If you don’t master brand gravity, your competitors will.

The Brand Vortex is for two kinds of people:

Those who believe in brand and want to harness the forces behind it.

Those who sense brand matters but haven’t yet found language for why.

It turns intuition into insight, showing how brands shape behavior, meaning, and belonging not through persuasion, but through pull. Whether you build, lead, or design for a brand, this book gives you a new way to see—and a better way to move people.

What People are saying:

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For anyone building something people truly care about.
By “A. Patel – Startup Founder”

"This book helped me see my company differently. It’s not about logos or taglines but it’s about creating pull. The Brand Vortex taught me that our job isn’t to convince people, it’s to connect with what they already want and give them a better way to want it. Every chapter made me rethink how we talk to customers, how we design experiences, and even how we write investor decks. It’s rare to find a book that makes theory feel immediately usable, but this one does. If you lead a brand, design for one, or dream of building one, this is the book that will change your operating system."

A brand is not a thing. It is a gravitational system.

It’s not a logo. Not a campaign. Not a product. Not even a company. A brand is a pattern of forces shaping how people perceive, decide, act, and believe.

Strong brands don’t push themselves outward. They pull people in. They create meaning that feels real. Memory that feels earned. Momentum that feels personal. And they do it before the audience is fully conscious of the process. This is what I have come to call Brand Gravity.

Much of the branding world is built on a weak theory. One that imagines people as rational actors. It tells us to define a “position,” find “white space,” craft a message, and blast it outward hoping people will agree. That model is broken.

This book presents a different approach, one that moves brand out of marketing’s shadow and into alignment with how human behavior really works. Not as a story we tell, but as a force that shapes attention, meaning, and memory from the inside out.

A gravitational brand doesn’t persuade. It pulls. It doesn’t simply broadcast signals. It creates orbits.

— From the Introduction: Brands Are Not Things

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Finally—a theory that explains why brand strategy actually works.
By “E. Torres – Brand Strategist, Former Agency Partner”

"I’ve read every major branding book from How Brands Grow to Building a StoryBrand, and The Brand Vortex feels like the missing link. It connects behavioral science, design, and psychology into something that actually explains why certain brands pull us in. Chidley doesn’t just add another framework; he redefines what brand strategy is as a gravitational system of forces that drive human behavior. The writing is smart but readable, and the examples feel alive. I’ve already restructured two client briefs using his quadrant model and seen immediate clarity. This isn’t a trend book it’s a field manual for people who move minds and markets."

About the Author

Bill Chidley has spent more than forty years helping brands find their center of gravity.

His career has moved between creativity and strategy, first leading design and creative teams that shaped how brands look and feel, and later serving as a strategist focused on how brands work and grow.

As Vice President of Strategy at Interbrand, he contributed to the Best Global Brands valuation and helped shape the modern understanding of brand as a driver of business value.

Today, Bill is the Executive Director of Strategy and co-founder of ChangeUp, a branding and experience design firm that works with clients such as Burger King, BP, Subway, Discount Tire, Baskin Robbins, and Subaru to bring their brands to life through experiences that pull people in and keep them coming back.

Over his career, he has also partnered with companies including Procter & Gamble, McDonald’s, Honda, AT&T, Dunkin’, and John Deere, helping them translate business goals into meaning people can feel.

The Brand Vortex is the culmination of that journey. It unites creativity and behavioral science into a single theory of how brands gain gravity, grow with coherence, and earn a place in people’s lives.