About BJ

With clients like Kohl’s Department Stores, Scheels, CAT, Turner Classic Movies, and LA Lakers, Bolivar J. Bueno (BJ) is in an elite class of thought leaders. A dynamic young lecturer and creative strategist, BJ Bueno has been interviewed by CNN, USA Today, New York Times, and CNN en Español.

Bueno is the co-author of The Power of Cult Branding (Crown Business 2002), a work which received rave reviews from leading mavens like Al Reis, Jay Conrad Levinson, and Jeffrey Fox. He is also the author of the follow-up Cult Branding Workbook as well as Why We Talk: The Truth Behind Word-of-Mouth, a book that changes the way marketers think about word-of-mouth.

Bueno has built a reputation based on his insight and expertise into building brands. BJ Bueno founded and operated his own successful advertising agency before becoming a partner in Nonbox, a national agency, and opening Nonbox Consulting in Orlando, Florida. Nonbox Consulting is consumer think tank that offers consumer insight strategies, leadership coaching, brand education and training, and creative development services.

As a board member of the Retail Advertising & Marketing Association (RAMA) and a member of the Chief Marketing Officers board for international retailers, Bueno advises companies like Target, Wal-Mart, Washington Mutual, Toys-R-Us, and JCPenny in their retail, advertising and marketing efforts.

Bueno 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,” Bueno reveals. While others his age where playing baseball and going to school, Bueno 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.

Bueno’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, he had delivered keynote speeches to the Harvard Business School, Fortune 500 companies, and top universities throughout the world. In his lectures, Bueno 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 Bueno 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."