Field Notes Podcast by Brand Shepherd

A lot of creative professionals are losing sleep over AI. Brand Shepherd is not one of them.In this episode of Field Notes, Dan Crask speaks candidly about what it actually looks like when a 20-year branding agency takes a clear-eyed, disciplined look at AI tools like Claude, Claude Design, Firefly, and Runway, and decides to welcome them rather than resist them.The conversation covers why “AI produces slop” is a statement born from misunderstanding, what the passion-driven creative crowd is getting wrong about this moment, why every AI design tool starts by asking for your brand assets (and what that means for branding professionals), and why accountability is the thing AI will never be able to replace.This isn’t a rah-rah AI episode or a doom-and-gloom one. It’s a realist’s take from someone who has been in the business long enough to watch every major technology wave roll in, and knows how to read the water.Brand Yourself Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

Cloudflare just launched EmDash, a new CMS built with AI agents from the ground up. Brand Shepherd breaks down why this WordPress alternative is worth watching. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

There are things people expect when they start working with Brand Shepherd. They expect to dig into brand identity. They expect to talk about what makes them different. They expect to come out the other side with clearer messaging and a stronger sense of who they are and who they’re for.What they don’t expect is to be surprised.But they almost always do. And the surprises almost always come in one of two forms: blind spots and soft spots. These are two of the most consistently delightful and occasionally uncomfortable aspects of working with a branding partner. And they’re worth talking about honestly.What We Actually Do at Brand ShepherdBefore getting into the blind spots and soft spots, a quick frame of reference.Brand Shepherd believes that a brand is made of three things: presence, people, and purpose. Or as we’ve developed it through our proprietary trademarked framework: Vibe, Tribe, and Why. That process captures, clarifies, and documents everything essential about a brand, and then packages it into what we call a Brand Experience Guide.That guide doesn’t just sit on a shelf. It’s used across the entire organization, from the C-suite on down. More recently, we’ve been using it to train AI models so that first-draft content actually sounds on-brand instead of generic. And it informs everything from the website to sales collateral to trade show materials to product packaging.It’s comprehensive. And it’s exactly in the process of building it that the blind spots and soft spots start to surface.Blind Spots: What You Don’t Know You Don’t KnowA blind spot can exist on the brand side or the customer side. Sometimes it’s a gap in internal knowledge. Sometimes there’s a disconnect between what the brand thinks it’s communicating and what the audience actually receives.One recent example: a client wanted to use the phrase “out of pocket” to refer to expenses. Totally reasonable for an audience of older millennials and up. But for Gen Z and younger millennials, that phrase means something completely different now. It’s a small thing. It’s also exactly the kind of thing that quietly erodes trust with the audience you’re trying to reach.These things come up constantly in leadership meetings. Get the heads of multiple departments in the same room, and you will find places where operations are completely out of sync with sales, or where marketing is working off assumptions that haven’t been validated in years. It’s not a conflict. It’s just the natural result of people running hard in their own lanes without a shared map.The good news about blind spots is that once you can see them, they often become opportunities. Sometimes the fix is a pivot. Sometimes it’s a change in language or positioning. Sometimes, honestly, it’s a brand learning to laugh at itself. There’s more than one way to address a blind spot. But you can’t address what you can’t see.Soft Spots: What Hasn’t Been Tested YetSoft spots are different. These aren’t gaps in knowledge so much as gaps in scrutiny.A soft spot is a strategy or tactic that sounds good inside the building but hasn’t been pressure-tested by outside forces. It’s the idea that got a lot of nods in the room because everyone in the room already agreed with each other. It’s not wrong, necessarily. It’s just not ready.One of the most common soft spots Brand Shepherd encounters looks like this: someone from a brand reaches out to ask why their marketing isn’t following a particular trend. Why aren’t we doing what everyone else is doing? And when we ask where that feedback came from, the answer is almost always the same. It came from a vendor. A competitor. Someone in the industry. Someone is already inside the fold.Not a customer. Not a prospect. Not someone the brand is actually trying to reach.That’s preaching to the choir. And if a brand is spending its energy and budget trying to impress its vendors and competitors instead of attracting new customers, that’s a soft spot. A significant one.The respectful but direct response: if you want to turn your voice inward and talk only to the people already around you, Brand Shepherd probably isn’t the right fit. This isn’t said to be harsh. It’s said that honest feedback, delivered with some levity, usually earns the most respect and leads to the most productive conversations.The Fix Is the Same for BothThe solution to a blind spot and to a soft spot is identical: an outside perspective.This is why the best brands, even the biggest brands with large internal teams, still bring in outside partners for this kind of work. It’s not because their internal teams aren’t capable. It’s because internal teams are too close to it. That proximity is unavoidable, and it’s not a flaw. It’s just reality.Tools like PickFu and Ugly Baby exemplify this principle in a more accessible form. PickFu gathers feedback from qualified strangers, people with no stake in your brand, no reason to be polite, and no prior exposure to your internal assumptions. Ugly Baby does the same specifically for websites. Brand Shepherd’s own website recently underwent an overhaul driven directly by that kind of unfiltered outside review. The suspicion that there were blind spots and soft spots proved correct. But they couldn’t be fixed from the inside.It’s worth noting that AI alone doesn’t solve this. An AI model has no accountability. The subscription fee gets paid regardless of whether your brand improves. There’s no skin in the game. Outside human partners who specialize in branding bring something AI can’t replicate: genuine investment in the outcome.If This Sounds Familiar, It Probably ShouldMost brands have at least one blind spot and at least one soft spot at any given time. That’s not a failure. It’s just what happens when people are deep in the work of running a business.The question is whether those spots get identified and addressed before they become bigger problems, or whether they get papered over with internal consensus and good intentions.If you sense that your brand might have one or both, Brand Shepherd is currently offering a free brand audit at brandshepherd.com. That offer changes in April 2026, so if it’s useful to you, now is the time to take advantage of it.===Brand Shepherd guides brands to clarity and helps them thrive. New episodes of Field Notes drop weekly. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

Here’s episode 41’s blog companion:3 Things Brand Shepherd Does for Every Ag BrandField Notes, Episode 41 | Brand ShepherdIt’s the late 80s. A 13-year-old kid in a small northern Illinois town climbs onto a bus in the wee hours of the morning, headed for a cornfield. For several weeks, that bus runs the same route, depositing a crew of teenagers into fields owned by Cargill seed, where they walk row after row pulling tassels in the summer heat.That kid was me. I went home with sunburns. I also went home with something I didn’t fully appreciate at the time: a connection to agriculture that has quietly shaped 20 years of brand work at Brand Shepherd.Right now, we have four ag brands in our queue. They span agricultural robotics, in-field operations, and livestock. And this being National Ag Week, it seemed like the right time to talk about what we actually do for these brands, because there’s a pattern to it. Almost every ag brand we work with gets the same three things from us.1. Vibe, Tribe, and WhyNo surprise here. It’s where we start with every brand, ag or otherwise. But the Vibe, Tribe, and Why framework lands particularly well in agriculture, and the reason is simple: farmers are time-poor.The weather is unpredictable. Equipment needs fixing. Animals need tending. Money is tight. There is no off-season in the way most industries think about one. If you want the attention of a farmer, you better get to your point.Narrowing a brand down to three things, presence, people, and purpose, is a genuinely respectful use of that time. So that’s where we start. We identify the brand’s vibe, which captures voice, personality, and the overall feel of how the brand shows up. We define the tribe, because “farmer” isn’t one thing. Are we talking crop farmers, livestock operations, independent farms, large-scale operations? The specifics matter. And then we get into the why, which in ag requires a particular kind of honesty. Farming can be deeply emotional, and also completely transactional, sometimes in the same conversation. The why has to account for both, and it has to answer one question the farmer is always asking: does this actually help my farm?2. How the Message Gets DeliveredOnce Vibe, Tribe, and Why is established, it produces a brand experience guide, which captures and clarifies everything we learned in the process. One thing that always surfaces in the tribe work is the time-on-phone reality of modern farming.Farmers using semi-autonomous equipment, combines being the clearest example, spend a meaningful amount of time behind the wheel with some capacity to look at a screen. That creates a real opportunity for brands willing to show up the right way. Mobile first. Short-form vertical video. Website copy that is pithy and gets to the point fast. No one driving a combine has time for a 10-minute product explainer.For farmers running older or fully manual equipment, the calculus flips. Eyes are on the work, not a screen. Audio becomes the channel. This is actually one of the clearest arguments for why a podcast will always be audio-first. The farmer operating manual equipment is a perfect example of a listener who genuinely cannot watch a video, and who will absolutely tune in to a well-produced podcast that speaks to their real problems. If your brand has something worth saying to that person, say it in audio.The takeaway: delivery matters as much as the message. Short, high-value, mobile-optimized content is the baseline. From there, the split between visual and audio depends on who you’re actually reaching.3. Telling the TruthThis is the one that requires the most trust, and frankly the most experience to pull off. It’s where 20 years of working with ag brands, and a childhood spent around agriculture, earns its keep.Brand clarity is the whole game at Brand Shepherd, and in agriculture it shows up most directly as the willingness to tell a founder the truth about their brand. Sometimes that truth is: you’re leading with technology in a way that assumes your customer cares about specs. They don’t. They care about outcomes. They want to know the thing works, that it can be fixed when it breaks, and that you understand what their days actually look like.Right to repair is a live issue in agriculture right now, and it’s a good example of the kind of thing that can make or break an ag brand’s credibility with farmers. You can have a genuinely useful product and still lose the farmer if they believe they won’t be able to fix it themselves or get it serviced. Telling the truth means naming that early, not discovering it in the field.Agriculture is one of the most genuinely exciting industries to be in right now. The rate of change is significant, and most of it is happening below the surface of what the general public notices. Brands emerging to take on next-generation challenges in ag deserve clarity from day one. That’s what we’re here to provide.This episode of Field Notes covers National Ag Week and what Brand Shepherd does for agricultural brands. Give it a listen on Substack, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.brandshepherd.com Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

The Expert Generalist: AI’s Most Valuable (and Long-Overlooked) PlayerField Notes by Brand ShepherdEvery major technology shift creates new roles. Think back through the last few decades: the desktop computer, the internet, mobile, and social media. Each one reshuffled the deck. Some existing roles evolved. Entirely new ones appeared out of nowhere.AI is doing the same thing right now. And we’re still in the very early stages of it.But here’s what I find strange: I haven’t heard anyone put a name to the new type of person that this era is calling forward. So I’m going to do that. Why not me?The role is the Expert Generalist.What Is an Expert Generalist?An expert generalist is someone with working knowledge and above-average depth across a wide variety of topics. Not a specialist. Not someone who went deep on one thing and stopped there.You might actually know expert generalists as specialists, because they’ve typically chosen to lean into one area of expertise in order to get leverage in their career. But alongside that, they’ve got side hustles, hobbies, and interests that quietly demonstrate mastery in a whole range of other fields. They just haven’t had a context where all of it could come together.Until now.Expert generalists tend to end up in leadership or ownership positions because they genuinely understand how many different parts fit together. We’ve used different words for them across different eras. In the early days of the internet, we called them unicorns: the rare person who could both design and develop a website. Go back further, and you’ve got the Renaissance man, or the person who could manage an entire household, inside and out, with competence in every corner of it.The label changes. The person doesn’t.Why AI Changes Everything for ThemHere’s the thing about large language models: they do best when you can draw across a wide range of analogy, context, and expertise. Feed them myopic, narrow, highly specialized input, and you’ll get myopic output. But bring in someone who can approach a problem from five different angles, connect dots across disciplines, and articulate those connections clearly? The outputs get dramatically better.That’s exactly how the expert generalist thinks naturally.They don’t have to force themselves to make those connections. It’s just how they’re wired. And because AI is fundamentally a language-based tool, there’s another advantage worth noting: expert generalists have had to develop an above-average vocabulary simply because their knowledge spans so many different domains. Being articulate isn’t optional when you’re moving fluidly between that many spaces. And for large language models, that kind of linguistic fluency matters.The Neurospicy FactorI’d be leaving something important out if I didn’t mention this: expert generalists are very often neurospicy. That includes people in the neurodivergent community, such as those with ADHD, autism, OCD, ADD, and more.These are people with a particular gift for pattern recognition, an obsessive depth of interest in topics, and an ability to spot connections that neurotypical people are not wired to catch. For a long time, the workplace had no clean slot for them. They were the odd ones out, the people who were hard to categorize, impossible to keep in a box.AI gives them a home.The Downsides (Because There Are Always Downsides)Expert generalists are not easy to work with in every configuration. A few things to know:Don’t pair two of them together. Their strengths overlap instead of amplifying. If you have more than one on a team, they need to be working in different areas of the business.They thrive alongside specialists, not alongside each other. When an expert generalist can pull in deep specialists across different areas, it’s like amplifying each area of their working knowledge. That’s the configuration that works.They will leave if they get bored. This is non-negotiable. Expert generalists are self-motivated and self-sufficient by nature. If they’re slotted into a role that doesn’t use the full range of what they bring, they’ll find somewhere else to direct that energy. And if there’s no elsewhere, they’ll create one.Managers often struggle to see them clearly. The last two decades of Google-optimized, specialist-rewarded thinking have trained most organizations to view generalist depth with skepticism. That era is ending. The sooner managers catch up, the better positioned they’ll be.A Bit of Full DisclosureThe phrase "expert generalist" is one I actually coined back in 2021. I was in the dark stretch of COVID, trying to find language to describe how Brand Shepherd helps brands, and I kept bumping into this idea without quite naming it right. At the time, I thought I was describing the business. I didn’t realize I was describing myself.Everything in this episode comes from firsthand knowledge, both my own experience as an expert generalist and the experience of working alongside others like me on the Brand Shepherd team. I’ve learned the hard way, through trial and error, what it looks like to use, amplify, and grow expert generalists in a business setting.The one missing piece, for years, was AI.When AI arrived at mass scale in 2023 and really accelerated through 2024, it clicked. The expert generalist was always the right person for a context like this. We just needed the context to show up.Where Does This Leave You?If you’re reading this and thinking, yeah, that sounds like me, you’re probably an expert generalist. And you’re going to do what you do: take this, run with it, and figure out how it applies to your business or your career.If you’re a manager or employer, and you recognize someone you work with in this description, share this with them. Help them understand who they are. They’ll take it from there. They don’t need you to motivate them. They just need the name.That’s mostly what this episode was: giving a name to a role that has existed for a long time, but never quite had one.What you do with it from here is up to you.Brand Shepherd guides brands to clarity and helps them thrive. New episodes of Field Notes drop weekly. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

Don’t have time to listen right now? We got your back. Here’s the TL;DL version:* Gate Keep Everything: single page, clear value, clear CTA, sign up to access more.* Embrace the Prompt: give visitors, customers, and prospects a prompt to work with about your brand’s Vibe, Tribe, & Why®, and then lead a discussion with them on a platform.* Be Ruthlessly Pro-Human: Get a fax number. Drop all tech that allows AI creep. Use human note takers at meetings. Be a bastion for pure humanity, flaws and all. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

This week’s Field Notes by Brand Shepherd is an “audiobook” version of an article published this week by our founder, Dan Crask.Listen to the article narrated by Dan Crask here or via Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or read the full article linked below. I had an existential pause today.Not a crisis. A pause.The kind where you read the room in your profession, listen to the people you work with, and ask a question you’ve been avoiding: Is there any value in stating that I am Brand Shepherd’s “Brand Strategist” anymore?Ironically, AI is why I’m asking this.To be clear, I welcome it. I’m a “roll with the changes” person. Branding as a profession is not a “passion” of mine in the sense that I’m emotionally entangled with it. I regard it as an interesting way to earn a living. Meanwhile, I protect my actual passions (music, fitness, creative work) from commercial intrusion. So when the ground shifts beneath a professional identity, I don’t cling. I adapt.But adaptation requires honesty about what’s actually happening. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

There has been a major shift in how we are to think about SEO in light of Google’s use of AI Overviews.Google is pretty open about the fact that it sees its AI Overviews as the future of search.Let that sink in.In this article from shepx (a spin-off brand of Brand Shepherd), we present the receipts for the traffic shift away from Google that AI Overviews alone have driven. And the thing is, we’re not even factoring in Claude, Perplexity, or ChatGPT. This is a big deal: Google doesn’t want to send people to your website anymore.Did you know Field Notes is now available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify? Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, we address something that’s been brewing in the background of everything we do at Brand Shepherd: our relationship with AI and why we’re so committed to integrating it into our brand-building work.We know AI has become polarizing. The word “slop” gets thrown around a lot by critics who argue that AI only steals and can’t create anything original. But here’s what we want you to understand: if that criticism is true, it actually proves why AI and brand building are perfectly matched.The Core Connection: LanguageBoth brand building and AI share the same foundation: language. Everything we do in branding (from logos to taglines to visual direction) starts with language. AI operates through language models. This overlap isn’t coincidental; it’s fundamental.The PhilosophyHere’s the Brand Shepherd operating philosophy in one statement:AI is best suited for language from humans, supplied with clarity and an outcome in mind.Sound familiar? That’s also the exact description of effective brand building.When we work with clients through our Vibe, Tribe, & Why® framework, we create a Brand Experience Guide (BXG) dense with information about their brand: positioning, values, customers, goals, lexicon. We then use AI as a tool to help create from that foundation, always with human review and editing.Our ApproachWe’re not chasing shiny objects. We’re building private AI systems for corporations, developing custom agents, and using AI to assist (not replace) in creating assets. The key word is assisted. AI is a tool in our toolkit, flanked by human expertise at the beginning and end of every process.If you’re fundamentally opposed to AI in your brand work, Brand Shepherd probably isn’t the right fit. And that’s okay. But for those who see the potential of combining human clarity with AI capability, this is exactly where we’re headed.This isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about recognizing that the biggest infrastructure investment since the New Deal is here to stay, and we have a responsibility to engage with it thoughtfully and strategically. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

5 Things I Would NEVER Do To My Brand, As A Brand Strategist Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

5 Ways to tell if your brand is cluttered. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

5 Trends We See Forecasted In Branding For 2026Brand Vibes • The pro-human backlash to AI – loud but short-lived.Brand Positioning • “Quiet” takes over. Quiet Luxury, Quiet Quality, Quality > Quantity, and a continued drop in personal posting to social mean brands need to learn to quietly assert their quality-over-quantity position.Brand Strategy • Social media takes another step back, and will be behind SEO, AIO, and email for strategic reach.Websites • “Bury it” content is paired with simpler navigation and page layouts. People are tired of being led, and they have the tools to get what they want.AI • Platforms target brands more than consumers as pressure mounts to monetize more efficiently. Accuracy will be a big focus.New Year, New Brand Clarity⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️“This book punches well above its page count. Practical and actionable, it is a concise guide that can help leaders quickly decipher where their problems lie and take clear steps to correct them. It is the best example of the philosophy it endorses.” Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

In the final Field Notes of 2025, let's cover insights and takeaways about brand building and its broader reach from the year.✅ Consumer Insights✅ AI✅ Brand ClarityCheers to the close of 2025! We mark 20 years in business in 2026, but first: end-of-year rest. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

MillerClapperton is a leader in the architectural cladding industry, working on major commercial real estate projects across the southeastern United States. But despite their long-standing reputation, they faced a challenge common to many industries driven by bids and margins:Their industry had become a commodity.Proposals looked the same. Messaging sounded the same. And in the rush to automate and streamline processes, MillerClapperton’s distinct voice and expertise were getting lost in the noise.That’s when they brought in Brand Shepherd to build their new website. But before we tackled the site, we took them through Vibe, Tribe, & Why® to clarify their brand and position them as more than just another cladding provider.Give Your Brand The Gift Of Clarity.Vibe, Tribe, & Why®: Clarify Your Brand. Attract Your People. Connect with Clarity.The complete framework and methodology, plus real-world applications. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

Hensley Custom Building Group had a reputation for building custom, high-end luxury homes in Indian Hill, Ohio, a legacy spanning nearly 40 years. But after years of working with a marketing agency that relied heavily on broad, shotgun-style tactics, the Hensley team felt increasingly disconnected from their own brand.Despite being positioned as a “top Cincinnati custom home builder,” something was off. Leads were coming in, but they were scattered. Marketing messages were conflicting. And at a gut level, the owners knew they weren’t attracting the right kind of client.That’s when they were referred to Brand Shepherd to clarify their brand through Vibe, Tribe, & Why®.Give Your Brand The Gift Of Clarity.Vibe, Tribe, & Why®: Clarify Your Brand. Attract Your People. Connect with Clarity.The complete framework and methodology, plus real-world applications. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

It’s time to bring out the receipts and show how the Vibe, Tribe, & Why® framework has given brands real, tangible, profitable clarity for their growth engines.Today, we start with our work with Middleby® and its select group of brands, all of which utilize the Vibe, Tribe, & Why® framework to provide game-changing clarity.Also Available: The Middleby® case study on dancrask.com »Want A Better Performing Brand In 2026?Vibe, Tribe, & Why®: Clarify Your Brand. Attract Your People. Connect with Clarity.The complete framework and methodology, plus real-world applications. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

Assumption: The people who create strategies and content for your brand use AI at some point in the process. This week’s Field Notes aims to help you avoid 3 common things you should not be doing with AI and your brand.#3: Use AI Just Because#2: The Fallacy of Inclusivity#1: Vague In = Vague OutListen to Dan Crask, founder and strategist of Brand Shepherd, talk through each thing to avoid when using AI with your brand. Want A Better Performing Brand In 2026?Vibe, Tribe, & Why®: Clarify Your Brand. Attract Your People. Connect with Clarity.The complete framework and methodology, plus real-world applications. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

When you’re refreshing or creating a logo, focus on three key areas: understanding your Tribe (really get to know your customers—their spending, who else they buy from, and what they value), assessing your Vibe (compare your logo visually against competitors to see if you feel dated or on-trend), and confirming your Why (make sure your brand still solves the problems it was created to solve). This framework (Vibe, Tribe, & Why®) is essential because your logo influences everything else: your website, marketing, packaging, and social presence all flow from your brand identity. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

The internet is awash with hot takes about AI and websites. Content creators, developers, and everyone in between are scrambling to make sense of what’s happening. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: nobody has a firm grasp on how AI is reshaping the web landscape.Let me cut through the noise and share what actually matters for your brand.The Discoverab… Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

Building High-Performing Websites • Part 2In Part 2, we cover how our brand clarity process, Vibe, Tribe, & Why®, directly applies to the creation of a high-performing website.In this series of videos, we’re getting into the specifics of how Brand Shepherd creates high-performing websites, with examples to show you that it’s not just talk. Brand Shepherd clients are actively benefiting from these tactics, with measurable ROI and brand growth.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️”This book punches well above its page count. Practical and actionable, it is a concise guide that can help leaders quickly decipher where their problems lie and clear steps to correct them. It is the best example of the philosophy it endorses.”— M. BlairGet your copy and give clarity to your brand » Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

Building High-Performing Websites • Part 1Let’s get into the details on how high-performing websites are built, starting with some basics about Dark Mode, the Menu, and what we call Triangle Theory™. Watch this week’s Field Notes video to learn steps you can put to work immediately to make your brand’s website more impactful.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️”This book punches well above its page count. Practical and actionable, it is a concise guide that can help leaders quickly decipher where their problems lie and clear steps to correct them. It is the best example of the philosophy it endorses.”— M. BlairGet your copy and give clarity to your brand » Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

The Brand Marketing Mix We Use NowWe are first and foremost a branding agency; yet, brand marketing is an integral part of effective branding, making it an inevitable component of a smart strategy.In this week’s Field Notes, Dan covers the mix of Brand Marketing approaches we are finding to be the most effective (and efficient) for our clients.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️”This book punches well above its page count. Practical and actionable, it is a concise guide that can help leaders quickly decipher where their problems lie and clear steps to correct them. It is the best example of the philosophy it endorses.”— M. Blair Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

Times of Uncertainty Call for Strong BrandsAn article making the rounds this week is all about how consistency from brands is how to weather these uncertain times.What the article failed to mention, though, is how to gain consistency.The answer, of course, is: Clarity.Consistency is the fruit of clarity, and that’s the topic of this week’s Field Notes.Final Days of Launch PricingOn Oct. 1, 2025, the price of the new book, “Vibe, Tribe, & Why®” goes back up to regular pricing, so grab your Kindle version or paperback soon! Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

Truth bomb: AI is probably giving you more work to do, not making you more efficient.It’s also likely to clutter your brand’s presence, confuse your audience, and muddy your brand’s purpose.Clarity is the answer, but clutter is the enemy of clarity.This week’s Field Notes (Issue 20!) makes the case for clarity.Special Price Until Oct. 1 for the new “Vibe, Tribe, & Why®” bookA small group of Brand Shepherd clients were let in on special pricing for the new book, Vibe, Tribe, & Why®, and today that extends to our Substack subscribers.* $2.99 for Kindle/e-book * $9.99 for paperbackOn October 1, 2025, pricing returns to $10 for Kindle and $15 for paperback.This book is the game-changer for how brands thrive in this new, complex, AI-saturated, economically uncertain, and mismatched culture.It’s broken up into 4 sections, each with chapters. The sections are:* why clarity matters* the Vibe, Tribe, & Why® framework & methodology * application in the real world* activation & next stepsDan wrote it in a way that is reminiscent of social media posts. He hates walls of text. He wanted to give readers concise, pithy statements, rich in actionable bullet points, all with immediate application. Get it today » Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

My first book, Vibe, Tribe, & Why®, is now available! I am here this week to make the case for why this book is a must-read for your brand. Clarity is everything. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

Field Notes by Brand Shepherd is your single source for guidance to help brands get from cluttered to clarity.The timing of the Cracker Barrel brand saga could not have lined up better to be top of mind for everyone as the new Vibe, Tribe, & Why® resources begin launching next week:* Vibe, Tribe, & Why® - the book - Sept. 1 (preorders are now available)* Vibe, Tribe, & Why® - the AI - Mid September* Vibe, Tribe, & Why® - the course, as part of the Brand Shepherd Academy - Mid SeptemberSo, let’s get into why the Cracker Barrel brand overhaul saga is a case study of Vibe, Tribe, & Why®.VibeTribeWhy.com has even more info. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

Field Notes by Brand Shepherd is your single source for guidance to help brands get from cluttered to clarity.We’re building up to the launch of new ways to give your brand the x-factor it needs: Clarity.This week, Dan talks about a study from MIT about why 95% of Generative AI pilots fail.Sexy headline, right?There is a lot more to it than what the headline says, and clarity is the connective tissue through it all.Dan highlights the key takeaways related to applying it to your brand. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

Field Notes #15 by Brand Shepherd is your single source for guidance we share through Brand Shepherd, shepx, and dancrask.com, helping brands get from cluttered to clarity.Last week, Dan talked about the second of three things we have been working on to release on September 1, 2025: The Vibe, Tribe, & Why® Clarity Engine™, an AI tool to unclutter your brand and put clarity to work.This week, Dan talks about the third thing: The Brand Shepherd Academy, a learning platform hyper-focused on training brand leaders to get clear about their brand’s presence, people, and purpose. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

Field Notes #14 by Brand Shepherd is your single source for guidance we share through Brand Shepherd, shepx, and dancrask.com, helping brands get from cluttered to clarity.This week’s issue is an audio note all about the next clarity initiative we are working on: The Vibe, Tribe, & Why® Clarity Engine™, an AI tool to unclutter your brand and put clarity to work.Next week: The third thing we are working on. You’ll want to hear about that! Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe

Field Notes #13 by Brand Shepherd is your one-stop shop for all the guidance we shared through our Brand Shepherd, shepx, and dancrask.com outlets this past week, with one purpose: Help brands go from cluttered to clarity.This week’s Field Notes is all about the new book, “Vibe, Tribe, & Why®,” available on Monday, September 1, 2025, via Amazon Kindle and soft cover.Why is this book the perfect book for this particular era?Why is clarity the one thing that separates brands that thrive or struggle?How does a brand gain clarity?In this short video, Dan Crask covers all of this and more. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe