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Tag: Branding Agency

Give People Meaningful Reasons to Innovate

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

We often come back to the Fast Company blog post by Seth Kahan, a change specialist and author of, “Getting Innovation Right”, published in 2013. Many of our clients are looking for help creating a brand strategy and developing corporate values that will help create a culture of innovation.

Seth presents three practical secrets for the innovative leader. We were particularly struck by his second secret:

Secret #2. Articulate the Way Forward

People rely on their leaders to craft a vision of the future that makes sense and can guide their everyday decisions. Most of the leaders I have met improvise this activity and many do it badly. And yet articulating a rousing vision of the future isn’t difficult. It can be your secret super-power, if you just master these three tactics:

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What it Means to be a Meaningfully Different Brand

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Youngme Moon teaches business at Harvard and is the author of “Different – Escaping The Competitive Herd“.

In her closing she points to three characteristics of the brands of tomorrow – as they are driven to differentiate in order to succeed.

Here we summarize:

  1. “They will offer something that is hard to come by…restraint will be the new desire; whisper can be the new shout; there will always be a place for brands offering something that is hard to come by.”
     
  2. “They will reflect a commitment to a big idea…which is to say they won’t just be different in a litle way, they’ll be different in a big way; I would say the brands of tomorrow will be the ones that embrace this, even as they take that sharp left down the unpaved road.” 
     
  3. “They will be intensely human…which is to say they wil be conceived by individuals who are acutely sensitive to the complexities of the human spirit.”

In her book, Ms Moon is focused on the role of marketing and marketers. But the meaningfully different brand won’t (and can’t) come out of the marketing department. 

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Are We in the Age of Meaning?

Posted on by Jerry Holtaway

In our white paper, The Age Of Meaning, we explore the challenges and opportunities this new era presents to business and brand strategy.

Referring to economist Umair Haque‘s contention that we’ve left the “age of opulence” – a time of hyper-consumerism based on the mantra of “bigger, faster, cheaper, now” – we make the point that the age of meaning didn’t suddenly appear.

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The Meaningful Workplace – Help Them Create Good

Posted on by Jerry Holtaway

Disillusioned by the age of conspicuous consumption, worried by the state of the planet and its people, rocked by war, corruption and financial crises, and immersed in a swirl of information, news, opinion, and gossip, people are searching for meaning in their lives. Continue reading “The Meaningful Workplace – Help Them Create Good”

Using Company Values to Build Engagement and a Meaningful Workplace

Posted on by Jerry Holtaway

“People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

The goal of employee engagement is to drive employee attitudes, behavior, morality, and ethics in such a way as to improve their productivity, morale, satisfaction, and usefulness within the organization. However, many companies have struggled with converting their proclaimed values into compelling, work-changing experiences for their employees that reach through to their brand strategy. 

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Emotional Design Principles Build Meaningful Brand Interactions

Posted on by Jerry Holtaway

Emotional Design

We recently came across an older, but interesting article about the use of emotion in design.

The piece takes us through the premises of two books on website user interface design, “Emotional Design” by Don Norman, and “Designing for Emotion” by Aaron Walter.

We were drawn to this recap of Norman’s 3-level approach to creative design:

  1. The visceral level – the appearance of a design
  2. The behavioral level – how the product works
  3. The reflective level – the long-term impact of the design

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B2B Brands Desperately Need Ways to Differentiate Themselves

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

The pressing need for differentiation in B2B

“Features easily blur into other features. It is increasingly difficult to differentiate on a product or service level as competitors find it easy to quickly duplicate innovation. So, where can B2B brands effectively differentiate? We think it’s by connecting to people on a higher level through meaning and feelings.”

It is natural for people engineering teams, product teams and product marketing teams to see their B2B product or service as something special, unique, and important.

Unfortunately, this makes it all the more difficult for them to see it clearly in the competitive context.

All too often, what separates one B2B offering from the next is marginal.

This leaves B2B brand owners in a most vulnerable position.

So, what can a B2B brand do to differentiate its presence in the marketplace it serves?

The first step is to acknowledge that the world has moved on in ways that offer new opportunities.

Even in B2B, people buy from people. It’s personal. It’s emotional. And those that forget that will miss out one of the easiest ways to differentiate their rand. The people who decide to buy your product, work for your company, partner with you, supply you, invest in you, or allow you into their community, are driven by different values and aspirations.

They want to do things that matter.

They want to deal with businesses that help them feel that their decisions and actions matter beyond themselves.

The questions to ask

The question for B2B brand owners is, “What are you already doing – and what else could you start doing – to make the experience of dealing with your business feel more authentic to your brand, gratifying, and meaningful to people?”

What hidden meaning is operating below the radar that could serve as the basis of a more meaningful brand?

What is the promise that you are making that resonates with people both rationally and emotionally?

The answers to these questions is purpose. Why you built the company or product in the first place. It is what drove you to start a company. It is what you use to recruit the people that believe what you believe.

Purpose

A purpose that inspires everyone in your business to work with greater satisfaction, to deal with customers in ways that make them feel special, and to think of ways to make your business ever more successful.

So, a purpose that makes people not only get the difference you offer, but feel it too.

With a meaningful purpose, and a new way of bringing that to life, your B2B brand is suddenly operating from a new position among the fray.

There’s a feeling about your business that draws people to it, engages them in it, and keeps them loyal to it.

Short of re-inventing the category in which you operate through unique technology or processes (that increasingly elusive dream), learning how to matter is the best differentiator for B2B brands to become stronger today, and better fit for the future.

In our paper, “Five Reasons Why B2B Brands Should Become Meaningfully Emotive,” we talk about the pressing need for differentiation in the B2B space:

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

Meaningful Workplace – Getting Employees to Respond Positively

Posted on by Jerry Holtaway

Meaningful Workplaces are built by companies that aim to produce a more meaningful outcome from, and for, their people.

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