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Tag: Empathy

Roundtable with Bloomerang CEO Dennis Fois and CMO Ann Fellman: Part 1

Posted on by Emotive Brand

The Power of Emotion

One of the most purposeful organizations we’ve ever collaborated with, Bloomerang helps nonprofits raise more with the end-to-end giving platform and expert team built for purpose.

This has been a particularly rewarding partnership, with client-agency alchemy arising from a shared belief. It’s the idea embedded in our name—that strategic use of emotion is central to the success of brands and businesses.

At the risk of making them blush, Bloomerang’s CEO Dennis Fois and CMO Ann Fellman are the kind of leaders we call Visionary Reinventors. They have the emotional intelligence and daring to push higher, and look deeper, for the good of their business, people, industry, and the 23,000 nonprofits they serve.

They were gracious enough to sit down with us for a roundtable discussion exploring how emotion is core to driving their tremendous growth.

 

Emotive Brand:  When you composed the RFP, emotion was front and center in terms of how you thought about success. We’re curious—where does this passion for emotion come from? What was missing from the equation prior to our work together?

Dennis:  My feelings were that Bloomerang fell too much on the empathy side, without any bite or desire or drive or ambition. The opportunity here is to change the [nonprofit] industry, where there’s a scarcity mindset—that you can’t ask for more. They [nonprofits] read bad reports: “Oh, Giving Tuesday was down.” The academia around it is depressing. And so there is this construct of constraints and not abundance. I want to create a bright light of ambition–fast-charging, but also with hope and optimism.

This is a time when we’ve never seen so much generational wealth. There are over 11 million millionaires in the United States alone. We’ve never had this amount of disposable income. There’s literally no reason why giving shouldn’t be going up every year. So this idea for emotion, this passion, needs to come through.

I want to sit on a rocking chair on a ranch when I’m older and reflect that we built a generational company that is looked on as, “They actually shook things up. They were the catalysts for more investment, more technology, better resources.”

But if you connect yourself to the industry and say, “We’re going to do more here,” then you need to bring empathy while also being a bit of a challenger.

Emotive Brand:  I’ve been sitting in a group of management consultants for the past two days, and one of the things that we heard loud and clear again and again was that leaders who are all empathy are the worst leaders imaginable—empathy has to be conjoined with performance for any impact to actually occur.

Dennis:  That’s well said. Yesterday at our kickoff, we talked about the issue that we have–and that’s complacency. We are doing so well. Our retention rates are off the hook. I have never seen anything like it. And you could say, “We are on a tear here,” but if you’re being intellectually honest, you say, “Are the gross retention rates, the fact that your customers don’t churn, because you’re that good? Or is it the feature of a complacent industry?”

If you allow the standards of the industry to define your standards, you’re done. And so there needs to be a perpetual engine, an internal drive to lift and change the industry, to overcome inertia. It’s very easy to forgive yourself for mediocre performance when you’re doing good work.

It’s a wonderful blanket of comfort to say, “Yeah, but I’m working on something really important. I helped that nonprofit. I am doing life-changing work here.” It’s a dynamic that we have to manage.

Emotive Brand:  Ann, amidst all the success that Dennis has just outlined, what did you believe was missing from the brand today or the equation that you were bringing to market?

Ann:  I grew up in B2B marketing. My whole career was tech, and speaking tech. I’d read paragraphs and be like, ‘What on earth did I just read? I have no idea what that said. That means absolutely nothing to me.’

So I’ve always believed that this is not B2B. This is B2H. We are selling to human beings. We are selling to people who have emotions. Whether I’m making a software sale, or buying some consulting, I’m going to be emotional about spending that money. I just am. And so I’ve always been one to say, “Can we push the brand, the marketing, the message to an emotional level, because we’re humans.” We’re not selling to computers–yet.

It’s okay to put emotional color and commentary into your message and how you show up, because it’s more enjoyable. You remember when you have fun doing something. We had a wild kickoff yesterday, talking about some pretty serious stuff. We’re asking people to work harder, do more, and at the same time, we’re laughing and making jokes about poop emojis– [laughter]

Dennis:  Sorry.

Ann:  And so we’re being real human beings with emotion to connect. We’re going to do hard stuff, but we’re going to have joy in that. So when we think about what makes a really good company, yeah, you got to have all the tech, but you’ve got to have a powerful story that connects with humans, right there, front and center.

Emotive Brand:  That’s amazing. We just wrote a white paper about the role of emotion, and the research says it’s even more important in B2B. Maybe because the decisions are big and weighty, and there’s more riding on it.

Ann:  Yeah. You could lose your job if you make the wrong decision–put in some really crappy tech and you end up destroying the teams, their momentum, and morale. There’s so many layers of emotion behind these decisions.

Emotive Brand:  Our experience working with many tech companies over many years is that they undervalue the so-called soft skills and soft metrics that actually drive not just decision-making, but the change and transformation necessary for those companies to show up in the world in a really significant way. It’s interesting how much that’s pushed to the margins, especially in the world of B2B, where to Amber’s point, I think it has the most potential to make a difference.

Dennis:  Yes. This is a really good point. I understand where it comes from, especially when you’re talking about a technology company. Listen, the technology companies are by and large product companies. The goal as you scale is to sell the same product over and over. And if you’re not careful, it creates a very inside-out view—you want to stay very close to the true essence of the product, describe that in the best possible way and get everybody to say the same things over and over again. Obviously, that avoids a real understanding of how people buy, so that’s where leadership needs to step in.
Most organizations want to sell based on the value of change, and you can only sell the change if you have stories.

Ann:  It’s always the phrasing of ‘this thing does blah-blah-blah.’ But no. Now you need to fill in the last piece, which is, so I can do what? Who cares? So I can raise more, so then I can deliver more.

Emotive Brand:  As you frame the success of your leadership team, I can’t help but think that on some level, it’s because there is a greater sense of emotional investment, not just in each other, but in the success. It cannot only be a rational desire for success.

Dennis:  I think what all of us have in common is that it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to be working on a project like this. It’s where unbelievable financial success and outcomes and high quality company-building comes together with a genuine world impact. It’s not a unicorn story where we’re changing the world through AI. No, it’s real societal impact. Normally, you have to pick one of the two.

Ann:  Yeah, we chose the hard path. We chose to push ourselves further.

Emotive Brand:  It’s like a reflection of what you want for nonprofits. The bar raising.

Ann:  We’re choosing to raise the bar, and we’re going to take our teams and our customers with us in that choice.

Emotive Brand:  Yeah. I mean I love the proverbial eating your own dog food, but I’m curious, do you see brand as the mechanism to communicate that to your prospects and current customers?

Ann:  It has to. No customer wakes up thinking about your business every day or your product, unless there’s an absolute problem. So your brand is that positive manifestation of the outcomes, and then you’ve got to put it front and center, all the time.

Emotive Brand:  And so is success in your mind if Bloomerang is always connoted with unlocking that sense of abundance and opportunity? Is that the ultimate kind of emotional unlock that you hope to achieve?

Dennis:  I think so, because if we successfully do what you just said, then you basically blast it through all of the excuses not to grow. Now you’re confronted with your own reality–what is driving you? Well hopefully, it’s that passion for the purpose.

 

Our gratitude goes out to Ann and Dennis for taking the time to reflect with us. Keep an eye out for Part 2 of our conversation, focused on the power of partnership. We’ll look into the alchemy of Bloomerang and Emotive Brand’s stellar collaboration.

The Future Belongs to Those Who Make Us Feel

Posted on by Emotive Brand

As technological, political, and societal shifts accelerate at mind-scrambling speed, not all are lost. A new type of leader is rising to meet this unprecedented moment: Visionary reinventors.

While more traditional leaders are disoriented by growing complexity, visionary reinventors maintain clarity, direction, and unstoppable momentum.

They know that as AI ascends, uncertainty abounds, and culture morphs and even fractures, one thing remains constant–the strategic power of human emotion.

By defining, honing, and owning the emotional impact of the brands and organizations they lead, visionary reinventors forge meaningful and enduring connections with customers, investors, and employees.

This emotion-centered approach empowers a fiercely proactive posture. Visionary reinventors don’t wait for the world to be ready.

These modern leaders move people, markets, and industries above features and functionality to the higher ground of belief, a place of new perspective, where change is not feared–but desired, demanded, and inevitable.

They know that innovation alone does not and can not unleash true disruption. Visionary reinventors understand that today, more than ever, disruption unfolds from an emotional epicenter.

Passionate conviction ripples out, igniting the energy of a movement. What once felt like foundational truth is revealed as dogma, suddenly inadequate and unbearable, making way for new possibilities and deeper purpose.

After all, the elevation of human potential is what makes technology truly powerful. And in ever more saturated markets, how products make us feel is what drives their value.

Consider these two examples, each with a functional and emotional premise.

image-functional-and-emotional-premise-examples

Make no mistake–the emotional framing captures truth. It simply translates the functional premise into the human meaning, painting a picture not of a product but of a better future for people.

This is how visionary reinventors communicate. They don’t convince—they inspire belief. They don’t pull people along—they create a strong emotional current that moves people to alignment and action.

Ideas propelled by emotion have a magnetism and magnitude that can’t be neatly contained in any pitch deck. How they make people feel can’t be replicated by competitors. And once unleashed and embraced, they can’t be stopped.

Emotion’s catalytic role in transformative leadership lives at the core of Emotive Brand’s approach. Every day, we have the privilege of partnering with visionary reinventors to reimagine brands, create categories, and ignite change.

We’ve seen it firsthand. The future isn’t built by those who wait for the world to be ready—it’s built by those who make the world feel ready.

The Business of Transformation is Human

Posted on by Amber Johnson

How we feel matters. It determines—and has the power to transform—how we show up in the world and for each other, and in the end, the type of impact we create. We see it in our work with Emotive Brand clients all the time.

The most rewarding part of strategic writing and design is not spotting our work in the wild—perched on grocery store shelves, splashed across websites, or looming large on billboards. It’s having the opportunity to change how people think and feel about their work. You know, that thing they spend most of their limited time on earth doing.

At Emotive, we get to see clients’ faces brighten as we reframe what their company and brand stand for, to illuminate higher purpose and uncover deeper meaning.

When the strategy and creative are right, it’s clear–because sparks of transformation flicker before your eyes. Client teams light up with new ideas to shape all areas of the business. Their energy level and ambition rise. Too many leaders say emotion is intangible. We know it’s palpable.

How people feel matters more than ever, and can tank or propel the success of brands and businesses. Here are three reasons why.

Humans now face constant change and uncertainty.
The seismic jolt of the pandemic keeps reverberating, alongside a push to get people back into the office. There’s the specter of layoffs, political division, and the high cost of living. With technology, epitomized by AI, progressing faster than humans can adapt, upheaval is neverending.

“Change leaves people and organizations feeling confused, vulnerable, and fractured at a time when resilience, cohesion, and collaboration are necessary to perform at the highest levels.”

—Harvard Business Review

 

People are exhausted by constant change. So if you want to spearhead transformation, you have to give them something worth caring about, something they can feel and believe in.

People are fed up with corporate bullshit.
The scourge of shrinkflation. Greenwashing. Planned obsolescence. Employees’ and consumers’ tolerance for being deceived is depleting. That’s why the number of B Corps and Benefit Corporations keeps climbing, along with the popularity of de-influencers and the “right to repair” movement.

“During the challenging year of 2020, only 4.5% of B Corps failed, compared to 12.5% of American businesses overall.”

—Federal Reserve Board

 

Getting ahead of these issues, instead of waiting to be exposed and called out, is not just the right thing to do. By building trust and loyalty with employees and consumers, a proactive approach can save and sustain businesses.

Humans need more than products and paychecks.
Your brand or organization has a golden opportunity to lift people up at a time when all of us are fighting battles that wear us down. Like navigating education and healthcare systems that fall short, being squeezed as part of the sandwich generation, or needing purpose at work but struggling to afford soaring rents as a Gen Zer.

Retention, loyalty, and growth—the aims of transformation programs—are best served through genuine connection and alignment with how people feel and what they care about.

“The human emotions of people working at the centre of a transformation play a pivotal role in its success or failure.”

—EY and Oxford University report

 

At Emotive, we leverage emotion to transform brands and businesses in ways that contribute, even just a little bit, to a better world for people. No mere paycheck can compare.

How Do You Orient Your Team When Everything Seems Uncertain?

Posted on by Jamey Aiken

The old axiom about uncertainty being the only certainty in business seems quaint given today’s headlines: Historically low unemployment. Hiring shortages one day and hiring freezes the next. Creeping inflation. Shaky markets. Unexpected layoffs. It’s whiplash inducing. And it’s the world we live in.

As the economy shifts and shudders, leaders are challenged to make strategic decisions with increasingly limited foresight. And employees? They’re left feeling disoriented, confused, and vulnerable. It’s a recipe for getting stuck. People become less willing to make mistakes, to stick their necks out for each other, or to take the smart risks necessary to adapt to the changing environment. In a time when flexibility and agility are critical qualities to business success, many organizations find themselves in a state of emotional contraction, unable to zag gracefully forward.

The problem is alignment. Conventional objective-setting tools simply fall short as a way to get everyone on the same page because they’re based on past assumptions rather than the competing signals of the future. Plus, they don’t give employees the right context for seeing themselves in that changing future—much less get them excited about it. For companies to navigate wave after wave of uncertainty, you need a more responsive approach:

Understand how your employees are feeling right now.
Are they cynical or optimistic? Are they barely hanging on or feeling enthused and inspired? Do they understand the vision for where the company is going? Or do they need more evidence and explanation? The more understood and recognized people feel in times of uncertainty, the more opportunities you have to deepen trust and allegiance. If you ask, people will let you know how aligned they are with a vision for the future and the strategy to get there. You can identify what dissonances need to be reconciled. Where the sources of doubt take hold. What fears need to be assuaged before they grow out of proportion. Powerful alignment—the kind required to change and adapt with the business environment—is only possible if you have clear insight into the emotional state of your organization at any given moment.

Address employees’ emotions with a clear story of how you plan to move forward.
While emotional understanding can improve conventional objective-setting by creating deeper connections with people, you still need to establish a clear point of view that will guide your organization toward its future. All businesses have multiple critical initiatives going on at any given moment: corporate strategy, product, go-to-market, brand, people & culture. If the narrative about how they connect is haphazard or unintentional—or confused by external market conditions—people will start quilting their own narratives. The result is multiple, often conflicting stories that lead to different end states. In other words, brand confusion. You must cut through the noise of function-specific goals, objectives, KPIs, and OKRs to make business and brand more emotionally relevant to the people in an organization.

Get employees focused on a future that they are empowered to create.
In times of flux, business leaders face pressure to leap into action—to batten down the hatches, set a course, and prepare teams to brace for the worst. But what employees most need today is leadership that inspires people with purpose and meaning amidst uncertainty. If your organization is feeling trapped by mounting performance pressure and shrinking time horizons, you must give every employee the ability to see, believe, and participate in creating a future that they know is not only possible but necessary. Emotion is the accelerant, the enabler, the multiplier, and the amplifier that connects powerful ideas more deeply and resonantly to the people who need them.

To move your business forward and ultimately grow in times of uncertainty, you need better ways to connect to what employees are feeling. And you need to equip them not with a best guess about the future, but rather with a clear picture of how they’ll create their future. When employees feel they have the agency and ability to control their destiny, they lean into the future with an entirely different spirit. This is how you translate all the ambition that underpins your brand into a coherent set of actions that keep an organization aligned, confident, and positive as it speeds into the uncertain future.

Talking Marketing Strategies in a COVID-19 World: Interview with Joshua Schnoll, Marketing VP

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

An Interview with a VP of Marketing: Marketing Strategies, Growth, Innovation, & Teamwork in a COVID-19 World

We sat down with Joshua Schnoll, VP of Marketing at AppDirect, a subscription commerce platform that gives businesses the freedom to grow, to talk about marketing strategies in a COVID-19 world and beyond. Joshua shares insights and thoughts on how strategy has shifted, the implications of this time on growth, brand, innovation, and teamwork, as well as what kind of mindset leaders should be adopting as this crisis continues to unfold.

Obviously, our world has been greatly altered in the past months. How have your marketing strategies changed with it?

Most importantly, we’re hyper-focused on empathy. Empathy for everyone: teams, customers, future customers…even vendors. When we renegotiated with the hotel where we consistently do AppDirect’s Engage event, we approached it as a mutual decision. How can we do the right thing, for each other?

Just because COVID-19 has changed everything doesn’t mean we’ve stopped marketing at AppDirect. We’re just thinking about marketing strategy within the context of the moment. Our subscription commerce platform helps large telcos offer SaaS and IaaS solutions to SMBs. So, we immediately pivoted to create solutions and content for remote work. Zoom might be the application that most associate with remote work, but the reality is much broader. Security, document management…we’re helping firms understand what they needed to make the full transition and providing those solutions to them.

Clearly, our event strategy has also changed. We’re taking a conservative approach. Larger events (around 50 people or more) won’t be back until a vaccine is found, shifting us to a full digital strategy. That means weekly webinars, small virtual executive discussions where non-competing customers can discuss strategies, and virtual customer round tables that host a broader audience.

Do you think these shifts will last long-term? Or prove to be more ephemeral changes?

I was having this debate with some of my friends, asking the question: will the conference world rebound after this threat has passed? I believe that as social creatures our nature is to want to be around other people. When you get out of the office and travel to a different place, even if it’s a few blocks away, it’s enriching in a way that virtual events simply are not. The serendipitous meeting that occurs in the hallway, the session you mistakenly walk into that proves to be amazing, the great food you eat while meeting customers…those are simply impossible to replicate digitally today. As many collaboration tools are out there, collaboration is never more productive than when in person.

That being said, I do think that the number of in-person visits will reduce and 25-30% of what we used to do in-person will be remote. There will be more virtual events, as everyone builds that muscle in a way they hadn’t before.

As a marketer, you’re inherently interested in how your consumers, your people, are connecting with your brand…engaging, buying…how do you think today’s marketers should be thinking about connecting with people/users in relevant, compelling, meaningful ways?

I think it’s important to keep your long-term strategy in mind and not lose that. The context customers engage in has changed radically, and we need to react to that – but with an eye still kept on the strategy. Think holistically about the customer experience. Your company strengths are the same, but customer needs may have shifted and the world in which people live is altered. How can you meet them where they are today? I think patience is big here. This is a scary, uncertain time for people. Be relevant, be empathetic, and be patient. That’s where I’m focused.

Let’s talk digital. As you know well, the business world was already moving there. Will COVID-19 accelerate or transform the shift to digital? In what ways?

It’s funny – we help firms transform their digital commerce and our greatest competition has always been the status quo, not some competitor. In fundamentally changing your business, shifting to subscriptions, and enabling digital solutions, fear and risk are often what hold businesses back. And COVID is like a wrecking ball to the status quo. Things we once considered unimaginable are the current reality. We’re seeing a number of clients that had slow-rolled digital transformation efforts now fast-tracking them, if they have the resources. I’d say it helps to be partly down the road. Take K-12 education. If a school district hasn’t even thought about what learning platform they’d invest in and now they have to transition to fully digital, that’s going to be difficult. The more work you’ve done, the easier this is.

A lot of businesses who were previously thinking in terms of growth are now thinking about security, stability, staying afloat…do you think it’s possible to drive growth during this time? How?

It really gets back to the hierarchy of needs. For firms that are suffering devastation from an immediate shutdown of their sector, I’m not sure they can think much about growth. Other sectors are different. I think we all need to have patience for growth. Don’t lose those growth ambitions, but be patient.

How does brand play a role? Do you see the role or importance of brand shifting as well?

Like we’ve discussed, this is bringing long-term implications for marketing, messaging, sales…. And brand must lead and play a role. Ask: how does the brand want to show up in the world? And use this strategy to guide how to move forward. Letting brand lead right now is really important. It’s not necessarily about optimizing for revenue, it’s about optimizing for a long-term relationship… and if you focus on making the brand relevant in a new context, and act appropriately, you’ll reap the benefits.

Interestingly, with constraints often comes newfound innovation… Do you see your business, and others around you, adopting more creative, resourceful, or innovative strategies?

AppDirect was founded in 2009, at the height of the Great Recession. Sticking with the status quo never works. This is a time to be more creative and resourceful. Think of ideas like “Goat-to-Meeting” – the animal sanctuary that started offering virtual tours and goat or llama cameos for company or school virtual meetings – that would have never been invented in a pre-COVID world. They’re finding new ways to connect with people and keep their not-for-profit farm going. Just the other day, our team was planning on how we can meaningfully connect with customers over a nice dinner. We’re looking at how to get meals and wine delivered to make a virtual dinner session feel real and special.

What mindset should a VP of Marketing be taking on during this time? What kind of thinking is working for you? What kind of thinking is working against you?

The productive mindset right now is a creative, strategic mindset. And I think, importantly, an optimistic and hopeful mindset. I don’t think this is the time for pessimism. It’s about the art of the possible. When you adopt a mindset of possibility, things get interesting and innovative. COVID has erased the separation between work and home, work selves and personal selves. And there’s something in embracing that informalness, that connection, that authenticity. And lastly, I think gratefulness for what we do have. For me, a great team of people. A company that is able to weather things. Health. Family.

How are you keeping morale up amongst your team and employee base?

We’ve gone through phases at AppDirect. When we first shifted to remote, we were really focused on making sure everyone had what they needed and were safe. We ran daily team stand-ups, we checked in regularly, we over-communicated on purpose. Once people started to realize that we were in this for the long haul, our approach shifted. It was clear that the most valuable commodity to our employees was their time. So to keep morale high, we enabled people to control their own time. We reduced the number of check-ins and increased flexibility so that people could have more time with kids and significant others. At the same time, we’ve been prioritizing team recognition. Acknowledging and celebrating the great effort everyone is making with small rewards like care packages for home.

If you need help adapting your marketing strategies, your brand, business, or culture during this time please reach out.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency based in San Fransisco, California.

Transforming Business Through Empathy

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Empathy and Business? Some say no, we say yes.

There are many factors that add meaning and purpose to a brand, and they all stem from a single source: empathy.

Empathy is the ability to walk in another person’s shoes. That is, to see and experience the world from a perspective different from your own.

Here we explore how empathy plays a vital role in shifting brands from a bland and vulnerable position to one that is robust in meaning and purpose.

Empathy as a driver of brand strategy

When you’re close-in to a business’s daily operations it’s hard to see how your brand is perceived by the people you serve, both as customers and employees. To create a meaningful and purposeful dimension for your brand requires you to step out of your own perceptions of what’s good and valuable about your brand. It forces you to look at your brand – and everything it represents – through the lens of human needs, values, and aspirations. Through an empathetic approach, it’s easier to see the meaningful outcomes people experience based on their interactions with your brand. As such, empathy leads you to the deep-rooted, emotional connections that can be forged to create strong and enduring bonds. You won’t reach this point without allowing yourself to take the necessary steps back to the most common and fundamental needs, values and aspirations of humanity.

Empathy as a cultural ethos

Your business is a set of policies and procedures that have been conceived and designed to produce desired metrics (e.g. productivity, efficiency, profitability). Empathy can be used to elevate how well these functions not only produce the desired metrics, but do so in a way that aligns to the needs, values, and aspirations of the people involved. Empathy helps you create a more human-centric culture, by encouraging you to rethink and reconfigure the nature of your policies and procedures. As such, empathy helps you better engage and motivate employees. This means they’ll be far more likely to listen to, appreciate, and follow your leadership.

Empathy as an engine of innovation

If your business, like many, is struggling with hyper-competition and increasing product commoditization, innovation will be a primary focus. Nothing inspires innovation better than empathy. By encouraging your development people to “walk in your customer’s shoes”, either literally or through sensed experience, you bring them closer to what’s really important and valuable to the market. An empathetic attitude sheds new light on what’s needed now and how to best address that need or opportunity.

Empathy as a leadership practice

We’re all born empathetic. As babies we all had the capacity to perceive how others were feeling and what they were experiencing. Sadly, over time, we lose this skill. However, it is remarkably easy to revive and put to good use. Mindful leadership is the goal. All it requires is that you adapt your leadership presentation and style based on an understanding of your follower’s needs, values, and aspirations. You don’t necessarily change your management objectives, you simply radically improve your leadership performance by forging more meaningful connections with your followers.

If you are looking into the future, looking for new ways to transform your business, and have questions about your brand’s ability to navigate the rough seas ahead, you’ll want to carefully consider your own, and your organization’s, capacity for empathy. The strongest businesses going forward will be known for how their meaning and purpose-led behavior enhances both individual and collective well-being. They only reach this strong position by embracing empathy every step of the way.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.
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Cultivating Empathy: Essential in Uncertain Times

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Empathy in Uncertain Times

These days, everything feels unsettled. We’ve watched travel discontinue, lively offices expeditiously shift to remote work, restaurants and small businesses shut their doors, cities still and quiet, as the landscape of our global economy shifts on a daily basis. Recognition that this COVID-19 state of living, working, and doing business will not be ephemeral is settling in. We’re seeing first hand as our clients are forced to quickly adapt—make swift decisions, innovate new solutions, and reimagine the way they’ve always done business.

It’s clear that the weight communications hold has heavied. Executives are reaching out to their employees, eager to instill both calm and action. Businesses are connecting with stakeholders aiming to secure trust. Brands are reaching out to customers, motivated to emotionally resonate with consumers’ current state of mind. These connections, big and small, have never been more critical. Empathy has never been more essential.

Getting Closer in a Socially Distanced World

Empathy is an innate human skill that is available to each and every one of us. As such, it is a talent that stands ready to be reanimated through leadership, organizational behavior, and brand behavior.

As your brand aims to re-create a collective sense of what truly matters to people, and responds accordingly, it has the opportunity to take on a new and more emotionally valuable role in people’s lives. Employees will feel closer to your organization if they feel it is working hard in favor of their interests. Customers will feel a sense of kinship if they feel your brand truly understands them. Now is the time to think about how the experience of your organization’s products, marketing, and support all confirm its commitment to putting people first. How do you ensure that people walk away from every communication feeling they’ve been listened to, that their needs (both emotional and rational) have been better met, and their fears have been quieted? That every connection means one step closer together?

Redefining Empathy

At Emotive Brand, we see empathy as something a bit more than simply “sharing someone else’s feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in their situation.” (the dictionary definition). To us, it’s more powerful than both sympathy and compassion combined. Empathy is two-fold: both understanding and action. It’s the ability to truly feel and understand someone else’s situation—their emotional state of mind, their needs, desires, and fears. To use that empathetic understanding and take action that is in tune with the person and their state—ultimately improving it.

It’s no secret that business has never been strong on empathy. The closest it usually comes is in consumer research, but that science often leads to inhuman numerical analyses of the human psyche. People are notorious for telling researchers what they want to hear and are often unable to articulate what they really want or need.

Empathetic understanding is not necessarily an empirical process. Rather it is an experiential one leading to deep insights and a profound understanding and appreciation of the lives of others. It is a way to feel the hopes, dreams, fears, and concerns of the people your business seeks to impact. It is a way to vicariously experience what they see and feel when they use your products, experience your marketing, and deal with your people. This informs you of how you can retune and refine what your business does in ways that better reflect the insights you’ve gained through empathetic understanding. This also leads you to new ways of doing business that is more aligned with today’s world and more resonant with where people are today.

It’s Time to Rediscover Your Innate Empathy Skills

The smallest children show empathy for others, but we tend to lose this skill as we enter the mainstream of life. We can, however, reawaken this valuable talent and put it to good use.

The first step is to turn up the dial of two other innate traits: curiosity and caring. Think of the people who your brand impacts as people you know, love, and treasure. Try to imagine the perspective they have on what’s happening, the attitudes and beliefs that drive their behaviors, and the emotional nature of their new daily realities. Give them permission to have values and needs other than your own. Don’t ascribe right and wrong, rather strive to find out more about what drives them, what fulfills them, and what brings them greater peace of mind.

Empathy Has Rewards

For leaders today, empathy might be your most powerful tool. By better understanding what makes followers tick, empathetic leaders can find ways to make their new ideas, messages, strategies, and dreams more relevant and emotionally important. This shifts the response from followers, not only in aligning them to your vision, but also energizing them to work better together, develop new ideas, and strive for the highest goals.

The rewards multiply for an organization in which empathy is a core practice today. More resonance, greater impact. More appealing, relevant, and differentiated products. More compelling, activating, and loyalty-building marketing. More innovation, collaboration, and spirit flowing within the organization and greater stability to underpin your business.

If you want help embedding empathy into your executive and company communications during this time, please reach out.

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

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.

How to Grow and Maximize Employee Engagement

Posted on by Sarah Herold

Employee Engagement Is More Than an HR Benefit

Since Gallup began tracking employee engagement in 2000, employee engagement averages haven’t budged. A recent Gallup survey shows that indeed, work could be more fulfilling for most Americans. The percentage of U.S. workers whom Gallup considers “engaged” in their jobs averaged 34.1% in March.

As it stands today, over two-thirds of the American workforce is disengaged at work, and it appears that no amount of HR benefit, wellness programs, or incentives can make a dent in this number.

So how does an organization build a culture of happy, engaged employees?

Instead of searching for the right engagement survey or the right communication tool, an organization must instead focus on making the work itself deeply meaningful to each employee.

An organization must talk less about engagement, and focus more on purpose.

You might be wondering, “How can a for-profit organization offer meaningful work without a cause?” Let me illustrate by using myself as an example:

I feel the greatest sense of purpose when I am able to understand the needs of individuals and design solutions and services for them. I’m not changing the world or disrupting an industry. Even the people who are need something to ground them day-to-day. For me, addressing the needs of people is at the heart of productive, successful work. I thrive when I can generate harmony and progress for everyone.

My job as an account strategist allows me to use these very skills that give me the most satisfaction – empathy, intuition, and perception. I like going to work every day because I’m doing something that’s inherently meaningful to me – establishing personal connections and seeing my efforts come to fruition.

According to Gallup, employees who use their strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged than those who do not.

When we know what motivates us we can then organize our assignments to excite, energize, and fulfill us every day. What could each of us start doing today to create a better sense of purpose and meaning in our day-to-day work?

Foster Relationships

Purpose comes down to relationships. Strong connections with customers or colleagues give us fulfillment in our work. Even if we are doing the most amazing work, we won’t feel fulfilled at the end of the day if we don’t feel a strong connection to people.

Personal Growth

When we stretch ourselves beyond whom we think we are and what we think we are capable of, we feel tremendous satisfaction and purpose. It’s important to seek out opportunities to learn and grow.

It’s the Little Things that Count

What matters are the little things we do every day. When we make a difference for someone else – open a door of opportunity, make something easier, or even elicit a smile – it is incredibly gratifying.

When an organization builds their culture and talent strategy around purpose, employee engagement rises. People are motivated, have greater tenure, and are more likely to promote their company as a good place to work. They’ll show up to work differently. They build meaningful relationships. They work to be challenged and grow professionally. And they work to bring out the best in everyone around them.

An engaged workforce positions your business to grow and sets your brand apart as meaningful. It’s a win-win-win.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

New Opportunities for Insurance Brands Today: Disruption Plus Meaning

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

The Force of Digital for Insurance Brands Today

According to Network World, we touch our phones an average of 2,617 times a day. There is no underestimating the role of digital today. And with the proliferation of technology, consumers have come to expect a better insurance experience – one that is more meaningful, consistent, and trustworthy.

Right now, trust is low and insurers are struggling to move away from the “unfair,” “horrible,” and “outdated” reputation that surrounds most providers today. This means not only embracing new, innovative tech, but using digital to power personalization, build deeper levels of empathy, and create more meaningful and differentiated experiences for consumers.

Lack of Satisfaction Opens New Doors

New ways of buying insurance are appearing in the marketplace. According to Fast Company, 70% of consumers expect a self-service option for handling commercial questions and complaints. 64% of millennials expect self-service. In an HBR global survey, more than 65% of customers said they would think seriously about buying insurance products from non-insurers. More specifically, 23% said they would buy insurance from Google or Amazon-like online providers.

By 2020, our workplaces will include individuals spanning five generation. This means one-size-fits-all solutions should be going extinct. Insurethebox is one company leading the telematics trend. The brand gathers driving behavior data and rewards drivers for safe driving. These kinds of trades – consumer information for the chance of lower costs – are becoming more commonplace and are likely to enter the healthcare industry soon. New models like “pay as you go” are gaining popularity as well.

Insurance Brands: Building Better Experiences

The research points to the same underlying fact: people are looking for something more. While many insurance companies are focused on offering lower costs as a means of differentiation, research has shown that people are actually willing to pay even more for insurance if it means getting better coverage, better experiences, better advice, transparent and simple communications, and products that are customized to their unique needs.

This is a huge opportunity for those insurance brands that can get the customer experience right. Here’s how.

1. Empathy

Because insurance companies often interact with customers during emotionally-charged events, stress, anxiety, and uncertainty are common feelings surrounding brand interactions. This creates higher stakes for brands looking to connect with their customers in the right ways. An empathetic approach is always best. Great benefits help show you really care. So does consistent, warm, and responsive service. As technology advances, staying human amidst a digital world becomes even more important. Cold, distant insurance companies looking to earn customer loyalty have no place in an industry that demands high emotional intelligence and consistent, trust-provoking behaviors to succeed.

2. Personalization

Personalization was the buzz of 2016 – and is still the buzz. 73% of global marketers today believe they must deliver a personalized experience to be successful. They aren’t wrong, and the insurance industry is no exception. Hyper-personalization may be the key to success. People are demanding care, assurance, and insurance that is more customized to their individual needs than ever before. Whether it’s offering a fuller range of pricing, products, and services or using data or new tech to drive personalization, if you want to compete, you need to figure out new ways to better tailor your offerings and experiences to the people who matter to your business.

3. Meaningful Experiences

Since customers must engage and interact with insurance companies at several touchpoints along their customer journey (some expected and some unexpected), there are many moments that can go wrong. There are also many moments that can go right. Looking at the customer journey as a whole is integral for any insurance company looking to create a meaningful experience. It’s not just about how one person interacts with a customer on the phone, but how the customer feels the first time they visit your site, log in to your online portal, receive their first bill, decide to sign you up for their business, etc. Mapping customer journeys can help identify important opportunities for more meaningful connections. Strategic mapping can also make sure you are living up to what you promise your customers at every moment.

Seizing the Opportunity

Now more than ever, insurance companies have an opportunity to take their business strategy and digital strategy and map these closely to their brand strategy. Recently, we helped position a company in the insurance industry. When our client gained clear alignment around the experiences they wanted to offer, it ensured that they were promising the right thing to the right people and delivering on that promise each and every day. For those insurance companies that can get this right, the benefits are endless. You will be able to better connect in meaningful ways that will enable both your business and your consumers to thrive.

Reach out to learn more about our client work and how we can help situate your business for success.

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