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Blog Posts by Paige Lansing Valle

Positioning Testing: Is It Worth It? 

February 11, 2020 —

Positioning Testing: Is It Worth It? 

Now that data-driven decision making has become the norm in marketing, it’s shocking when a brand misses the mark so badly. As the Twitter-sphere implodes, everyone is wondering ‘What happened? Why didn’t they test with customers?’ Most brands do rely on some form of testing before launching an advertising campaign…and the ones that don’t pay the price. But what about brand strategy? Is testing necessary before deploying a brand positioning? The answer isn’t one that data-driven organizations like to hear: it depends. For some brand teams, it’s absolutely necessary to pause and gather...
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Employer Branding Trends for 2020

October 15, 2019 —

Employer Branding Trends for 2020

Today, we’re continuing our deep dive into the most important trends affecting your business, brand, and culture heading into 2020. Following our look at content strategy, let’s examine employer brands. Remember when the common sentiment toward millennials was laden with disgust? Who were those entitled young people and their outrageous demands for flexibility, remote working, and—gasp—having a greater purpose in work than making money? It wasn’t that long ago, but oh how the tides have changed. Now, as we all know, those “millennial” demands have not just become normalized, but meeting them...
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Why Business Leaders Must Address the Big Picture

August 22, 2019 —

Why Business Leaders Must Address the Big Picture

Business Leaders, Caught in the Small Picture It’s easy for business leaders to get caught up in the details of everyday business, assuming the role of micromanager, not leader. And because leaders may not be focusing on big-picture questions surrounding the vision, mission, and value of their business and brand, many leaders end up feeling stuck—trying to figure out how to implement strategies without any real framework to guide these decisions. As a result, employees and middle managers can often suffer. Too often, big-picture questions are dismissed as important, but not necessarily...
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What Is Brand Generosity Anyway?

November 2, 2017 —

What Is Brand Generosity Anyway?

Why so generous? Brand generosity is in. As consumers become increasingly connected to social media and exposed to marketing ploys and tricks, suspicions rise about the authenticity of brands. Many consumers are looking for a genuine social commitment from the brands they engage with. As a result, building a bond with the people that matter to your business is more important now than ever before. People are looking for brands that give more than what’s expected. They want to feel good about the brands they are buying into, and how those brands are giving back to the world at large. What is...
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Naming a New Brand Category is Harder Than it Looks

July 26, 2017 —

Naming a New Brand Category is Harder Than it Looks

Failed category labels are laughable. Before there were snowboards, there was snurfers. PDA phones preempted smartphones. Charga-plates rolled out before credit cards took their place. It seems obvious now why each current category name is so much stronger than its predecessor. But missing the mark with category naming is a mistake that’s easy to make. In our last post about how to define a new category, we left off with what is most commonly considered the fun part of strategy: naming. If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve identified that your existing category isn’t serving your brand’s needs....
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