Professional services, like law firms, would do well to move beyond the rudimentary basics of branding such as identities, symbols, and colors, according to a blog post on Forbes.com.

We couldn’t agree more.

Like all businesses, professional firms face a challenging future with hyper-competition, commoditized knowledge, and accelerating change all looming on the horizon. These firms clearly need to get fit for the future – and their preparedness plan needs to include a major tune-up for their brands.

However, we believe professional firms need to also leapfrog over the traditionally time-consuming, expensive, and inwardly-focused branding approaches and go straight for the meaningful outcome offered by emotive branding.

Here’s why:

• Becoming fit for the future is about connecting more meaningfully to people today.
• People – be they clients, partners, or support staff – are seeking new levels of meaning in the ideas they embrace, the firms they engage, and the practices they choose to join.
• People will rally behind brands with a clearly articulated meaningful ambition.
• People will forge close bonds with brands that touch them emotionally.
• Firms that bring people along, through shared ambition by consistently evoking appealing emotions, will prevail over firms that settle for traditional branding.

Emotive branding is the practice of using positive emotions to create meaningful change in the way people inside and outside the business think, feel, and act.

Through a relatively quick process, we uncover the meaning lying dormant in your firm right now. We then determine how to change the way you do business now to convey the right meaning and to evoke appropriate emotions. This “master plan for meaning” becomes the platform for your brand and your culture.

From the way your brand presence is managed, to the spirit of your workplace, emotive branding will help your business thrive today as it makes your firm fit for the future.