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Tag: Brand Strategy

Purpose-Led Brand Strategy Optimizes Business

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Purpose-led Brand Strategy that Masters the Intangibles, Masters Markets

A purpose-led brand strategy has the power to optimize the present and future value of your business. When your brand actively embodies all the true and meaningful aspects of your corporate decisions, policies, and actions, it not only brings new energy to your current competitive efforts, it also signals a brighter and more energizing future to the people vital to your company’s success.

Your brand houses your company’s intangible value

Everyone knows there’s a link between the perceived value of your “intangible assets” and the market value of your company. Your brand is one of the many intangible assets in your company, and it serves a very important role. In fact, your brand is the house in which virtually all of your other intangible assets tend to live.

This is because your brand is the place where customers, employees, and investors store all the information, data, experiences, and collective good and worth they attach to your company. This collective good and worth can be seen as a positive energy that propels your brand forward, based on the trust and confidence that energy builds.

Value builds as the energy grows

The opportunity is to bring all that energy together through a meaningful purpose that not only increases the value of the goodness your business does now, but also inspires your organization to pursue new avenues of meaning. A meaningful purpose helps rally and align your people so they create more meaning within and outside of the organization. These efforts, which make your organization a more rewarding and gratifying place in which to work, have a compound effect on the value that flows from your intangible assets.

Don’t leave your intangible assets to their own devices, proactively manage them for greater success.

Smart leaders strive to optimize the value of their intangible assets. The most credible way to do this is to make stronger and more pervasive contributions to the collective well-being through individual, social, and environmental initiatives. These efforts will signal both social responsibility and a long-term view for the brand. They will energize your organization, and empower it in new ways. They will help you forge stronger connections with customers, attract new prospects, make the work of your employees more meaningful and gratifying, bring in the new talent your organization needs, and give investors the confidence they need to stick by your brand over the long-term.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

Img credit: Motherbird

Marketing vs. Brand? Do You Know the Difference?

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Marketing vs. Brand

People are sometimes confused about the difference between marketing vs. brand strategy. This is not surprising, because they are not mutually exclusive ideas. They are interdependent strategic activities that feed, inform, and drive each other. The important distinction to make is in the intent and desired outcome of each area.

Brand

Brand defines how people should ideally feel about your business and products. It strives to find how to optimize belief in what you do offer and what you stand for in the world. It is an abstract idea held in the hearts and minds of people who have a connection to your business, either as customers, partners, suppliers, or employees. One way to think about brand is as a “promise delivered”. As such, brand strategy is about defining that promise and explaining how it can come to life.

Marketing

Marketing is about identifying, anticipating, and satisfying customer requirements profitably. It defines the market to be served and the best routes to that market. It informs product development. It defines the price of the product and how and where it is to be promoted. As such, marketing strategy is an assembly of tactics that are very rational and tangible in nature, and highly measurable.

There is overlap between the two disciplines, because the best brand strategies are informed by strong marketing strategies, and the best marketing strategies are driven by strong brand strategies.

Another distinct difference between brand and marketing is their relative scope. Marketing is a highly focused activity that is principally outer-directed. Brand is a broad concept that conceivably touches everyone connected to the brand, both internally and externally. Indeed, the brand’s promise is realized when product development, manufacturing, finance, customer service, HR, and marketing are all being inspired and driven by the brand promise.

The best leaders appreciate both the differences and the synergies of brand and marketing. They recognize the outcome of their brand strategy as a promise the organization will strive to keep, that will help create a brand that is respected, admired, and valued. They see the outcome of their marketing strategy as a set of tools that will actively turn that promise into profits through interest, appeal, and differentiation.

When dealing with brand and marketing strategies, remember it’s not a case marketing vs. brand strategy, and its not “either/or”, but of “both/and”. One cannot work without the other. Each needs to be developed in a focused way, while being fully aware of, and respectful to, each other.

For additional information on our services, including both marketing and brand strategy, take a look at our solutions page.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency

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Why Digital Health Brands Need a B2B2C Strategy

Posted on by Paige Lansing Valle

B2B Digital Health Brands

Healthcare brands can never be too sensitive, too thoughtful, or too careful. B2B digital health brands need a brand strategy that addresses the needs and challenges of real people with real health challenges. It’s important to remember that no matter what your company offers, in B2B there’s still a person at the end of the line, not a faceless entity. As consumers have more and more information about healthcare through mobile applications and online resources, the demand for people-centric health brands is becoming stronger by the minute. A B2B2C strategy will make your brand more relevant and meaningful to both the businesses you sell to and the people who ultimately benefit from your product or service.

Build a Persona Map.

Before embarking on any business or brand strategy shift, it’s important to really know who your key audiences are and to be able to prioritize them. Whether you are targeting payers, providers, employers, or consumers, building a persona map helps ensure your brand is relevant to those that are most important to your success. Identify the needs, pain points, motivations, and expectations of the people you need to reach. Although your brand may sell to businesses, there’s a Benefits Manager, a Chief Medical Officer, a VP of Population Health, or Vendor Evaluator you’ll need to create a relationship with in order to be successful. By personifying your target audiences, you might find that their needs aren’t all together that different from those of consumers. Your key audience is likely looking for an effective healthcare solution that’s affordable and easy to use, just like the rest of us. After all, we’re all just people at the end of the day.

You Can’t Be Everything to Everyone.

In digital health, your business clients need to understand both your B2C and B2B value proposition. The business messages need to include things that they care about: return on investment, data capabilities, cloud services, trends, and insights. On the other hand, consumers care more about, and are more focused on the end goal of living a healthier life. Your brand can’t be everything to everyone. A B2B2C brand strategy enables the brand to express its narrative to all audiences in the most appropriate ways.  It uses brand-level messages to speak to the big picture aspirations of people. Meanwhile, your B2B messages become more effective when focused on the product or service offering that your sales team can take to market.

Shift Your Brand Strategy Toward People.

Targeting your brand-level messages on the needs, motivations, and aspirations of people means connecting your brand narrative and visual identity to those people as well. A B2B strategy that focuses on actual people is inherently more meaningful because it empathizes with their real healthcare challenges. B2B brands with a B2B2C strategy create a strong emotional impact and, in turn, are more relevant to the people with the most influence: consumers.

And You’ll Create Value for Businesses AND Consumers.

Remember, in healthcare it’s consumers who call the shots. Whether your organization is offering a digital health software platform, a medical device, healthcare data, an app, or wearable device, it needs to connect with real people. Adapting a B2B2C brand strategy will impact your business by making emotive connections to both the businesses you sell to and the individuals who ultimately choose to use it. By shifting your B2B strategy toward people, you will create a more emotive brand that businesses will latch on to.

Emotive Brand is interested in talking with digital health brands about developing more meaningful brand strategies. If you would like to learn more about our work and experience, contact us here.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy firm.

Fast Forward Your Startup: Agile Strategy for High-Growth Companies

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

A new approach for supporting high-growth companies

We work and compete in a fast-moving world, driven by an accelerating pace of technological and social change. The markets we compete in shift quickly, competition intensifies, and expectations rise. Flux is the new normal. This increases the pressure on high-growth companies and brands to evolve and implement strategies in shorter and shorter time frames.

As a brand strategy firm, we discovered that many of our high-growth companies, especially those operating in crowded, in-flux categories, needed a much more agile approach to addressing the changing dynamics reshaping their markets and business. To meet these needs, we developed Fast Forward. Fast Forward is a four-week process that focuses on the challenges your brand, team, and business face, prioritizes them, and gives you the tools to address them.

Fast Forward is an agile set of strategy development frameworks, tools, and practices designed to empower learning, gain superior return on capital, and accelerate implementation. It’s a more flexible process for overcoming the barriers to successful, timely activation of strategy. Fast Forward does exactly what its name suggests: moves your business forward, and moves it fast.

Your Fast Forward engagement is completely customized to your situation. The deliverables are defined by the challenges and opportunities you face and the strategic outputs you prioritize as most important.

The speed and power of Fast Forward stems from its format and focus. Step one is Immersion: a week-long intelligence gathering and analysis phase. Week two is On-site : our team working in partnership with your core team to diagnose your key challenges, selecting the most pressing needs to focus on, exploring  options, and then aligning around and work collaboratively to refine strategies, actions, and communications to achieve those objectives (it is intensely iterative). Weeks three and four are focused on producing the deliverables, which are finished at the Emotive Brand studio.

At the end of the four-week engagement, your team will hit the ground running with renewed strategic clarity and the agreed upon market-ready strategic elements to achieve the transformations essential to creating durable value and returns.

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The interior of the diagram represents the iterative process during the On-site Phase.

The goal of Fast Forward goes beyond just solving problems; it identifies new strengths with the potential to accelerate your performance by generating new levels of coherence and coordination among your activities, resources, and people. All too often we’ve seen that the 30,000-foot views of strategy do not succeed without successful on-the-ground execution. Such  execution requires the commitment and belief of leaders and implementers.

Fast Forward involves your team throughout the process to ensure alignment and gives you a new cohesive approach to strategy and implementation.

Is it time to Fast Forward your business? Are you a high-growth company looking to make an immediate impact?

Contact Tracy Lloyd, Emotive Brand Co-Founder to discuss how it we can help your business thrive.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco strategy firm.

Workplace Behavior Helps Brands Compete

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Brand strategy that is not activated meaningfully within an organization can fall flat. The best way to ensure employees know how to bring a new brand strategy to life and live its brand promise is to develop a strategy for addresing workplace behavior.

When we set out to build our methodology for brand strategy, we had two bold objectives in mind:

1. Reduce the emotional distance between people and brands, to make lives more meaningful, and brands more successful.

2. Go beyond simply stating a meaningful ambition for brands, by showing the executive team, the management, and every employee how their behavior influences the brand’s future.

Workplace behavior has become an interesting and powerful differentiator for us. Clients see it as a welcome road map to greater success. Here we explain what we mean by workplace behavior, what it comprises, and why it is so important to successful brand transformation.

What is workplace behavior?

Think for a moment about another person who works in your company. It can be anyone, for example, someone in the C-suite, a product designer, a customer service rep, a sales person, someone in marketing, or a recent recruit. What role will they play in the shaping the brand’s meaningful connections? How does their attitude, ambition, and sense of purpose add to, or distract from, the brand’s success?

We believe everyone within an enterprise plays a role in transforming the brand. Clearly, there are many individuals who play significant and critical roles. These are the people who lead the firm and those who interface directly with customers, partners, suppliers, community leaders, the press, etc.

But meaning isn’t exclusively created by these highly visible individuals. Indeed, meaningful connections grow out of the intent and nature of every interaction within the organization. It is a function of the collective behavior of the organization to create meaning. As such, meaning is realized when the brand’s ambition filters into every conversation, decision, product design, customer service experience, etc., etc.

Indeed, a meaningful workplace culture is self-propagating. Every ounce of energy an individual adds to the shift toward meaning is multiplied as it resonates through the many people the brand touches. Over time, meaningful behavior becomes infectious as meaningful actions, gestures, and messages permeate the culture. Each exposure builds upon the last, causing people across the organization to react through new meaning-shaped behavior.

What comprises brand behavior?

The brand behavior document that we create aims to generate this collective energy by helping people across the organization see the role they can play in bringing the brand’s meaningful ambition to life. It does not tell people what they should do, but rather aims to inspire them to modify their own approach to their daily work.

By showing people how to change their attitudes and mindsets, we are able to help them find their own place within the brand’s meaningful ambition. By knowing how they want to make people feel about that ambition, they better understand how to tailor their individual attitudes and actions in ways that they find comfortable, are happy to do, and which leaves them feeling gratified.

This human and empowering approach helps employees more readily internalize and embody the brand’s meaningful ambition. Rather than seeing it as more work they “have to do”, they feel it’s a way of working that they “want to do”. When leaders regularly and actively recognize and reward meaningful shifts, employees feel more aligned to, and gratified by, their work culture.

What are the business benefits of meaningful workplace behavior?

The return on meaning can be very significant. Meaningful connections are all about reducing the emotional distance between the business, and the people important to the success. By dramatically increasing their personal relevance and emotional importance, meaningful brands change the way people think, feel, and act.

This change in dynamic operates on two levels. First, internally the advent of meaning in the workplace culture leads to greater employee engagement, collaboration, and innovation. People see more reasons to be engaged, because they feel that they’re a part of something bigger than before. Meaningful workplace cultures are, by definition, platforms for collaborative working, as all levels of employees better understand their big objectives. A meaningful ambition is the ideal trigger for new thinking, ideas, processes, and innovative products.

Second, externally customers and prospects quickly perceive a shift in the experience they have dealing with the brand. Because this shift reflects an intention of the brand to play a more important and valuable part in their lives, they are naturally drawn to it. They see the brand in this new light and allocate greater levels of preference for the brand. They also are more likely to recommend the brand, and defend it when others question its value.

Beyond customers and prospects, the external effect of a meaningful ambition, actuated through workplace behavior, extends to partners, suppliers, communities, the press, and so on. All these parties are more interested in, have affinity with, and hold respect for the brand.

Great brands make people feel something unique and special

There are many reasons to set a meaningful ambition and to create workplace behavior that makes it a reality in every moment. Brand strategies that do not go as deep will not address the underlying problems that your brand faces in the 21st century.

By focusing on a single idea, and helping everyone inside and outside the organization see it as personally relevant, individually actionable, and emotionally important, an emotive branding strategy will help your brand make the important shifts and transitions it needs in order to thrive in our fast-changing world.

Of course, just getting our workplace behavior recommendations is only the start. The benefits of a meaningful workplace culture will only flow once senior leadership, management, and employees all embrace its ideas and ideals.

Meaning doesn’t come automatically, but when it comes, it pays back handsomely.

For more information on emotive branding and our methodology

Download White Paper

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy firm.

How Do You Define the Purpose of Your Business?

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Seeing Profit as a Consequence, Not a Purpose

Like many, you probably default to saying, “To make profits”. And while that is certainly an aim of every capitalistic enterprise, it falls short as a useful and motivating driver of an enterprise. Too great a focus on profits draws attention away from the triggers of success in today’s world.

Continue reading “How Do You Define the Purpose of Your Business?”

Brand and Marketing? What’s the Difference?

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Brand and Marketing?

Leaders are sometimes confused about the difference between brand and marketing. This is not surprising, because they are not mutually exclusive ideas. They are interdependent strategic activities that feed, inform, and drive each other. The important distinction to make is in the intent – and desired outcome – of each area.

Brand Strategy

Brand strategy defines how people should ideally feel about your business and products. It strives to find how to optimize belief in what you do offer, and what you stand for in the world. It is an abstract idea held in the hearts and minds of people who have a connection to your business, either as customers, partners, suppliers, or employees. One way to think about brand is as a “promise delivered”. As such, brand strategy is about defining that promise and explaining how it can come to life.

Marketing

Marketing is about identifying, anticipating, and satisfying customer requirements profitably. It defines the market to be served and the best routes to that market. It informs product development. It defines the price of the product and how and where it is to be promoted. As such, marketing strategy is an assembly of tactics that are very rational and tangible in nature, and highly measurable.

And the difference?

There is overlap between the two disciplines, because the best brand strategies are informed by strong marketing strategies, and the best marketing strategies are driven by strong brand strategies.

Another distinct difference between brand and marketing is their relative scope. Marketing is a highly focused activity that is principally outer-directed. Brand is a broad concept that conceivably touches everyone connected to the brand, both internally and externally. Indeed, the brand’s promise is realized when product development, manufacturing, finance, customer service, HR, and marketing are all being inspired and driven by the brand promise.

The best leaders appreciate both the differences and the synergies of brand and marketing. They recognize the outcome of their brand strategy as a promise the organization will strive to keep, that will help create a brand that is respected, admired, and valued. They see the outcome of their marketing strategy as a set of tools that will actively turn that promise into profits through interest, appeal, and differentiation.

When dealing with brand and marketing strategies, remember it’s not a case “either/or”, but of “both/and”. One cannot work without the other. Each needs to be developed in a focused way, while being fully aware of, and respectful to, each other.

For additional information emotive branding — our brand strategy methodology, please click below:

Download White Paper

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency

The CEO Challenge – Turning Corporate Vision Into Reality

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

The corporate vision statement

We’ve written before about the gaps between what business leaders believe and what their employees think when it comes to the company’s corporate vision and values.

Today we’d like to explore another gap. This is the gap between what the CEO sees as the company’s vision, and what employees are doing to help achieve that vision – often referred to as the Corporate Vision Statement.

In some cases, the gap exists simply because employees haven’t been informed of the vision.

As such, they are left to their own devices, pulling the company and its brand strategy apart because they don’t know how or why they’re meant to keep it together.

In other cases, the gap exists because the vision was delivered to the employees in a way that left them feeling less than enthusiastic.

Delivered in an alienating “corporate” way and not in a meaningful “human” way.

It therefore did not enchant, inspire or engage the employees.

It simply did not matter to them.

It literally “went in one ear and out the other”.

We help our clients turn their vision into a meaningful reality.

We get corporate visions to matter to employees, and employees align to the vision.

We do this by translating the “corporate vision” into a credible and meaningful “human ambition”.

We make the vision both personally relevant and emotionally important to employees.

They come away not only with a clear idea of what they need to do, but also with a profound sense of why they should help the company achieve its vision.

As result they are motivated to propel the company and its brand to a more meaningful position in the world – a position defined by the CEO’s vision and tempered by an understanding of what it takes to get people to care in today’s world.

Have you been involved in any programs where this has been executed well? If so, we’d love to help.

If you have a “corporate vision” that has not yet been articulated into a meaningful brand narrative that employees can rally around and believe in, let us know. We can help!

You might enjoy reading more about our ideas around Brand Promise by visiting our blog.

We are launching a new solution entitled “Path to Purpose”. This is a 6-week program that was developed for senior leadership teams to get aligned around the value of a corporate purpose statement, how to articulate it, what it means to your business, and how it can align your entire organization around it meaningfully. If you are interested in learning more please contact Co-Founder, Tracy Lloyd.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy firm.

Make Purposeful Brand Resolutions in 2016

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

The New Year is the perfect time to step back and create impassioned and attainable brand resolutions. What do you want to achieve in 2016? Look back on 2015 and reflect on your business. What were your greatest successes and biggest challenges? How can you live your brand promise in 2016? How can you build your brand to flourish?

Emotive Brand wants to add some inspiration and purpose to the start of your 2016. We’ve asked top business executives across varying industries to share one piece of advice about managing a brand and driving business. Our advice: read up.

1

“Managing your brand is a full-time job that starts with brand strategy and truly never ends. It takes dedication, time, and relentless focus to embed your brand into your company culture. Your brand should be used as a filter for all business decisions. Make sure everyone in your company understands your brand and lives it too. They should be your most enthusiastic promoters. Share the brand with them, and keep reinforcing its promise over and over and over again.”

Eve Maidenberg
Senior Director Integrated Marketing
FICO

4

“We’ve learned to never underestimate how potential customers make snap judgments about how a brand makes them feel. Don’t underestimate any touchpoint!”

Zane Vella
CEO
Watchwith
10

“Keep in mind that a brand can be product brand or an employer brand. Both are critical to the businesses success. Without employees wanting to work for your brand, you don’t have a product. Without a product, you don’t have a business.”

Brad Cook
Global Vice President Talent Acquisition
Informatica

7

“See possibilities over limits. Build a brand platform that loves flexibility, embraces change, and welcomes the unexpected.”

Rob Corwin
Creative Director
Cooley LLP

 

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“Brand is what those outside of our walls think, feel, and believe about our firm. You must not only communicate, but constantly demonstrate your brand promise. Your brand can be advanced at every single interaction with clients and potential clients.”

Steven M. Bell
Leader of Marketing and Business Development
Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice

2

“Don’t confuse marketing with branding. Marketing is about attracting potential customers. Branding is about keeping them. Every touchpoint is an opportunity to enhance the brand experience and therefore the opinion a customer has about your brand. If you’re doing it right, you will move your brand from ‘like’ to ‘love’.”

Peter Gerber
Director Global Branding
Eaton Corporation

8

“Understand that your brand isn’t just what you message to your audience; it’s also what your audience messages to each other. Customers don’t always repeat a brand message as you’ve carefully crafted it. It’s just as important to make sure customers are thrilled with their experiences as it is to tell your brand story directly. They are the messengers of the brand and their stories resonate.”

Jessica Wan
Director of Marketing
Magoosh

9

“Build your brand around your core strength. For most businesses, there is a reason they have stayed in business: what is the one true thing that has existed through all the ups and downs?”

Joaquin Lippincott
President & Founder
Metal Toad

5

“My best advice is to get to the truth of who you are as a brand, and then own it, accentuate, and don’t deviate from it. There are so many pressures to be something to everyone, yet focus yields stronger results.”

Kendra Frisbie
Brand Builder; Communications Strategist & Creative Director
McGuire Furniture

6

“Brand drives business. Creating a brand that represents and emotes who you are and what you believe is the key to success and growth.”

Jeremy Fudge
Partner, Attorney at Law
BAL

Is Your Brand Ready for 2016?

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

The New Year is the perfect time to reflect and renew your brand’s focus. It’s not about resolutions. It’s about looking back on this past year of business and checking the alignment of your brand and business strategy. What things should you focus on in order to ready your brand for 2016?

We want to offer some purpose-led inspiration and advice on preparing your brand for success in the New Year. Here are three focus points to consider before you take the year by storm:

1. Make Meaningful Measurements

Take a moment to consider what you’re measuring and why. Ask yourself, do existing measurements help frame challenges and identify opportunities for better strategic and tactical choices? Measurements shouldn’t only act as business report cards and/or rear view mirrors. Meaningful measurements help you move forward with purpose, while evaluating what you’ve already done.

Numbers are of no use if you can’t derive meaning or create purposeful change from them. Don’t just analyze external brand engagement; analyze engagement amongst employees as well. Your brand promise should ring from the core of your business and, subsequently, measurements should target all your audiences, internal and external. Let analytics expand and guide your business, not limit it.

2. Elevate Alignment

Goals and objectives aren’t strategies. They are the measurable steps you take to achieve a strategy. Make sure these steps are aligned with your brand promise and purpose, are clearly outlined, and are understood by everyone involved in making them happen. This way, goals and objectives are achieved more efficiently and have greater strategic impact. Business calendars, check-ins, and weekly meetings can be very helpful for clarification moving forward.

It’s also important to evaluate whether your objectives are aligned within your market. What changes are happening and how have your objectives adjusted as a result? In what ways is your brand ahead of, in sync with, or falling behind shifts in your market? Make sure your objectives can adapt and use any shifting dynamics to their benefit.

3. Personalize Purpose

Engaged employees are key to your success this year. It’s important that you get your people fired-up about what you’re going to achieve in 2016. Make sure employees live your brand promise because they believe in it. Ask yourself what you’ve done for them that can help your whole business flourish. Inspired employees produce inspired work. They want to succeed because they believe their work matters, that they matter. Help them feel this way.