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Tag: Brand Transformation

What is a Brand Promise and Why You Need One

Posted on by Emotive Brand

There’s a lot of talk about the concept of a brand promise. But, what is it? Why does my business need one? How would it make my business stronger? How does it relate to my brand strategy? Here we explore the answers to these pressing questions.  And perhaps more important, what kind of a brand promise does your business need in today’s world to have an impact?

A brand is a promise delivered.

A contemporary brand promise articulates an idea that goes beyond the rational benefits that worked in the past, and extols a higher-order emotional reward. A brand promise is not a slogan or advertising headline. It is not, by definition, a public statement (though it can be as long as your brand truly lives up to it). Finally, it is not a “unique selling proposition”. Indeed, its uniqueness and differentiating power comes not from what it says, but how it transforms the way your organization creates strong and meaningful connections with people.

Continue reading “What is a Brand Promise and Why You Need One”

How to Prepare for Successful Business Transformations

Posted on by Joanna Schull

There’s a well-worn saying in business that the only certainty is change, and these past few years have proven that to be true by exponential levels. Entire industries have found themselves faced with the need to plan and transform their businesses in the face of tremendous unknowns including COVID-19, rising inflation, and a troubled economy. Now, as we enter September of 2022, with the world still in flux, what does it mean to look ahead, and begin planning for the future?

Business transformation matters now more than ever and agility and forward-thinking scenario planning have never been more important.

Building a Roadmap for the Future in Times of Uncertainty

Taking steps to significantly shift—or transform—a company’s business can be either proactive or reactive. Ideally, it’s the former, but external events, whether created by competitors, shifts in customer needs, governmental regulations, or global events can cause the latter to be true. At a high level, the process for either is the same. Here’s the overview:

  • Begin with fact-based strategic planning, competitive research, and situational analysis to create the essential foundation of data about the status quo.
  • Next, based on this foundation of data, leaders need to identify and analyze potential future states for the business.
  • Based on this analysis, leadership aligns with the agreed future state and begins the work of determining the specific changes and sequencing that will be required.
  • Evaluate the brand and business—are they aligned with each other, or do they need to be recalibrated to make sure that the brand is supporting the new business direction?
  • Finally, it’s essential to keep employees informed as the process unfolds, not only so they are kept in the loop, but also as a source of feedback and information.

Let’s go into more detail on each step:

Set the Foundation

Successful transformations—or sometimes, evolutions—need to start with a clear-eyed understanding of both the current state of the business, as well as upcoming external forces that will have an impact. It’s good to approach this phase of the process with a structured set of internal and external research aimed at uncovering the business’s strengths and weaknesses, competitive threats, and unmet customer needs. In addition, it’s important to have a good understanding of known external impacts that can be anticipated—things such as regulatory changes and general business trends and market predictions.

Identify Your North Star

Armed with this foundational set of information, it’s now time for a business’s leadership team to identify potential paths forward. Oftentimes, these will exist along a continuum, starting with slight shifts to the existing business, then growing in ambition to encompass more ambitious pivots and expansions. Each potential direction is then analyzed to understand its implications: How will it impact revenue? Do we have the right talent to execute the direction? How will it change our customer base and competitive set? How does it impact our product roadmap? How will analysts and investors react? After assessing the options, the leadership team needs to discuss, align, and set a direction.

Create An Execution Plan

The next step is the planning phase: What changes need to be made in order to begin making the desired shifts? In what sequence do they need to occur? What are the potential ripple effects of those changes? It’s important to do this work in a cross-functional manner, giving all parts of the organization insights into the changes occurring. This helps to eliminate overlapping efforts and activities that could compete with or contradict each other, in addition to providing an integrated roadmap that ensures everyone knows how the change efforts fit together and combine to achieve the end result.

Align Your Brand

When making a shift, it’s essential to make sure that your brand is supporting and reinforcing your new business strategy. This starts with making sure that your brand positioning supports your chosen direction followed by your messaging and external expression of your brand: digital touchpoints (web, social, etc.), sales support materials, PR, AR, IR, and all external-facing communications. Don’t neglect the visual expression of your brand. Many companies, especially former startups entering their next phase of maturity, find that they have outgrown their previous look and feel and need to evolve into a more ‘mature’ level of design sensibility.

Bring People Along on the Journey

The most successful transformations are inclusive, and while it is important that leaders lead the process, it is equally important to involve perspectives and participation from across the organization. This includes involving different divisions, geographies, functions, and levels within the company as part of the planning process in order to get their input as plans are developed. This not only ensures that critical details aren’t overlooked but also builds engagement and buy-in to the process.

A Shared Understanding Speeds Execution

Ultimately, change is about disciplined execution and dedication to doing the work required to make change stick across multiple parts of the organization and ensuring that the people of the organization understand what the change is, how the business is going to adapt, and why it matters because organizations with a shared understanding about the reasons behind change are more likely to move forward with certainty, even in uncertain times.

Take a deep dive into our most recent B2B transformations: Coast, Snow Software, FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

Talking Transformation: Brand, Business, and Culture

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

An Interview with Katie Tamony

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.

This isn’t the first transformation project you’ve been a part of. Why does this kind of work appeal to you?

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.

You’ve led many rebrands. What role does brand play when a company is making a significant shift?

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.

How did you work with leadership to create and maintain alignment throughout the transformation?

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.

What about the board? Is there a role for them in projects like this?

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.

These projects are long. How do you communicate to employees to keep them connected after the pivotal brand launch moment?

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.

Did you see the culture ultimately change? 

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.

What challenges might others find along the way they should be mindful of?

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.

How do you measure success from a brand perspective? Business? Culture?

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.

What do you see as the key to a successful transformation?

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.

Creating Meaningful Brand Connections

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Creating Meaning by creating more meaningful brand connections

In our latest white paper, “Transforming your brand into an emotive brand“, we introduce a number of key drivers of our thinking, including the notion of “Meaning/meaningful brand connections”.

In our white paper we top-line this key driver in this way:

Emotive and meaningful brands strive to operate at a higher level than conventional brands. They act, interact, and react in ways that make every moment emotionally meaningful. Your customers and employees are left feeling more secure and connected. They feel your brand has helped them grow as humans. They feel your brand has touched them through love and beauty. 

What do we mean by “meaning”?

Our pursuit of meaning goes beyond mere linguistics, as in “ABS means automatic braking system.” It also goes beyond the first level of outcomes, typically the “benefit” accrued, as in, “more stability in sudden maneuvers.” It often even extends beyond the second level of interpretation, as in, “so, your family travels more safely.”

And it always goes beyond the product level. Indeed, we search for meaning across a brand’s products, policies, processes, procedures, and practices. We interrogate the impact the brand has not only within the scope of the customer experience, but across a spectrum of meaningful outcomes that can appear on the individual, social, and environmental levels.

Our quest is to harvest the goodness that is now otherwise buried in the brand, and to bundle it into a set of high-order brand truths. These truths form the basis of the brand narrative we produce.

What are meaningful brand connections?

Meaningful connections come when a brand forges a link between what it does, and what people are seeking on a very deep, human level. We believe that deep down, we are all seeking the same three things:

  1. To feel safe and secure in our surroundings, our social situation, and in our hearts
  2. To feel connected to the people, ideas, and ideals that we care about, and which nurture us
  3. To feel we are growing physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, through our thoughts, actions, and possessions

Seeing the world, and the brand within that world, through this lens helps us interrogate, dissect, and rethink the brand to find those traits and attributes that link directly to these deep drivers of people’s attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

The value of bringing this meaning to the surface is often not clear, because it presents the brand in a new, and often unfamiliar light. It provokes anxiety by suggesting that what is truly meaningful about the brand is very different from the way the brand has been traditionally presented.

The resolution to this tension is the blending of the “commercial” and “human” meanings in future brand actions and communications. This gradual evolution can lead to true brand transformation, as the people of the brand embrace its truths and live out its promise.

Why be meaningful?

Meaningful connections that flow from deep within the organization, and that reach deep down inside the hearts and minds of people, lead to greater brand appeal, differentiation, and loyalty.

The internal dynamic changes when the heartbeat of meaning is present; there is greater collaboration, self-initiative, innovation, attentive customer service, as well as higher degrees of engagement, gratification, and loyalty. This meaning-driven difference internally resonates externally, attracting prospects, recruits, suppliers, and communities to the brand.

Given the current pressures on brands, and the continuing challenges that loom ahead, many smart brand owners are seeking their meaningful difference. They see it as a high-level strategic choice that brings with it serious commitments of time, energy, and money.

Those who eschew the meaning option do so at their own risk. As more and more people become aware of their need for meaningful connections, and see that our culture offers few options, they will increasingly be drawn to those people, ideas, ideals, and brands that satisfy their core human needs.

Don’t stand idly by as meaning comes of age. Look deep within your world and see it as a person seeking meaning would do. Grab onto the meaning you find. Work hard to integrate that meaning into everything you do, every product you make, and every moment you have with the people important to your brand.

Transform Your Brand into an Emotive Brand Download White Paper

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

More information fromHavas Media on the subject of meaningful brands, check out their latest global insights

Purpose-led Brands and the Role of the CEO

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Purpose-led leaders lead thriving businesses.

If you are a marketer faced with the task of re-branding or leading a brand strategy for your business, think about the person most influential to its success. Wondering who is essential to be part of the team? Ask yourself:

  • Who has the greatest insight into where your business needs to go?
  • Who can make sure that the company’s brand strategy embodies, and brings to life, this vision?
  • Who sees how the people, processes and policies of the business need to evolve to address future issues and opportunities?
  • Who is the best person to lead the organization forward in a focused, unified and purposeful manner?
  • Who do you need to ensure is on the team and willing to lead this project by your side?

The CEO

Yet, how many CEOs play a vital role in the development of brand strategy – that is, to the point where they achieve real feeling of ownership of the strategy’s ambition? Going further, what does this mean to the successful deployment  and socialization of the brand strategy across the business?

Unfortunately, all too often, branding is seen as a subset of the business, a line-item in the overall business strategy, and the responsibility of a team (and their agency) reporting to the CMO.

In many cases, the resulting “brand book” invariably features an introduction from the CEO, in which there are a series of predictable, jargon-filled and corporately-safe comments. It may have the signature of the CEO below it, but few honestly believe the CEO has written, or even read, this letter.

Delegated activity, not a transformative business strategy

Indeed, for the CEO, the “brand” often is a mystery and something better left to others. It is something to be delegated and not to be owned. As such, to the CEO it is more of activity resulting in a document, than a key element of a transformative business strategy.

This state of affairs leaves any brand strategy, however meaningful, out on a limb. While the brand team will be passionate advocates of the strategy, everyone else in the company will, like the CEO, think of the brand as “someone else’s job”.

And this, sadly, is where many brand strategies crumble to pieces.

  • A brand strategy becomes a new logo and guidelines.
  • A strong brand promise is created, but it is not clear what it means or why it matters.
  • The brand strategy, while the right one, lives in a file cabinet drawer, or on the wall as a poster.
  • Or worse yet, a brand strategy is developed, yet never fulfilled on.

The brand strategy fails because it was neither truly “top-down” (it came from another “department”, not from the big honcho), nor “bottom-up” (because employees beyond the brand team didn’t see it as their job to do).

The value of CEO ownership

When a CEO is urged, encouraged and, if need be, prodded to take a lead in the brand strategy process, a different result is experienced. It’s not at all that the CEO develops or writes the strategy. Rather, the CEO comes to see how his or her vision is embodied in the brand strategy, and how it can be used as a tool to transform the organization so that it can be stronger today, and better fit for the future.

When a CEO is seen as the chief proponent of, and supporting voice for, the strategy, employees throughout the organization see the strategy as more core to the business, and what they do within that business. They pay attention to strategy (assuming its delivered to them in a personally relevant and emotionally important way) and absorb it’s intent into their work practices (again, assuming they are shown how to do just that).

The value of across-the-board brand activation

Truly purpose-led brands stand out because they not only enjoy top-down support starting at the CEO, but because the brand strategy doesn’t stop at communications to the external world.

In this bottom-up mode, purpose-led brands take an holistic role in transforming how the brand is experienced, both inside and outside the business. No one in the business is left behind, as the brand strategy is deployed and socialized in a way that makes it the company’s “way of being”. Where employees are taught what it means to “Live the brand” each and every day.

When they feel purpose-driven, focused and gratified, employees work individually and in teams to create an energy that attracts the best customers, the most talented recruits, the most potent partners and the right investors. And your business thrives.

Top-down, bottom-up brand purpose-led strategies for better results overall

Brand strategies that embrace this “top-down, bottom-up” thinking aren’t relegated to the sidelines by the organization. Rather, as CEO-empowered forces, the relevant ambitions of the strategy become ideas which shape employee attitudes and behavior across the business.

Being based in the CEO’s vision, these purpose-led brand strategies work harder to point the business in the right direction, move it ahead with greater speed and agility, and lift it to a higher, more meaningful level in the hearts and minds of people.

Interested in learning more about a purpose-led brand strategy? Curious how to transform your business with a brand strategy? Download our white paper below.

Download White Paper

Emotive Brand works with CEO”s to help create purpose-led brand strategies that transform business.

Preparing for Transformation

Posted on by Thom Elkjer

One of the big themes for business is constant change — transformation. With globalization making markets more volatile and cross-border financial flows making bondholders and investors more powerful, companies have to keep evolving to keep up. So they change their business model or their brand strategy. If they keep doing the old things, they do them in new ways. Or they do entirely new things in ways that haven’t been invented yet.

For our parents, IBM was a computer company. For us, it’s a consulting company. Time Warner was a media company; now it’s a content company after selling its cable and internet businesses and announcing it will exit print, too. HP has been trying to figure out what it is for years.

Continue reading “Preparing for Transformation”

What Is Your Brand’s Future State?

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Why talk about the future state of your brand?

Look ahead and dream about what would make your brand a kick-ass success. Now start planning for it.

What if you could turn the clock back 5 years?

Thinking about the state of your brand and business today, what would you have done to make your brand either stronger today, or more fit for the future it faces?

If we had this magical power, we would be able to go back and pull the strings, turn the dials, and change the gears of our complex brand workings. With the power of hindsight, we’d be able to avert many of the business problems that plague us today.

For example, we’d see that by making more emotionally meaningful connections with people, both inside and outside our brand, we’d be more important to our customers and employees (so the best ones would stay with our brand). We’d be more attractive to the best prospect and recruits (so we’d continue to grow and become a stronger company). We’d also be more valued by partners and investors (so we’d be more powerful and stable).

Unfortunately, none of us has this amazing power to go back in time. But all of us can look forward and imagine a future-state for our brand. We can foresee a time when people truly respect, admire, trust and support our brand because of the nature of the relationships our brand forges with people.

Working back from our idealized future-state, we are better able to analyze what we’re doing now, and to identify what changes we need to make, across two interdependent spheres:

  • Internal – what must we do to ensure that our people, processes, policies and procedures are working to make our workplace more emotionally meaningful (thereby engendering a internal culture of innovation, collaboration and personal gratification.
  • External – what changes do we need to make to our ways of creating and managing our marketplace presence (sales, distribution, marketing, advertising), so that customers and prospects are better able to sense our brand’s meaningful intent?

Most critical to this process is having a clear definition of your brand’s “meaningful intent”. For me, this has two components:

  • A purposeful ambition – an idea that speaks to all your brand constituents because it addresses a higher-order intent than making money; this idea articulates how your brand will make the world a better place because of how it affects the human condition (e.g. making people smarter or healthier, making the world a safer or cleaner pace, etc.); properly crafted, this ambition idea will flow naturally from the business behind the brand, and add to it a new, appealing and motivating dimension.
  • A purposeful ambition and emotional aura are not replacements of anything – but they are complements to everything. They shift the way your brand reaches out to people. They change the nature of brand interactions. They introduce meaning and emotions in ways that change the way people think, feel and act.

You can’t go back and fix today. But you can start today to transform your brand to one that succeeds tomorrow because it is more emotionally meaningful to people.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco bran

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