Brand Savants Advises Corporate Strategy Through Brand.

SAN DIEGO -- A new consulting firm, Brand Savants, has announced the opening of a San Diego office, adding to the 14-member network of national firms in the Brand Establishment. The company helps clients to define, develop and operationalize clients' brands, providing strategic counsel to medium-sized companies who seek to build their businesses and increase their companies' net worth.

President and CEO of Brand Savants is Russ Cornelius, a Certified Brand Strategist who has more than 25 years' experience in business consulting, corporate marketing and sales management and who also is president and CEO of Marketing Savants. Other principals are Executive Vice President Sally Romoser, veteran marketing and business consultant, and Chief Brand Strategist Jim Hughes, founder of the Brand Establishment.

"We expect Brand Savants to be a major force nationally in shaping brand's increasing importance and recognized value in growing company profitability and worth," Hughes said. "Russ and Sally have complementary, multi-disciplinary backgrounds and the kind of strategic clarity that many companies need when they want to jettison to the next level."

According to Cornelius, Brand Savants employs an integrative strategy that starts with a comprehensive online survey to identify areas of strategic alignment and discordance within a company. The firm then provides brand development through a proprietary process called "Turning the Telescope," which identifies the client's compelling differentiation, leading to refined positioning and overarching strategy.

Then, through a consulting process called Brand Enculturation[TM], they study operational delivery through touchpoint analysis. Next, they recommend ways to overcome challenges, improve processes, heighten strategic alignment and enhance training by developing cross-functional employee teams to drive solutions.

Cornelius underscores that branding is "not marketing on steroids."

"Because a strong brand so significantly contributes to a company's valuation, we see a compelling need to approach corporate strategy through what we call a 'brand lens,'" he said. "It brings razor focus to all business-building initiatives. By leveraging brand through a planned effort, we can achieve the corporate strategy through a brand-driven approach to business.

"Our goal is to get CEOs to manage brand as the asset it represents. The Fortune 500 companies do it; we have examples of many great brand builders, CEOs who built their firms through differentiation, like Jack Welch at GE, Jeff Bezos at Amazon, Herb Kelleher at Southwest, Howard Schultz at Starbucks. They all claimed a differentiated territory in their markets, operationalized that distinction consistently and delivered on it in a customer-centric manner."

The company has developed an extensive network of expert consultants in myriad disciplines, an asset they call Resource Rich[TM]. These 'savants' provide counsel in an array of disciplines such as touchpoint analysis, training, call centers and customer service, retail management, channel partner strategy, manufacturing and operations, customer insight and analysis, executive coaching, political affairs, media and crisis training, hiring and staff development and mutual gains negotiation.

For more information, visit www.brandsavants.com, or contact Cornelius at [phone] or by e-mail at [e-mail].