John Gerzema

Why you should listen

John Gerzema has spent his career creating and guiding the brand strategies of many of our household names: McDonald's, BMW, Coca-Cola, United Airlines, Holiday Inn and more. Today, as Chief Insights Officer for marketing giant Young & Rubicam, he combines his expertise with the information reaped from Y&R's Brand Asset Valuator (an enormous database of brands) to understand and anticipate change in the intricate world of commerce.

Gerzema is co-author of The Brand Bubble, a new book that advocates change as the best strategy for brand management in today's market. This is not his first avant-garde move either -- he was one of the early adopters of account planning in American advertising, a method that places the consumer front and center in the branding process. After speaking at TEDxKC, Gerzema penned a second book called Spend Shift based on the premises of his talk on the changing habits of the post-crisis consumer.