As a gifted speaker and branding expert, BOLIVAR J. BUENO has had the privilege of presenting his ideas on consumer psychology for organizations including CNN, Target, IBM, Kohl’s, and the LA Lakers.

As a speaker and board member of the National Retail Federation (NRF) and the Retail Advertising & Marketing Association (RAMA), BJ advises companies like Target, Walmart, Washington Mutual, Toys-R-Us and Kohl’s in their retail, advertising, and marketing efforts.

A dynamic thought leader in branding and marketing, BJ has been interviewed by CNN, USA Today, The New York Times, and CNN en Espanol. BJ has built a reputation for his insight and expertise into building brands. In 2006, BJ founded The Cult Branding Company as the premiere brand loyalty research consultancy, serving major retailers and other national and international brands including Kohl’s Department Stores, Scheels, CAT, Turner Classic Movies, LA Lakers, and The Life is good Company.

BJ is the author of Customers First: Dominate Your Market by Winning Them Over Where It Counts the Most (McGraw-Hill, 2012) and is the co-author of The Power of Cult Branding (Crown Business, 2002), a work that received rave reviews from leading mavens like Jack Trout, Al Ries, Jay Conrad Levinson, and Jeffrey Fox. He is also the author of the handbook Cult Branding Workbook as well as Why We Talk: The Truth Behind Word-of-Mouth.

BJ was born to a missionary family in Santiago, Dominican Republic, and he grew up in places like Bolivia and Peru. How does a nine-year-old boy pass the time camped in the high peaks of Peru? “Read books and learn magic,” BJ reveals. While others his age were playing baseball and going to school, he was mastering the secrets of the world’s greatest magicians and pouring over the work of brilliant minds like Carl Jung, Abraham Maslow, and Joseph Campbell.

BJ’s passion and love for the art of illusion was evident to anyone who saw him perform, and by 17, his exploration of the mysteries of the unknown led him into marketing and advertising. As a perpetual student of the mind, he began exploring new ways of blending the fields of humanistic psychology, comparative mythology, history, religion, and psychiatry into his masterful discipline of consumer marketing and advertising.

By age 23, BJ had delivered keynote speeches to the Harvard Business School, Fortune 500 companies, and top universities throughout the world. In his lectures, BJ explains that successful marketing is comprised of what we know about life: If it matters, it will sell; if it tastes good, let the customer taste it.

The heart of his message is simple: NO MATTER WHAT BUSINESS YOU ARE IN, WHETHER YOU HELP FARMERS TILL THE SOIL OR MAKE DREAMS COME TRUE ON STAGE, THERE MUST BE A PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE TO YOUR WORK. BJ says, “What do I know? I know people want to feel free so they dance. They hit the road all weekend long trying to live … not forget. I know people want to put on their Spock ears and leave this planet. They told me so. The experience of feeling alive, that’s what they want. That’s what I know.”