Jonathan Mildenhall

As one of the most respected practitioners in transformative branding, Jonathan Mildenhall brings a level of expertise and success that few others can match to help drive significant growth and financial value. Having helped build some of the world’s biggest brands including Airbnb, Coca-Cola and Audi, Mildenhall is an expert at identifying what companies need to change in their marketing strategy to build community-driven brand loyalty. His goal is simple: build the most influential brands of our time through driving growth of financial, consumer, cultural, and employee value.

In this talk, Mildenhall presents the 4 Pillars of 21st Century Branding – a bespoke framework that clients can implement immediately. During this energizing session Mildenhall illustrates how applying these four pillars to Airbnb helped create the most influential travel brand on the planet, now valued at over $35 billion. He will also showcase the very best and the very worst application of this model from several different categories. He’ll answer questions like: What is the value of an influential brand? What makes an influential brand? And eventually, how can a company like Starbucks raise its prices, yet still have loyal customers after 40 years?

Attendees will see real life examples through Mildenhall’s riveting case study on brand activity in each of his 4 pillars:

• Purpose-led, ensuring the purpose transcends, but is not disconnected from, the business plan
• Community-driven with aligned incentives across customers, investors & employees
• Technology-enabled by a world-class, data driven product
• Narrative-based to unify all stakeholders with one shared and compelling story across all touchpoints

In this new era of uncertainty there is one thing that is certain – the traditional rules of marketing no longer apply. Branding and Marketing expert Jonathan Mildenhall will share with audiences different ways that marketers and leaders managing their brands through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond can sustain demand and play a wider role in their communities. Unlike the heroic healthcare workers on the front lines, most brands will not be able to save lives, but they can save livelihoods by recognizing and using all the assets at their disposal. In this presentation, Mildenhall will address and answer these three key questions:

• What do people need at this moment? Listeners will learn how to invert the hierarchy of needs and reassess traditional wisdom.
• What principles should guide our actions? Mildenhall will explain how empathy, generosity, utility and agility, significant acts, hands-on leadership and brand purpose help to build value.
• What brands can we learn from? For each guiding principle, Mildenhall will share real examples of how brands are effectively helping their communities.

Jonathan Mildenhall knows that purpose-driven companies outperform their competitors, and that purpose-driven marketing can produce value for brands and become legacy content. He highlights successful case studies of companies that promote diversity both in the workplace and in their campaigns. From Nike and Dove’s success in marketing to women, to his own work at Coca-Cola and Airbnb, Jonathan shows the impact of highlighting diverse communities.

What’s the correlation between creative and commercial success? Looking at the past decade, Jonathan Mildenhall shares some of the most awarded creative work and shows the effect it had on companies’ financial performance. He highlights examples from brands as diverse as P&G, VW, IKEA, and Burger King in order to prove the link between thinking creatively and improving an organization’s bottom line. He adds his own experience as VP Global Advertising at Coca-Cola and CMO of Airbnb, where his campaigns not only brought awards and accolades, but also profitable growth.

In just four years, Airbnb transformed from a home sharing site of 400,000 hosts to a globally recognized super brand with over 3.5 million. Jonathan Mildenhall, its former Chief Marketing Officer, breaks down the insights and experience that drove this journey. From redesigning the company’s logo to launching its first global ad campaign, he reviews the lessons he learned along the way and explains how they can be applied to your business.