Branding has always been ambiguous. If you think branding is just marketing, you’re already losing. It isn’t a logo. It isn’t a campaign. It’s psychology, culture, and the oldest form of storytelling; the same force that has built companies, toppled empires, and sparked movements. It unites. It divides. It decides who wins.

Brian Richards has been travelling the globe as an independent brand strategist for over three decades. From Auckland to Abu Dhabi, Singapore to Stockholm, stepping into boardrooms to argue, convincingly, that brand is not a cost but a form of capital. He has navigated industries, cultures, and egos to help leaders realise the potential value of their brands.

Unravelling Ambiguity distils those years into a field guide of stories, insights, and provocations from a career spent turning credible into incredible. This is brand strategy for the curious, the committed, and the quietly frustrated.

Brian Richards is an award-winning brand strategist who has received a Black Pin (for outstanding achievement within the design community) from the Designers Institute of New Zealand.

• The book contains a lifetime’s worth of business and brand insights, alongside 13 case studies of exemplary brands from New Zealand and around the world.

• The book contains 39 provocations designed to empower businesses and their leaders to improve their brand positioning, experience, and bottom line.

• Unravelling Ambiguity has been crafted as an objet d’art with impeccable production quality; a clothbound slipcase encases three separate volumes bound with an exposed spine that enables the books to open and lay flat.

View the production case study