Agency Archives

On Design, Branding, and Where the “Brand Magic” Happens: Interview with Emotive Brand Creative Director

Posted on February 15, 2018 by Saja Chodosh

Interview with Jane Brown, Creative Director

Jane joins Emotive Brand with over 20 years of experience developing corporate and brand identities ranging from global corporations to startups – bringing both agency and client-side, as well as print and digital media expertise to the table. Jane has built a reputation around delivering high-level thinking and design systems that enable new brands to compete in crowded marketplaces and venerable brands to deepen their relevance.

In this interview, Jane shares her point of view on branding challenges, client-agency relationships, collaboration, and what gives brands that extra “magic.”

What drew you to Emotive Brand?

There are a lot of different understandings of the term “brand.” I’ve been following the agency for a long time and I think the way Emotive Brand defines brand is so smart – and completely aligned with my thinking.

Emotive Brand gets it. Brand isn’t just about customers, it’s also about employees. It’s built from the inside out. It isn’t just about a logo, it’s about the people who work within the company. That’s where it all starts – getting to the heart of what the company stands for and why it matters.

I admire the attention Emotive Brand puts on process. The agency has created a very smooth, buttoned-up, articulate, and clear methodology. And they’ve worked hard to build a culture of collaboration with the client where this methodology works.

What excites you most about your role here?

To assist EB’s understanding of our brand and our place of differentiation. I’m excited to build upon what’s already been created.

What inspires me the most about my job is the utilization of design to explain transformative ideas. My goal is always to leverage this power, and I’m excited to do that with Emotive Brand.

What do you bring to the table that is unique?

I bring an understanding that can fill the gap between agency and client. I can pivot. I understand the pain points and cultures on both sides, and I know how to negotiate the two so that Emotive Brand, as an agency, delivers what is going to make our clients most successful.

Speaking of your in-house experience, how does that inform your agency-side work today?

In a lot of ways, in-house and agency-side are often contradictory worlds. There’s a lot of pressure that internal teams face daily to get work done – now. On an in-house team you’re valued for your collaboration, cooperation, positive attitude, and ability to get things done.

In contrast, in the agency world, we tend to be valued more for our skills and aesthetic. Agencies create the highest aesthetic standard.

There’s a sweet spot. I’m known for delivering delight to clients, and everything I do is always implementable. My in-house experience has taught me that you have to create tools that clients can actually use.

So what do you believe successful design systems should enable for clients?

Transformation – for the employees and the business. The brand must support and align with business goals.

For employees – to live that brand. For customers – to truly understand who the brand is. And that the brand can live up to the standards we’ve defined at every brand interaction.

Visually and verbally, the brand must ring true. It must be authentic. Authenticity is super important to me when measuring success.

What are the biggest challenges you see brands facing today?

The web created a lot of possibilities, but also, a lot of challenges. I see the danger when you look at the heap of templates available online. As a result of this mass availability, everything is starting to look and behave the same. Developing a unique and proprietary brand is a lot more challenging now and more important.

Is that where the value of bringing in an external agency comes in?

As an outside agency you are paid to be critical. It’s easier to diagnose and solve problems because you aren’t living them every day – internal teams can be too close to potential issues.

What does collaboration mean to you?

Shift from me to we-centric. Collaboration means we are all on the same team. You just want to create the best work – together. And on the agency side, this is all about creating the best solutions for the client. It has to be what’s right for the client.

What do you believe defines great, meaningful brands today? Where does the “magic” happen?

How does the brand make you feel? The magic has always been there. Emotive Brand was founded on the idea that feeling is transformative for brands. And I’m right there with them.

When teams pivot from logic to feeling and begin to reimagine and visualize what is possible, that is where the magic happens and where I get super excited.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency.

Why Bring in an Outside Branding Agency?

Posted on September 19, 2016 by Tracy Lloyd

In-House Mentality

The age old question of determining if you need to bring in an external branding agency is still relevant today. Whether it’s because of tight budgets, a hesitation about letting outsiders inside your business, or a general ‘we can just do it ourselves’ mentality, many companies look internally to tackle even their largest branding projects.

But whether it’s a repositioning, a new visual identity, or an all-around brand turnaround, this might be a mistake for businesses who really want to position themselves to thrive in a fast-paced, highly-competitive market.

What Value Can a Branding Agency Bring?

There are many benefits of bringing in an outside branding agency.

A fresh perspective:

It is easy to get stuck in old models of thinking. And those close to the business often have blinders on about what’s not working and what can be improved. As a result, an outside perspective is often key to fostering innovation, creativity, and problem solving. New questions arise. The conversation changes. People get unstuck and realigned. And key business problems are solved with efficiency.

Expertise and skill:

Agencies bring to bear a diverse array of experiences from many different industries. And this broad perspective is invaluable. Agencies have proven frameworks and methodologies to solve problems and uncover opportunities. As such, they can prescribe the best approach based on your specific situation and needs. And they have a team of professionals that have tackled all kinds of different business, brand, and culture challenges and bring that knowledge to the table for you. And it is this kind of expertise that guarantees a better positioned, more meaningful, effective, and impactful strategy.

The ability to move with speed:

Speed is key to competing today. So if your brand can’t move quickly, adapt dynamically, and fast forward itself towards the future, your business won’t be able thrive in today’s competitive landscape. A branding agency brings a dedicated focus to your project that is just not possible for an internal team that is already balancing a full plate. Also, financial investment in a project makes it more of a priority and guarantees the attention of executives that it needs to get it done.

Readiness for change:

Change is hard. And it’s often difficult for those inside your business to convince others on the inside that the change is right. The external perspective an agency brings along with proven experience could be what is needed to help your team take that strategic step forward. And once the strategy is approved inside the C-Suite, it is time to once again lean on the experience of the agency to develop a plan to successfully socialize it through the rest of the organization.

An understanding of the value of brand strategy:

Investing in a brand strategy means investing in your business. There’s great value in making a purposeful, meaningful brand strategy a core driver of an organization. But key players inside the organization might not hold the same opinion. There is much value to gain well beyond the marketing team. As a result, guidance communicating the value of investing in a brand strategy to everyone within your business is key to the projects success. Sales, product, human resources, customer success and engineering can all benefit greatly. An agency can help assure that you have the right level of support for it to pay off.

A long-term partnership:

A top branding agency engagement should bring value beyond just the current project at hand. It’s hugely beneficial to have a group of people outside of your organization. These people already understand your business inside and out. And as business progresses and important decisions arise, they are there to seek out for guidance. A strong relationship with an agency can help build a valuable network that can grow and grow.

Some things are better done together. And building a strong, impactful, and meaningful brand requires all the people key to your success coming together. Invest in working with a branding agency and you will add an entire team that can work alongside yours. Invest in your brand’s success and position your business for greatness.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco design and brand strategy agency.

Strategy for the Strategy

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Tracy Lloyd

Strategy from a strategist.

When I started my career, I had some mentors who warned me that my world was going to be different from theirs. The main change was that due to downsizing, client companies no longer had people on staff to manage creative agencies. Instead of working with people who knew communications and branding, I would be working directly with vice presidents of marketing or human resources who had only vague ideas about how they work.

That was good advice. But it missed an even bigger change. My mentors believed the clients would have a strategy, and it would be my job to execute it creatively. But that changed, too. Most clients don’t have a strategy, only a need. And that has become more prevalent, not less, over the years.

Downsizing has continued, of course, and now few corporations have communication experts to help work with creative agencies. A number of industries that need communication assistance have gotten younger, like high-tech, healthcare, and media. There simply isn’t enough resident experience to know how to work with a branding agency or a creative design firm.

The funny thing is, I used to be impatient with clients who didn’t have their strategy all lined up. I grumbled about having to do the equivalent of preparing for the party before I got to have it. Now doing strategy is the party, and executing it sometimes feels like cleaning up after the party.

So here’s some advice for anyone who’s getting ready to work with an agency on a strategy for big branding, employee engagement, or an employer brand project.

Know Your Need
I learned a lot from a former agency owner, Bill Cahan, who would always ask clients some key questions at a kickoff meeting. One of them was “What does success on this project look like to you?” At first, I thought the question was too open-ended and too personal, because clients would talk about the success for them, or their boss, or the intended audience, or the marketplace – there was no one answer. They were all over the place.

Then the light bulb clicked on: success means all of them at once.

So dream big. Make a long wish list of everything the creative project is going to do for you, your boss, your team, your company, your industry. Know why you need these things. Know what you will do with them when you get them. Then demand that your agency deliver on most or all of them. The agency folks might blink, and then start telling you about implications for schedule or budget, but they will come up with a strategy that no one imagined beforehand.

Know Your Speed
Some projects have to go slow, and some have to go fast. When you’re the client, you have to have a feel for this, and communicate it to your strategist. I’m not talking about deadlines, which force fast work or allow slow work. The issues here are need, political capital, and organizational readiness.

Sometimes one of your needs is to leapfrog a competitor. Then your strategy has to allow fast execution and create maximum impact and surprise when the project lands. Beating someone to the punch with a lousy punch doesn’t work. You gotta have both.

Sometimes you have political capital to do something radical, because your department can do no wrong with the CEO, or a senior vice president tapped your team for a special project. In this case, you can’t let your project run longer than the honeymoon, and you have to keep “radical” within the tolerance of your champions. This makes them believe in you even more, and you get another stock of political capital. Play each round of this game well, and you’re knocking on the C-suite door before too long.

Finally, sometimes you need a strategy that wins management over through the very process of reviewing it, thinking about it, and approving it. Branding and values projects are like this, as well as codes of business conduct, because they must have broad consensus. You can’t surprise anyone and succeed, because there’s a strong chance the surprised person is upstairs from you and can blow up a lot of hard work. Allowing these projects to proceed slowly and methodically without frustrating anyone is actually part of the strategy.

Know Your Agency
One of the strangest phenomena in business is companies hiring agencies they know almost nothing about, getting work that doesn’t quite satisfy, and then being surprised at that result. Would you invite someone you don’t know to move into your apartment, and hand them a big part of your household budget? You wouldn’t. But companies do the equivalent all the time.

Many clients are amazed when I say that agencies don’t mind a long courtship, even one that doesn’t include any paid work. “Oh, I don’t want to waste anyone’s time,” they say. “I don’t want to raise their expectations.”

It’s not a waste and our expectations will not run away with us. Those of us on the agency side enjoy talking to you about your business and your challenges because we’re in business too, with many of the same issues. We like going out for lunch or coffee, because we’re usually in the office more hours than you are. (Occupational hazard.) Most importantly, we will do better work if we already know you, your needs, and your speeds.

Heck, we might even have a few strategies in mind.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

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