a compelling discussion with Maria Brasil, founder of Essence Branding and a champion of conscious capitalism.

👉 Learn more: https://justcreative.com/podcast

Maria shares her journey from working in traditional branding agencies to pioneering a brand strategy approach that emphasizes aligning brand positioning with organizational culture.

She explains the concept of conscious capitalism, which revolves around four pillars: higher purpose, conscious leadership, conscious culture, and stakeholder integration.

Maria and the hosts delve into the importance of building brands “from the inside out,” stressing that true brand authenticity stems from the company’s core values and culture, not just external marketing efforts. Maria shares insights from her work, including a project with a fintech company in Brazil’s favelas, where she helped develop a brand that resonates deeply with its community by addressing their unique needs and challenges.

The episode also explores the challenges of integrating conscious capitalism into business practices, emphasizing the need for leaders to take the time to understand and authentically embody the brand’s values. Maria concludes by encouraging companies to consciously build brands that are not only profitable but also meaningful and aligned with their internal culture.

Conscious Capitalism is a business philosophy that emphasizes the importance of aligning business practices with social and environmental responsibilities. It advocates for a business model that serves all major stakeholders, including customers, employees, investors, communities, suppliers, and the environment, rather than solely focusing on maximizing shareholder value. 

JUST Branding

The JUST Branding Podcast, hosted by Jacob Cass & Matt Davies, is the only podcast dedicated to helping designers & entrepreneurs grow brands.

Each episode goes deep into the details of the brand building process, with professional insights, actionable tips and resources to help you build better brands.

The focus is on helping designers & entrepreneurs bridge the gap between strategy and design. Branding professionals from around the world join Jacob & Matt in discussing the benefits of brand strategy, top tools, how to sell strategy, brand purpose, brand positioning, neuroscience, brand personality, messaging, storytelling, brand naming, tag lines, logo design, brand identity design and brand experience.

ABOUT JACOB CASS

Jacob Cass is a Sydney-based designer & strategist who runs JUST Creative, an award-winning branding & design firm that doubles as an industry leading blog. Jacob helps brands grow & get results by crafting distinctive logos & brand identities that are backed by a solid brand strategy.

He recently rebranded San Francisco and Puerto Rico, and also branded New York's Digital District. Other clients have included the likes of Disney, Nintendo and Jerry Seinfeld. Jacob has spoken at TEDx, been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur and has been awarded LinkedIn’s “Best of” for branding.

For him, design is a lifelong journey of continuously honing his craft, as well as educating other fellow designers & business owners to build on theirs, which has allowed him to build a large and loyal following, including his website which has been been viewed over 50 million times. Jacob is an avid traveler and has traveled to 87 countries.

ABOUT MATT DAVIES

Matt is a brand strategy specialist working with leaders to align around their brand and get it ready to connect deeply with those inside and outside of their organisations. His work enables you to grow your business faster and easier. Matt solves a variety of brand challenges, from strategy and positioning to naming and identity right through to company culture and product innovation.