Scott Bedbury
- Branding Speaker & CEO of Brandstream
- Author, A New Brand World
- Former Leader at Starbucks and Nike
Travels From
Oregon
Scott Bedbury Speaker Biography
For three decades, Scott Bedbury has shaped some of the most respected global corporations and startups. His first book, A New Brand World, published in 2002 after leadership positions at Nike and Starbucks, was a clarion call to prepare for collapsing institutional trust, growing digital disruption, and the need for greater authenticity in the face of piercing transparency. Then as now, Bedbury champions the power of more empathetic, purpose-driven, creatively courageous, and experiential brands.
Scott joined Nike in 1987 to help a struggling brand for aspiring jocks become a more ageless inspirational one for the rest of the world. As Nike’s Global Advertising Director, he partnered with a tiny 28-person Portland, Oregon advertising agency, Wieden and Kennedy, to create the “Just Do It” campaign, helping move Nike from number three to number one in less than four years. Rarely spoken, those three otherwise pedestrian words have defined the Nike spirit and the power of brand storytelling for 33 years.
In 1995, Scott joined Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz as CMO to help a small regional American coffee company become a warm and welcome “Third Place” between home and work for millions every day. With less than 1% of Nike’s marketing budget, Starbucks redesigned its stores, launched Frappuccino, increased store openings from one per week to three per day, and opened Europe and Asia. 25 years later, Starbucks remains the watershed case study and icon for experiential brand building.
In 1998, Scott left Starbucks to write, lecture, and establish Brandstream, a global consulting firm. He has advised leaders of Airbnb, Apple, Casper Sleep, Coca-Cola, Groupo Modelo, Facebook, Ferrero/Nutella, Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft, NASA, North Face, America’s Navy, P&G, Samsung, Starwood Hotels, and VWAG. His first book, A New Brand World, published in 2002, was chosen three times as one the “100 Best Business Books of All Time” by CEO-READ.
His next book, due in late 2020, offers ten principles for more creating enduring brand trust in a post-truth world. He divides his time between Bainbridge Island in Washington and Bend Oregon.
For more information about Scott Bedbury, contact Executive Speakers Bureau @ 901-754-9404
Brandstream Founder and CEO Scott Bedbury has delivered keynote addresses and seminars in more than 30 countries. Topics include business innovation, category disruption, brand leadership, corporate culture, consumer and culture insights, mitigating the erosion of brand trust, the power of storytelling, preparing organizations for transparency and experiential marketing.
Rebuilding Truth and Trust in the Disinformation Age
The internet was founded on a premise of trust and the promise of a digital utopia that would enable free-flowing information and connectivity to a newly-empowered global audience.
However, trust has been atomized in a war on truth, trust and transparency in history. The motives may be many, but the means are not. Weaponized personal information and unregulated social media platforms have enabled a free flow of disruptive propaganda. Few of us know who or what to trust anymore.
In this session, Scott will offer insights and share principles from three years of research that can help individuals and organizations rebuild trust, and the invaluable role social media will need to play. He’ll emphasize the power of emotional connection and the need to lead with human-first marketing rather than algorithms in order to succeed today and in the future.
Attend this session and learn:
How to be a storyteller with empathy and transparency at the heart of your content
How to understand emotional connections that technology, and more specifically a platform, can serve and not just exploit
How to find trust in an age of deception and disinformation
