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Tag: Culture

Five Ways a Meaningful “Why” Creates a Compelling Workplace Experience

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Our experience shows that many brands have been crafted with only the customer in mind and that the resulting “customer experience” does not in any way parallel the “workplace experience.” As a result, the brand – as it is now articulated – is relatively meaningless internally.

We believe every brand has a meaningful “Why” hidden within.

This hidden “why” is powerful because it can do as much internally as it can externally. Our job is to dig that out and shed new light on it, all with the ambition of delivering these five benefits.

1. Increase Motivation

When your employees believe in your brand, there’s a natural increase in morale and productivity. If employees feel good about the company they work for, the brand their efforts support, and the work they do, those positive feelings translate directly to a positive impact on your company overall.

What makes people “feel good” about their employer and the work they do? We think it’s when they see what they do as meaningful. What makes work meaningful to an employee? When there’s a personally relevant reason why it’s being done (i.e. the company has a compelling reason for being).

2. Increase Personal Accountability

If employees understand the brand promise that they work to support and how their efforts directly affect the brand’s success and fulfill consumer wants and needs, they’ll develop a stronger sense of personal accountability. In other words, they’ll take greater pride in their work and they’ll want to deliver better results. In a nutshell, they’ll care.

People care when they feel cared for. And this is not just about holding hands. It’s about caring what people care about. People care when there’s a direct link between what they’re asked to do and their personal needs, values, interests, and aspirations.

3. Increase Word-of-Mouth Marketing

If your employees believe in your brand, they’ll be more likely to talk about it to friends, family, and anyone who will listen. They’ll advocate the brand online and offline to anyone who will listen, and they’ll guard it against naysayers. You can’t buy that kind of dedication, support, and positive publicity.

A solid “why” becomes a “social object,” or something that can be shared, talked about, and celebrated. It becomes “what” people talk and tweet about. At its best, the mere act of sharing and talking about a meaningful “why” reinforces its personal relevance and emotional importance to all parties.

4. Increase Communication

When employees feel like they have an important place in the brand’s success and they’re truly part of something greater than themselves (i.e. meeting consumer wants and needs), they’re more confident in sharing their thoughts and ideas. This increased level of open communication can lead to fantastic new innovations and opportunities for your company. It can also help to raise potential red flags before they turn into disasters.

We like to think of a brand’s “why” as the launchpad for all sorts of conversations and collaborative actions. It not only focuses thinking on what to do but also helps people vet ideas that go against the brand’s meaningful ambition.

5. Increase Talent Recruitment and Retention

Who doesn’t want to work for a company where the employees are motivated and happy? When your employees speak highly and openly about your brand, your company has a better chance of increasing retention rates and attracting new talent.

What could be more powerful than employees who believe in, and express, the why of your brand to the colleagues, family, and friends? When the endorsement of a workplace is heartfelt and genuine, it communicates far more to people seeking work. It not only helps draw the right people to the workplace, but it also means they’ll more readily become welcomed and productive members of the team.

For further reading on creating a more compelling workplace experience, download our Meaningful Workplace White Paper.

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

A Mid-Year Check-Up Across Business, Brand, and Culture

Posted on by Chris Ames

The half-way point of the year is always ripe for reflection. We all survived Q1, the budget isn’t completely spent yet, and with any luck, we’ll live to see Q3. It’s a perfect time to kick the tires of your business, brand, and culture. What’s working? What’s failing? How can you fail better? How can you push things forward and end the year on a meteoric rise instead of a trickle?

Let’s run a brief diagnostic check.

1. How is your brand positioning? Are you top of mind? Is it clear, competitive, differentiated? Maybe your sales have declined, your targeted audience has shifted, or your product roadmap has evolved. Either way, positioning your business correctly helps separate your brand from its competitors. It’s one of the best return on investments for driving growth, fostering alignment, and situating your business and brand to thrive in even the most crowded landscapes.

2. Do your people have the tools they need? At its best, brand language is a tool people know how to wield with gusto. Your elevator pitch, your boilerplate, your corporate narrative – these are ways of clearly defining the purpose of your company and your unique role in bringing it to life. Anyone who’s been to a cocktail party knows the feeling of getting trapped in a sprawling 20-minute conversation from simply asking, “So, what do you do?” Get your story straight, concise, and attention-grabbing.

3. How are you expressing those insights externally? If you’ve got your story down, it would be a crime to keep it locked up. Blogs, podcasts, and thought leadership not only crystalize your vision, but they also build a community around your content. Readers can be coworkers, prospective clients, future employees, event organizers, or even the lowest of the low, other blog writers! It sounds simple, but brands with something to say should say something.

4. What’s the look and feel of those big ideas? A weird thing about business is that often the most important tools – pitch decks, sales playbooks, and conference presentations – are the ugliest. Forget stock photography. Instead, spend some design love on the tools that you will be using over and over to grow your business and tell your story.

5. How do all of these design elements ladder up? If your sales team is routinely Frankenstein-ing their own decks, if you’ve acquired multiple products that shift how people perceive you, or if you’re simply ready to ditch that chat bubble logo that stands for “community and conversation,” it might be time for a rebrand. Your visual identity is how the world understands you. Why leave any room for misunderstanding?

6. Do you have the right culture and values to bring these elements to life? We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: culture is everything. It’s the foundation, the spark, the catalyst, the magic that turns a job into a calling.

7. Are you attracting and retaining the right talent to deliver on your mission? Top talent is a lot like falling in love. Great partners tend to seek you out when you’re living your best life, as opposed to desperately posting online. When your brand is strategically aligned and beautifully designed, you become a magnet for brilliant minds. In a way, everything you do for your brand ends up improving your employer brand, because who doesn’t want to be involved in something great?

8. Are you getting out there in the real world? In 2019, it’s never been easier to hide behind the computer. We cannot stress enough the value of physical events in the real world: conferences, experiential product launches, even inviting companies for lunch-and-learns. Get your brand in front of real people, because that’s where insights happen. You need to see the excitement in people’s faces when you solve a problem they care about. And you need to be gut-checked by people outside your bubble with good bs detectors.

9. Are you giving people time to think beyond daily cycles? Here’s a slightly counter idea: productive people need time to get bored. When you have alignment at the top and everything is firing like it’s supposed to, the best gift you can give creatives is freedom – because that’s how innovation happens. It’s Google’s 20 percent rule. Clarity of purpose leads to clarity of action. Give your employees the general direction they need to delight you with a left-turn.

10. Are you building a brand that you actually want to engage with? It’s a bit of a cliché, but it’s like that Toni Morrison quote. “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” There is so much sameness out there. Ditch the crowd and build the crazy company you wish you could have looked up to when you first started. Are you passionate, fired-up, energized about what you’re building and the story you’re telling? Because that’s the fuel that keeps you going in times of uncertainty. You can’t control the market, but you can control your brand and the feelings it evokes.

When it comes to the strength of your business, brand, and culture, there are one million things to worry about. The good news is that you don’t have to do it alone. If any of these topics are illuminating your “check engine” light, we’d love to chat with you.

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

Unifying Vision, Mission, Strategy, Brand, and Culture

Posted on by Chris Ames

It’s very difficult to work hard when you don’t understand what you’re working toward. We’re all capable of putting our heads down and grinding it out – but that behavior generally leads to burnout, apathy, and updating your LinkedIn.

A recent study from Reward Gateway, a global employee engagement company, which surveyed 1,500 workers and 750 senior decision-makers across the U.K., U.S., and Australia has revealed that only 25% of employees feel completely informed about their employer’s corporate mission and only 32% of employees feel completely informed about the values of the organization they work for.

When you compare that to the fact that 89% of employers say it’s absolutely critical to the success of their business that employees understand their mission, vision, and values, it’s clear there’s a major disconnect here. So, where is the divide and how can we close it?

The False Divide

In hiring and HR, we often talk about the difference between hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills are the concrete, measurable skills that make you a great fit for a specific position: coding, budgeting, IT. Soft skills are harder to measure – they’re the interpersonal skills like communication, empathy, and leadership that would make you a great fit anywhere.

Some companies make the mistake of dividing their work into these rigid categories. They think, “Hard skills drive real growth: our business strategy, our R&D and M&A roadmaps, our sales playbooks. Soft skills are merely nice-to-haves: our culture, our brand, our employee engagement.”

The truth is, a company divided cannot stand for long. Vision, mission, strategy, brand, and culture are inextricably connected, and all parts must work in concert to drive growth for your business. These strategic pieces must be thought of as one moving piece. Sales needs strategy to sell, marketing needs brand to have an impact, culture is the bedrock upon which all strategy lives or dies, mission keeps us grounded, and vision keeps us inspired. Beyond paying the bills, people need to understand why they get up every morning to come to work. There’s nothing soft about soft skills.

The numbers speak for themselves. A strong, well-defined, and positive culture increases employee engagement, job satisfaction, and well-being. A Business 2 Community report stated that companies with engaged employees outperform those without by 202 percent. Yet, only about 25% of employees said their organization has a strong culture based on core values and a similar amount said they trust their leadership at the executive level.

Unite Your Communications

On a very basic level, employees need a singular and regularly updated “space” to access communications about mission, vision, and the future of their company. That could be an intranet, a newsletter, or an in-person town hall. Ideally, this is a place where they can also voice their opinions and contribute to the shared meaning of the company.

Whatever the medium, the key is consistency in timing and aesthetic. Too often, employees are bombarded with irregular and disparate communications from different departments. Because they receive the communications in a silo, they think about them in a silo. There’s real power in bringing everything together in an integrated, holistic way.

Taglines vs. Tools

The fun thing about marketing is that everyone hates it – unless it’s really good. The distance between a mission or vision statement that feels like a “useless tagline” vs. a “useful tool” is a deadly gulf. There’s no surefire formula for bringing strategy to life in a meaningful way, but there are a few best practices that any company can glean:

Keep things human. If the goal is for every employee to be able to see themselves in the mission, then it needs to be written in a simple way. For example, the mission of TED is refreshing in its purity. It’s simply: spread ideas. It’s a perfect demonstration of how they serve, and their vision elevates this through the belief that ideas change attitudes, lives, and the world at large.

Be as transparent as possible. Mission and vision statements tend to be crafted by a small executive committee – and that makes sense. But even if all employees can’t actively participate in the shaping of the strategy, providing transparency into the decision process creates emotional buy-in for the end result. People are curious. They want to know the driving forces behind decisions and how they ladder up into something bigger. If you hand them a new mission statement with no context or transparency, it doesn’t mean anything.

Reward and model good behavior. If you’re asking people to make shifts in how they think and act at work, there should be systems in place to encourage those behaviors. Everyone wants their team to be more innovative and think beyond daily cycles – but nobody wants to allot the free time it would take to make that a reality. Some of Google’s most iconic products started off as side projects, a fact realized by their 20 percent rule, which states that employees should be able to devote one day of their work week to any project they like. Everyone wants their employees to engage more with internal communications – but it’s difficult to produce fresh and engaging content on a scheduled basis. After all, you can’t fault employees for not being up-to-date if things are regularly updated.

Vision, mission, strategy, brand, and culture are different blocks of the same blueprint. Creating the perfect house to hold these elements together can be difficult, but it’s critical if you want to drive growth home.

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

Embracing an Agile Workflow to Yield an Agile Brand

Posted on by Giovanna Blackston Keren

A lot of branding firms talk about the importance of incorporating agility into their clients’ brands. The best brands have to stand for something distinct and meaningful – and at the same time, be ready to acknowledge what is happening out in the marketplace so they can adapt and adjust to maintain their edge.

There is less discussion about the process of branding and the need to imbue it with a degree of agility as well. Speed is a given – we’ve all been schooled on how clients no longer have time for long, drawn-out branding processes that will yield a new brand in the market within 12-18 months. But speed is not the same as agility. Agility means finding ways to utilize existing knowledge, assets, and insights to leapfrog into new territory.

Leading in Partnership

This notion comes at odds with how branding firms do things. Most branding firms have their “proprietary method,” often used to claim some sort of ascendancy or advantage over other firms. But in an effort to demonstrate expertise, there can be arrogance to lording one’s “method” over a client, especially if the method favors doing everything from scratch instead of looking for and accommodating existing intellectual capital. By ignoring the previous work a brand has cultivated, you may be sacrificing integrity for agility.

To truly imbue the branding process with agility, branding firms must exercise a degree of humility, respect for work that has been done, and a commitment to finding the foundational nuggets worth building upon. In a sense, this process is akin to inspecting a house before starting renovations – an architect worth his or her salt will identify the load-bearing walls and build upon and around them rather than tearing them down for no reason. This constitutes a stance that we call leading in partnership – taking the best of what exists and providing a path forward.

Bolstering a Strong Foundation

A client we worked with recently had conducted a tremendous amount of work identifying customer insights and pain points for each of the decision makers in all of the lines of business they sold to. Instead of recommending new research, either to validate these insights or uncover new ones, we took them as fairly gospel and used them as the foundation for building out their brand idea. When we brought back our thinking, clearly connected to the knowledge that they had uncovered, it was easier for our client to understand how we were laddering up to the brand idea. It validated the work they had done internally and made for a much easier sell-in. All in all, considerably more agile.

That is not to say that there isn’t room for additional validation of existing intellectual capital, especially if there is a suspicion that it may have been developed in an internal vacuum. But questioning what we believe to be true in an effort to reach a greater unknown can often be conducted in parallel path with brand execution, so that things keep moving forward. Again, agility.

Be an Agile Listener

Even for startups and small businesses without a robust legacy to build upon, we believe that approaching a project with a sense of humility will ultimately lead to a better partnership and increased agility. Branding firms should be able to say “So, you’re a startup – maybe you don’t know everything about your category yet, but you’ve created this idea and you possess enough strength of conviction to know that it is an idea worthy of the market. Let’s build something that feels like a natural extension of your brand.”

We will always have a rich library of proven methodologies to pull from, based on decades of expertise and hundreds of case studies. But if we’ve learned anything from our long-lasting relationships with clients, it’s that being an agile listener gets you much further than being the loudest person in the room.

To learn more about how your brand can adopt an agile workflow, contact Founding Partner Tracy Lloyd at [email protected].

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design firm in San Francisco.

We’re Grateful for Our Amazing Clients

Posted on by Chris Ames

Here in the U.S., it’s Thanksgiving. Which means it’s a perfect time to pause and reflect on what we’re grateful for. We’re grateful for strong coffee. We’re grateful for stronger cocktails. We’re grateful for the passionate, creative, curious people who come to Emotive Brand every day to make brands matter more to people. And of course, we’re incredibly grateful for our growing list of clients that give us their time, expertise, and trust to help them transform their brands. We couldn’t do it without them.

As we sign off for the rest of the week, we wanted to do a quick roundup of some of the innovative work our clients are doing around the world. Every day, they are innovating, creating, breaking, putting back together, and pushing the limits of their categories. Here’s what’s going on:

Central Valley is a Top 100 U.S. building supply company that proudly serves pro builders and vineyard operators in Northern California. Recently, they were featured in a glowing article titled, “First-name basis: In the heart of Wine Country, Central Valley focuses on community.” The piece highlights Central Valley’s brand, culture, and rapid growth. See our case study here.

Lyra is transforming mental health care by creating a frictionless experience for members, providers, and employers. After rebranding with us, they were able to raise $45M to create a smart network for treating mental health problems. “I think we are able to successfully communicate to employees what Lyra does in a way that doesn’t seem intimidating or stigmatized,” CEO David Ebersman said. See our case study here.

Harness is the industry’s first Continuous Delivery-as-a-Service platform. So, it should come as no surprise that they were able to win the Barclay 2018 Open Innovation Challenge.  Mark Ashton-Rigby, Group Chief Information Officer at Barclays, said, “At Barclays, we’re passionate about increasing the impact of technology. We understand that the Harness value proposition to simplify Continuous Delivery-as-a-Service has the potential to dramatically accelerate and simplify the production and delivery of our applications.” See our case study here.

Citrix is a software company that’s creating people-centric solutions for a better way to work. Always on the hunt for the best technologies, they recently purchased Sapho for $200M to expand their digital workspace tech. This technology will be integrated with Citrix Workspace. The Workspace platform enables organizations to integrate and manage their apps, desktops, data, and devices. This gives employees secure and contextual access to the relevant systems and tools.

Marqeta, the open-API platform pioneering the future of modern card issuing, was recently featured in a glowing article titled, “Marqeta Delivers Record Growth and Innovation in Alternative Lending Space.” Kathryn Petralia, president and co-founder of Kabbage, had this to say. “Marqeta is solving real problems for tech-enabled lenders, almost all of whom need modern card products to bridge the gap between lending and payments. As consumers look to optimize services they once received from banks, lenders simply need a more flexible, scalable, and compliant platform — no one has done more than Marqeta to provide that.” See our case study here.

And finally, ad tech company Drawbridge was able to draw $15M in fresh funding as it begins a new chapter. The money will be immediately invested into a product roadmap that diversifies their portfolio, including analytics, risk detection, authentication, and the data infrastructures needed to support them. “Profitability is not something we’re optimizing for,” said Drawbridge CEO Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan, who noted a 250% year-over-year increase in the company’s annual revenue. “We’re focused on growth.”

When you work with us, we’re invested in your success long after the final deliverables are sent. We love nothing more than celebrating our amazing clients. From all of us here at Emotive Brand, have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design firm in San Francisco.

Enduring Brand Lessons from the Worlds of Retail, Restaurants, and Other First Jobs

Posted on by Chris Ames

Is there anything as formative as our first jobs? It’s a magical time when the newfound autonomy of getting a paycheck is immediately countered by an ugly truth: making money is hard work. For many of us, first jobs start in the worlds of retail, restaurants, and other seemingly unglamorous customer service gigs. There are, by definition, entry-level positions, but don’t let that fool you. Any job that puts you in front of people — people with highly-specific desires, big expectations, and virtually no patience — requires a herculean amount of smarts and emotional intelligence.

There is a certain social stigma against customer service positions. We are taught to laugh off those early stints and seek out “real jobs.” The truth is, the early lessons from those first jobs can form the bedrock of great branding. You must embody consistency, differentiation, experience, and the simple fact that when you win someone’s heart, it’s not long until you win their wallet.

The following is a roundtable interview with the Emotive Brand team about their first jobs, and how those early experiences have informed how they approach branding today.

Saja Chodosh, Writer

For two years during the summer, I was a hostess at a pub in Salt Lake City. Naturally, I had to deal with a lot of drunk or impatient people. One of the first lessons you learn is: tone really matters. You can relay the same basic information — It’s going to be an hour-and-a-half wait — with drastically different tones and get drastically different results. It’s the difference between someone storming out or someone saying, “It’s cool, I’ll just get a drink at the bar.” As a writer for brands, tone in copywriting is super important. Just like at a pub, it’s going to affect how long people are willing to interact with you.

Kelly Peterson, Project Manager

Believe it or not, I was actually a papergirl. Every Wednesday, right around the corner from my middle school, I would plug in my iPod and run the streets. It was all about how you can be most efficient before it gets dark. It’s a lot like solving how to get the most out of people before a deadline. You had your regulars, the people who would plan to see me at the same time every week. They depended on that consistency – getting consistent value at the same time, no matter what. Plus, the emotional connection of being able to take time to chat with their neighborhood papergirl – despite my sunlight influenced deadline. As a project manager, consistency, efficiency, and people skills all factor in.

Shannon Caulfield, Project Manager

For better or worse, in Burlingame, I was known as the “frozen yogurt girl” because I worked so much. That job is where I really learned the importance of customer experience, and how a brand’s perception totally depends on their people. We took our Yelp reviews super seriously. If someone took a picture of a frozen yogurt that wasn’t perfectly swirled, we got in trouble. If you’re a company, you are producing thousands and thousands of customer experiences every day — but you have to remember, the customer only gets that one impression. When you don’t treat each experience with care, they could walk away with a bad taste.

Carol Emert, Strategy Director

One summer during college, I traveled around Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, writing for the “Let’s Go: Europe” travel guide. It was fun but pedantic work, researching transit schedules, hostels, and cheap eats. The big lesson I took from that time is that people love to tell their story. It may feel like an imposition, but when you show a genuine interest in someone else’s experience, most people delight in being able to talk about themselves and their interests — whether it’s their hometown in Norway or their relationship to a product or a brand. It’s not universally true, but when you want to hear someone’s story, it’s usually possible to find people who are happy to share. Today, as a consumer insights researcher and brand strategist, I am quite unapologetic about asking people to share their story.

Joanna Schull, Strategist

My first real job was working at Häagen-Dazs. As part of the training, you must learn to do everything. Whether you’re the manager or have only been there for a week, you need to know and be willing to do all the tasks. And that’s because, if you’re a customer, you don’t really know or care about the difference between who’s a manager and who’s not; you just want a great experience. No matter your place of employment, you should always be willing to do all aspects of the job. If you’re the CEO of an international coffee conglomerate, you should still know how to pull an espresso. At the end of the day, you need to know how to do the thing and live the brand. Everyone should understand the ins-and-outs of what makes the customer happy.

Also, when I was a lifeguard, I had to assert control over people who were considerably older than I was. I needed to find a way to convince adults to follow the rules, to follow my rules, and to keep people safe without being a jerk about it. It’s challenging to exercise authority when it’s questionable whether or not I should even have authority. In our line of work as consultants, we’re often working with people that are unbelievably successful, and the question becomes: how do you get them to trust you? How do you lead them through a process that might be uncomfortable? You need a mix of confidence and humility. Whether you’re leading a workshop or watching a pool, you’re not there to be the most important part of the engagement. You’re there to make sure things work seamlessly.

Keyoni Scott, Junior Designer

I’ve had a ton of jobs — pizza delivery, clothing stores, sandwich shops — but I learned something interesting about working at this deli in Yountville, a small town in Napa Country. You know, Napa has a certain association of being a very high-end, maybe even uppity place. There are the stereotypes of the fancy, wine-tasting people. I think it taught me the importance of ignoring assumptions, and really taking the time to truly know your audience. Regardless of stereotypes about a place, everyone is different and brings something unique to the table. Working in a deli, it’s a matter of being able to read people quickly. You should engage people on an emotional level, and get a real idea of what their life is like. Reading people goes a long way, creates stronger bonds, and ultimately, earns you more tips. Knowing when to joke with customers — or clients — goes a long way. Don’t make assumptions about your audience. Take the time to read them.

Robert Saywitz, Senior Designer

Oh man, I’ve worked as a host, a busboy, an ice cream scooper. At an all-you-can-eat buffet, I was literally the muffin man. When I was going through art school, I worked part-time as a waiter. In general, working in the service industry not only teaches you how to engage with difficult people, it teaches you extreme empathy. It informs you how to be a considerate and normal person when you walk into a restaurant, and that there are two sides to every story. It’s a brutal, but necessary lesson to learn. I truly believe that every single person on this planet should work in the service industry, like a military draft. Because here’s the real lesson: it teaches you how not to be an asshole. Working in a restaurant is a lot like working at an agency. You’re dealing with all sorts of different job positions — writers, strategists, designers — with tight deadlines and many links in the chain. Things simply won’t get done if you’re not a well-oiled machine. You can have the world’s best menu — if the chef and waiters and hosts aren’t communicating well, no one is eating there.

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So, whether you’re entry-level or enterprise, serving up mixed drinks or massive deliverables, we hope you find something to take away and apply to your brand. To misquote Gertrude Stein, “A job is a job is a job.” No matter your position, there are tangible steps you can take to make people fall in love every time they interact with your brand. And if you have lessons you’ve learned from early jobs, we’d love to hear about them in the comments.

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

Emotive Design Is Felt in the Gut

Posted on by Chris Ames

This week, we had the pleasure of adding Beth Abrahamson as a Senior Designer to our team. She is a multidisciplinary graphic designer whose practice challenges the distinction between art and design. Constantly shifting in and out of different mediums – collage, ceramics, photography, drawing – she’s an expert at imagining how these forms can live in the digital world. With an MFA in Design from California College of the Arts, Beth has recently worked with AirBnB, Southern Exposure, San Francisco Art Institute, and many others. We sat down with Beth to discuss her work, the importance of collaboration, and the definition of emotive design.

Tell us a bit about your background.

I came here seven years ago to attend the San Francisco Art Institute for a design and technology program. After graduating from California College of the Arts, I hopped between freelancing at design studios, companies in-house, and building my own client base.

What brings you back to a studio environment?

I really value the ability to see so many different types of environments. It’s so interesting to be able to be a fly on the wall. Every place is different, and sometimes as a freelancer, you’re treated as an outsider. I came here because I was seeking the kind of collaboration and diversity you only get with a studio.

What advice would you give to studios on how to best integrate freelancers so they feel embraced?

It sounds simple, but all anyone wants is to be treated as part of the team. Fostering a healthy team dynamic is super important, and it can make all the difference. You want a place where everyone brings a different skillset, knows their role, and has a seat at the table. There’s such a big difference between “sitting in close proximity to other people” and actually collaborating. As a creative person, I thrive on variety – in projects, clients, and mindsets. With a studio, the sum is greater than the parts.

At Emotive Brand, strategy drives everything. Have you had experience working with strategists before?

It’s so crucial for design, and it’s an area I really want to learn more about. Good design always has to be backed up by good strategy. I value the environment that Bella and Tracy have created here. Both their authenticity and their approach. It’s very rare to have this female-led dynamic, and whether or not you want to admit it, it makes a difference. Just in the approach to empathy, emotional intelligence, and communication. It’s about achieving that perfect balance of everyone having a role and everyone feeling like their voice is heard.

How would you describe your approach to design?

I am a firm believer in the concept defining the aesthetics, and not the other way around. It’s about the process. I take a lot of inspiration from the world around me – from physical things, from mundane forms, or things that may seem mundane at first glance. A big part of my process has been about translating ideas across mediums. Not just working on the computer but working by hand – building things, cutting things. All of that informs what then becomes the digital graphic. With a lot of my work, you can feel the artist’s hand. I try to create a simplicity and accessibility.

Outside of the 9-to-5, what are you working on right now?

I’ve been teaching myself ceramics for the last two years and I’m totally obsessed. There’s a very strong relationship to graphic design. Right now, I’m working on vessels that have different geometric forms as handles. Those forms are coming from some 2D work that I’ve done, and vice versa. An idea will often move from a blind contour drawing, to a screen print, to a ceramic shape.

How would you define emotive design?

For me, emotive design is felt in the gut. It inspires others, draws them in. It’s about translating passion from the maker to the viewer – and in that transfer of ideas and feeling, there is a deep connection. When it works well, that connection – between people or brands – is unbreakable.

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

Brand Belonging, Essential to Building Better Brands

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

A Belonging Deficit

We all want to belong. It’s part of what makes us human. The need for belonging isn’t new, but how we connect with others has changed, and not necessarily for the better. We have shorter attention spans. We glance from screen to screen so we often don’t feel completely part of any given experience. Not surprisingly, studies show feelings of anxiety, loneliness, and disengagement increasing, especially amongst younger generations.

Many people blame this sense of isolation solely on technology. But there are other fragmenting factors in addition – decreasing levels of trust with the large institutions that once provided community, rising economic inequality, political polarization, and massive migrations of people across the globe. We’re moving around, switching jobs more often, spending more time FaceTiming than getting actual face time. In fact, the need for belonging grows daily. And this “belonging deficit” has created a gap for someone to fill.

Enter Brands: Brand Belonging

Recently, IBM iX did a study all about brand belonging. The study looked at 172 brands across six strategically selected categories. It measured brand belonging by both individual and collective drivers. Though named differently, these drivers centered around feelings of connection, trust, community, purpose, life enrichment, empathy, and delight – feelings we’ve been helping our clients build for years. Brands who tapped into these emotions and showed up as top performers on IBM’s Brand Belonging list. The payoff? These top performers grew revenue over six years at three times the rate of the lower-performing brands. Wow – belonging matters.

So How Do You Make People Feel Like They Belong?

A huge pay-off awaits brands that can make their way to the top of that Brand Belonging list. So we took the findings and insights from IBM iX’s study and all that we’ve learned in the business of brand building, and compiled some strategic ideas for how you can foster brand belonging and reap the benefits.

1. Again and again, find purpose. And then live it.

Purpose-led has always been the way. And now more than ever, it’s not enough for your brand  to have a clear, aspirational purpose. You have to put that purpose into action. It should guide your decisions, your behaviors, and the way you grow forward. By living that purpose at every moment, people have something to latch onto that isn’t abstract. They can feel like they are a part of why you do what you do.

As a top performer, PBS is a great example in IMB iX’s study. They put their visionary purpose – entertaining and expressing a diversity of perspectives that helps people achieve their potential and strengthen the social, democratic, and cultural health of the US – into action at every touchpoint. It governs from where they give back to the subject matter they feature

2. Build a growing relationship

No good relationship remains stagnant. It grows, gains meaning, enters new stages, and deepens its relevance over time. Smart brands take this same approach to their customer relationships . Marriott – another brand at the top of IBM’s list – provides an exemplary loyalty program to build connection with customers. They also further deepen relationships with customers by personalizing experiences based on their likes, including customers in their  innovation labs, and even investing in new brand based on what will deepen their relationship with loyal customers

But it isn’t just about customers. Although IBM’s study focused mostly on B2C brands, in our work we see this playing out even more in the employer brands we help build. Businesses invest in an employer brand because they hope to create that deeper sense of community employees now crave and even expect. Whether it’s a cutting-edge wellness center or spaces where people can better come together around shared passions, employers that make  community-building a top priority are seeing the benefits in loyalty and employee happiness are endless.

3. Make every moment better:

Every moment counts. Take Disney as an example – also on the top of IBM’s list – a company who believes the technology should tell a story and bring people along, not pull them apart. Disney leverages advanced data analytics to enhance guest experiences so that customers feel every moment is meaningful. Technology works to connect and not isolate. To do this successfully requires high levels of both empathy and innovation. Disney leverages both in driving brand belonging to new levels.

4. Don’t just provide, empower your community

Awesome tools and products are great, but they don’t really mean anything if people aren’t confident using them. Recently, we’ve been working with a continuing education company that provides the courses nurses and doctors need to up-level their practice and fill requirements. For the past decades, they’ve built a loyal community – and not just because their courses are great, but because they actually aim to inspire people to put into practice the skills they learn. To grow that sense of community (and in turn, grow their business), we focused on helping them up-level the feeling of empowerment that comes with gaining knowledge and skills.

The Feeling of Belonging

When we speak to our clients about how they want to make people feel, some feeling of connection, trust, or community almost always comes into play. Companies like Airbnb have made “belonging” central to their brand purpose. Many brands are shifting their priorities to community building through tactics like user-generated content. Other businesses are tapping into personalization and investigating new ways to humanize technology so it better belongs in people’s lives. Brands are looking to create spaces, experiences, products, and services that foster feelings of belonging because that’s what makes them more meaningful to the people who matter most.

If you need help creating connection or building community with the people who will drive your business forward, please reach out.

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

The Business Case for Trust: How Leaders Can Unlock the Full Power of Trust

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Trust Pays Off

The business case for trust is straightforward and continues to grow. Each year, the data shows that companies with a culture of trust are more profitable than those without it. A culture of trust is not just a “nice-to-have.” It’s good business. Trust culture companies have outperformed the S&P 500 by a factor of three, and high-trust companies “are more than 2½ times more likely to be high performing revenue organizations” than lower-trust companies.

Why?

It turns out we come with an evolutionary hard-wired attraction to people we can trust and a visceral aversion to those we don’t.

People are drawn to and prefer to do business with organizations that have earned their trust, which results in greater productivity, higher sales and wider margins. Trust attracts and engages people, says David Rock who focuses on applying neuroscience insights to management. In SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others published by the NeuroLeadership Journal, he lays out not just the benefits of trust within an organization but a framework for establishing and building it:

“Indeed, the ability to intentionally address the social brain in the service of optimal performance will be a distinguishing leadership capability in the years ahead…

The impact of this neural dynamic is often visible in organizations. For example, when leaders trigger a threat response, employees’ brains become much less efficient. But when leaders make people feel good about themselves, clearly communicate their expectations, give employees latitude to make decisions, support people’s efforts to build good relationships, and treat the whole organization fairly, it prompts a reward response.

Others in the organization become more effective, more open to ideas and more creative. They notice the kind of information that passes them by when fear or resentment makes it difficult to focus their attention. They are less susceptible to burnout because they are able to manage their stress. They feel intrinsically rewarded…If you are a leader, every action you take and every decision you make either supports or undermines the perceived levels of status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness in your enterprise. In fact, this is why leading is so difficult.”

Building Trust Starts with Behavior

In business, leadership behavior is what matters. The actions of leaders shape expectations. Each decision and action either reduces or builds trust.

We’ve consolidated the factors that build trust from a review of management literature. Through our analysis we found a consistent set of behaviors that trusted leaders demonstrate.

Clarity and transparency: People trust the clear, and mistrust or doubt unnecessary complexity. Be crystal clear about your purpose, expectations, and priorities. Tell the truth in a way people can verify. Be authentic and lean in on disclosure.

Empower with empathy: People learn to trust those that operate beyond their own self-interest; that show respect for others’ points of view, skills and expertise. People want to be great. Tune in to their abilities. Be the leader that lets others be great.

Consistently demonstrate integrity: People notice those who do the right thing for the right reason. Be true to yourself, your purpose, and your values.

Keep commitments and contribute: Few things build trust quicker than actual results. At the end of the day, people need to see outcomes. Empathy and integrity aren’t enough, unless combined with delivering on commitments. Be the most useful person in the room. Be consistent delivering results.

Keep current: People have confidence in those who stay up to date, relevant, and sharp. Stay curious and keep learning. Be an enthusiastic teacher and learner. Be known for seeking out new ways of doing things, ideas, and trends.

Be open and cultivate connection: Trust requires a relationship, and it is through its relationship with you that your team expresses its trust. Openness is essential to build these relationships. If people can’t get to know you, then they probably can’t get to trust you, either. With openness comes the requirement for a certain vulnerability.  Be available and present. Be the type of leader that ‘puts yourself out there’ and make the first move to make a connection.

Trust Takes Time

“Every action you take and every decision you make either supports or undermines the perceived levels of status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness in your enterprise.” – David Rock

So take it one moment at a time. Trust can’t be built overnight. It requires time, effort, focus, and consistency. Inspiring trust requires authenticity and effort. But if you think of these elements as skills to work on and challenge yourself to think of every action or decision as an opportunity to demonstrate one or more, you will be on your way to building trust that will drive results and improve both the top and bottom lines.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy agency.

Loyalty and Productivity: Using Innovative Benefits to Build Employer Brands

Posted on by Carol Emert

A great employer brand story is important for recruiting and retaining employees – but it’s important to show workers the love and not just talk about it. Benefits are one of the best ways to demonstrate that a company values its employees’ well-being and not just their work. With a rising tide of innovative benefits, from in vitro fertilization to college tuition support to telemedicine, there’s more opportunity than ever to build a strong employer brand. HR leaders who innovate can boost their competitiveness while taking better care of their people.

At Emotive Brand, we’re lucky to work with visionary employers that have embraced HR innovation, as well as with benefits companies that are disrupting their categories to offer re-invented benefits of far greater value.

Innovative Benefits Win

In a 2017 survey of 2,000 U.S. workers, Fractl found that 88% would consider taking a job with lower pay for better health, dental, and vision insurance. The same number would consider jumping ship for more flexible hours.

Other than health, flexible work hours and PTO were the most popular benefits with employees, according to Fractl’s survey, published in the Harvard Business Review.

At Emotive Brand, we see two major trends behind the rise in innovative benefits.

Control is Out, Flexibility is In

The first trend is the rethinking of an old assumption that employees need to be controlled, rather than trusted, to make decisions that are right for them and their job. Undoubtedly, this is tied to the rise of knowledge workers who demand new ways of working and have agency to jump employers at will.

Unlimited PTO was a shocking idea when Netflix adopted it years ago for a Silicon Valley-based knowledge worker staff. Despite a lot of hoopla at the time, only 1% to 2% of companies offer it today.

More would be smart to do so.

Fractl found that two-thirds of employees would consider taking a job with lower pay if offered unlimited time off. And eliminating vacation liability saves companies almost $2,000 per year per employee, says the article, citing Project: Time Off.

Emotive Brand has offered unlimited PTO since our founding in 2009. When Emotive Brand was developing its first HR polices almost 10 years ago, setting arbitrary limits on PTO “just seemed so stupid,” says CEO and co-founding partner Bella Banbury. “It’s really about treating people as adults.”

It’s also about quid pro quo in the changing world of work. “I can’t expect someone to be available at 7 or 8 at night and to check their email after hours and then not let them go to their kid’s school play,” Banbury says.

Unlimited PTO fosters mutual respect between a company and employees. Everyone wins.

Technology Drives Innovation for HR Leaders

Technology, not surprisingly, is the second trend behind the rise in innovative benefits.

While consumers have gotten used to instant gratification via tech-based services like on-demand TV, “benefits still feel a step behind,” says Sean McBride, partnerships director at Emotive Brand client Lyra Health. “HR leaders want benefits that are tech-enabled, personalized, and as accessible and available as everything else.”

Technology is driving much higher levels of access and personalization, says McBride. His company, Lyra Health, is taking the hassle out of behavioral health care by making it easy for people to connect with treatments and practitioners tailored to their specific needs.

Employers have embraced Lyra’s model, which marries technology and hands-on clinical service for more effective care.

While many companies have at least considered next-generation benefits, McBride estimates that only about 5% “have really looked at benefits holistically, from smoking cessation to personal finance to behavioral health, making sure they all have the same ease of access and personalization.”

Currently, tech companies are the most progressive, one-upping each other with benefits like egg freezing and in vitro fertilization. Because the competition for top employees is so fierce, employer brand-building is a priority.

McBride estimates it will be another five to 10 years before today’s innovative benefits will be mainstream in corporate America. For now, it’s a real source of competitive differentiation.

“We’re definitely in an early adopter phase,” he says. “It takes time for large companies to innovate and for smaller companies to blossom and replace legacy providers.”

Innovative benefits can have compelling value. In the case of comprehensive behavioral health care, studies show that total medical costs go down on average 10% over four years, while productivity can increase by as much as 23%, says McBride.

Not surprisingly, employers benefit when their employees thrive, and both the employer brand and the business come out the better for it.

See Change for HR Leaders

A third beneficiary are the HR leaders who are used to hearing more gripes than kudos.

“When you’re used to complaints and now people are stopping you in the hallway for a hug because it’s changed a family’s life – I hear stories like that,” says McBride. “The emotional connection is really enhanced when it feels like a company is investing in employees as much as the employees are investing in the company.”

Emotive Brand can help companies strengthen their workforce loyalty and productivity by ensuring HR leaders have the right insights to build more meaningful connections with employees.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design firm.