Here we explore the brand narrative as a key element of brand strategy, by explaining what constitutes a brand narrative, demonstrating how it supports the overall brand strategy, and showing the brand scenarios which call for a strong brand narrative.
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We sat down with Katie Tamony, Chief Communications and Culture Officer at Alluma, a technology non-profit dedicated to making sure those eligible for benefits and services don’t fall through the cracks. Katie talks to us about leading transformation projects: her role, why these kinds of projects excite her, and what’s critical in executing a transformation successfully.
Building something new out of what has been has always excited me. That’s why I’m particularly interested in organizations that have an established track record, but, because of market forces or business demands, haven’t been able to sustain their success. They stop growing. Transformational work is a unique opportunity to think differently, question the sacred cows, and re-see the insights you took for granted. I just love discovering the hidden potential in people and in organizations.
I see brand as the decision-making filter for the organization. It guides who you want to hire, what you offer customers, how you express yourself, how you make business decisions about what to invest in…it touches everything. It’s a roadmap; it’s guardrails. Brand ensures the organization is moving in the right direction. And I’ve found that when done right, brand can create a wonderful shared understanding within an organization of who you are and why you matter.
Any transformation is a journey, it’s a process. Setting goals and objectives at the beginning ensures that the leadership team is aligned around what success looks like from the start. But in my experience at Alluma and in leading past transformation at SFMOMA, Sunset Magazine, and Monrovia Plants, it’s beneficial to not just keep the brand journey within the executive team. For instance, at Alluma, we invited mid-level managers and other subject matter experts to weigh in and help evaluate market insights when we were at a pivotal point in the process with Emotive Brand. Inviting other people outside of the executive leadership to sit around the table gave us true perspective on how ideas and insights were landing and what felt true to the people closest to the day to day work. Having them ideate the opportunities that would emerge if we went a certain direction was exciting and a real pressure test.
As a non-profit, the role of the board is critical. They’re like a senior executive group, but at the same time they bring a lot of external perspective and deep knowledge for our sector that is indispensable. We got their buy-in on the goals and the process early on and involved them at key decision points. Choosing the final name for Alluma actually came down to decisions from the CEO and the Board.
Yes, the launch is exciting. A new name. A new website. A new T-shirt. But then it’s kind of like after a wedding or any climatic event, people are thinking, “okay well, how does this change my day-to-day?” Then begins the most critical phase of the transformation; helping people figure out how they internalize the brand and start to use it to inform their own decision making, their everyday work. From how they show up to a meeting, how they sell, how they talk to our clients—all of these activities are influenced by the brand. It takes education, but I mostly think about using brand as an invitation to talk about things in a new way.
Behavior change drives culture change, and behavior change is challenging. It takes time. And it starts small. So it’s critical that even small behavior changes are recognized and reinforced. You want to encourage people to look for opportunities to reinforce the brand until it just feels natural. I see culture change as the final and most lasting element of transformation. It requires brand education, business focus, and even organizational change management.
Every organization is unique. Alluma was my first time leading a brand transformation at a technology company. I learned that I had to invest time in using more data and visible, specific examples to back up emotional insights to get our engineers and developers (rational thinkers) to see that this was a serious approach to branding. That was a challenge I underestimated. Figuring out a way to define brand and translate it into both rational and emotional terms is key to get diverse stakeholders on board.
We measured success by the objectives we set at the beginning of the project. We conducted a baseline survey with our employees measuring current brand attributes, and then we will assess quarterly to measure alignment with the strategy, understanding of the strategy, how much they believe in it. From a business perspective, we looked at awareness and interest from our target audience. To measure, we looked at website traffic, newsletter subscriptions, social media engagements. We also evaluated brand against our revenue goals and, because we have a long business development process, that measurement is still ongoing. As for culture, I see people organically bringing more visible curiosity and a wider approach to problem-solving to all engagements. It’s just evident that the culture of tenacious problem solving is coming to life.
For one, the process is important. People may discount the process, but the journey is everything. That doesn’t mean it needs to be super long or really expensive. It just has to be thoughtful. And, I’d say again, go beyond your executive team. These kinds of projects can break down silos and barriers within an organization in an incredible way.
Alluma and Emotive Brand partnered to rebrand SIS to Alluma, transforming the brand, business, and culture. Read the case study here.
Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland California.
There’s a reason that great employees are so often referred to as “talent.” Workers are a dime a dozen, but true expertise is incredibly hard to come by. It’s the thing that propels businesses to their next level of funding, keeps the sales pipeline full, and boosts office morale high in times of unease.
No matter how advanced your technology is, people are the backbone of a successful business. Great brands tell stories, and there are few narratives more important than your employee brand story. HR specialists and recruiters have been leading this space for years, but in today’s competitive landscape, companies can’t afford to let someone else tell their story for them.
When you’re trying to recruit excellent people to your brand, where should you point the spotlight?
Well, according to the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, “Employees rank higher in public trust than a firm’s PR department, CEO, or Founder. 41% of us believe that employees are the most credible source of information regarding their business.”
Simply, if you want to demonstrate the advantages of working at your company, let your actual employees do the talking. By turning your current employees into brand ambassadors, not only will the message be more authentic, but it will directly impact retention.
In the daily shuffle, employees are rarely encouraged to think deeply about what they do and why it is important. This simple exercise can bring in new talent while reaffirming those who have already joined.
If your employee brand story is a paycheck, free snacks, and a standing desk, you’re probably not thinking big enough. As outlined in Dilys Robinson and Sue Hayday’s influential report “Employee Engagement,” employees are motivated by intrinsic factors like personal growth, working for a common purpose, and being part of a larger mission, as opposed to solely extrinsic factors such as pay and benefits.
What’s the why? of your company? Is it compelling? Is it something your current employees can easily articulate in a meeting or at a cocktail party? The more concise and impactful you make your brand narrative, the more incentivized your employees will be to enlist other top performers.
There’s no such thing as the one-size-fits-all employee brand story. Delivering it in a medium that feels true and authentic to your brand is key. But here are some ideas for getting the word out.
Top performers are 46% more likely to be attracted by a better company reputation and 29% more likely to be attracted by more interesting, challenging work. If you want to obtain – and retain – top talent, create an employee brand story that’s compelling, impactful, and irresistibly shareable.
Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency.
At Emotive Brand, we’re blessed with an incredibly diverse pool of talented individuals. Our team comes from the management consulting world, branding agencies, technology industry, advertising and everything in between. Each of these viewpoints brings something new to the table. In this post, Sara Gaviser Leslie discusses how her background as an analyst makes her a better writer and the importance of creating a strategic narrative for brands.
I started at a small consulting firm, where I’d go to companies and help them develop their business. It was right of college, and though I didn’t exactly love the work, I loved going to companies. Being able to observe different environments and see why people do what they do was fascinating.
I did that for a couple years before working with a venture fund in Tel Aviv. It was a busy time in the country when the technology center was exploding, and tons of businesses were based in little apartments and garages. Again, I loved discovering what people we’re doing and the energy of those early stages.
I got involved in finance and public equities in San Francisco. In managing portfolios for institutions, you start to become very good at selling the story of the company. You learn the difference between what makes a good company vs. a good stock. You get to go behind the curtain and see how they work.
Seeing so many different environments in a short amount of time, I just started asking tons of questions — Why are some successful? What makes a great management team? How do they make money? What contributes to their successes?
It was at Stanford that I started to connect these different fields in my head. It all comes down to how to structure a great story. I remember seeing a colleague who was supposed to give a 30-minute presentation and she had this 280-slide deck she wanted to run through. As an analyst, so much of your job is trying to figure out what’s happening in this big market and then distill that down in a way that resonates with an audience. It needs to be clear and memorable. Storytelling is the same thing.
For me, it boils down to three things:
Once you have that, you can start to create a strategic narrative.
The big thing we always need to address is: Why should we care? It sounds simple but it’s easy to forget. You get so focused on your own company and messaging that you forget to create that emotional connection with the audience. People won’t buy if they’re not listening, and they won’t listen if they don’t care.
When beginning to develop a strategic narrative, I’d say the biggest problem is trying to appeal to everyone as opposed to saying, “This is a specific market we’re going after.” Don’t try to do everything, try to build out a small market. That type of thinking poses a risk that companies don’t want to take. There’s so much sameness out there: people have their brand and they think they are living the brand and that’s enough.
I believe in questioning assumptions. For instance, when State Street Global Advisors commissioned the “Fearless Girl” statue in front of the “Charging Bull” statue on Wall Street. That’s an amazing example of showing who you are that takes a risk.
We don’t have to know the full story behind everything, you only need to see the top of the iceberg. When you see a billboard for a product, you’re not seeing the internal messaging exercise, the brainstorming, the revisions, the creative tension — you just see the top. Every brand doesn’t need to have an exhaustive narrative, just some flavor or manifestation of their story to cut through the noise. Every company needs to have something they agree on, some reason for being. Your core values are your story.
I’m constantly reinventing myself — that’s what makes life interesting to me. I have a background in speechwriting. Once I needed to write a 20-minute eulogy for a partner to deliver about his late colleague. The process was fascinating and I enjoyed getting to know this person, what they cared about, the stories they told. In a way, It’s tied to everything else I’ve done as an analyst and storyteller. I love the process of capturing someone’s personality and sharing that in a meaningful way.
To learn more about developing a corporate strategic narrative, visit our client case studies.
Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency.
What does it mean to be a sustainable brand? Sustainability measures have become table stakes for Fortune 500 companies. People now expect every reputable business to have a sustainability department and as a result, some level of corporate sustainability reporting is the norm. More and more companies are becoming B Corp because they believe in the inherent value of using business to solve social and environmental problems. A shift is underway to make sustainable business something every department needs to get behind.
Yet even with all the forward momentum, for most companies, sustainability is the second or third tier talking point for the brand. Often times, there’s a disconnect between the business’s sustainability mission and the brand. Sustainability is viewed as a part of the business but not relevant to the brand’s image, story, or reputation. Companies that have invested in becoming B Corp certified often place the B Corp logo on their website like a merit badge but fall short of truly integrating their hard work in sustainability into their core brand message. As a result, these companies are failing to give customers and employees an obvious reason to embrace their brand. Many brands keep sustainability as a brand level message in the shadows, holding minimal influence on the brand’s success.
Your impact on the world matters to both your employees and your customers. People are more interested now than ever before to better understand what good your company is doing in the world. Today your financial, social, and sustainable business practices are a key component to making an honest impact. To really stand apart and make your brand more meaningful in the hearts and minds of all your stakeholders, your brand should integrate your sustainability efforts into your brand communications. The good your business does doesn’t belong buried in a sustainability report. It should be integrated into your brand strategy. We all know it’s exhausting to navigate the infinite number of brands available today. As a result, people are looking for a clear choice in the market, eager to choose brands that mean something to them and are working to make the world better a better place.
Sustainable business practices are complex in nature and can be intimidating to talk about. Do you know what a GRI is, or do you even care? For most people, probably not. But GRI is a measurable tool to determine how sustainabile a business is, and it is gaining more traction every day. However, most people don’t want to dig into the details. Instead, they want it top-lined. That’s where your brand comes into play – communicating clearly, and meaningfully as a sutainable brand. The people who are more interested in the details can dig further into your sustainability report. But for most, a sustainable brand is enough. When the brand encorporates the sustainability efforts of the business, the brand resonates more deeply and meaningfully with far more people. And that’s good for your business too.
In today’s world, it is ineffective and inefficient to keep sustainability messages and the brand separate. Your customers are looking for information about what your brand is doing to make a difference. So there’s no reason to keep that message sidelined. Howevever, it’s important that this messages aligns with the brand. If not, it risks being perceived as inauthentic.
Aligning your brand and your business’s sustainability efforts into one unifying story will strengthen the brand and give customers and employees a clear reason to choose you. Businesses who are doing this are finding success. Own and communicate that message everywhere, not just on specific channels for specific audiences. Show all the brand stakeholders and audiences what the brand stands for and why it matters. By fusing your brand with your sustainability mission to create the leading brand story, you’ll inspire employees and customers to be better, too. When we all take a stand to make the world better and choose brands that are doing just that, we all win.
Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.
