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Tag: High-Growth

The Value of Investing in Your Brand to Drive Long-Term Growth


Posted on by Chris Ames

Attention Span Is Dead, Long Live Attention Span

For years, we’ve been told that our attention spans are shrinking. There is so much information, so many channels and devices vying for our attention, that we couldn’t possibly focus on anything for too long. Combine that with economic pressures, shareholder expectations, and the race to keep up in the digital age, and you get something called short-termism.

Fueled by our fixation on metrics, short-termism is a concentration on quick wins to move the needle. It posits an immediate, attention-grabbing impact over strategically driven, brand-building initiatives that have a higher long-term ROI.

Shorterm-ism Is Shortsighted

This type of thinking is contagious because for those who are tasked with moving the needle – whether it’s sales, marketing, or social media analytics – the pressure to demonstrate an uptick in growth is relentless. While you may signal towards growth in the short-term, this strategy erodes the underlying brand equity and robs you of a chance at something sustainable.

Beyond being unsustainable, it sets up a false dichotomy – that short-term growth and long-term brand building are mutually exclusive ideas. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Investing in your brand is the easiest way to drive – and most importantly, maintain – growth.

Play the Long Game

McKinsey’s research covered more than 600 large and mid-sized publicly listed companies in the U.S. over the preceding 15 years. They found that firms with long-term strategies had 47% more top-line growth than other companies, 36% higher earnings, and added an average market capitalization of $8.67 billion.

Similarly, a U.K. study by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), which analyzed 500 effectiveness case studies over 20 years, showed that long-term campaigns were three times more efficient than short-term campaigns, three times more likely to drive market-share improvement, and 60% more likely to deliver profit improvement.

Brand Building Is Worth the Burn

So, if long-term brand building is much more conducive to growth, why do so many people fall for the trap of short-termism? Because brand building is difficult. We demand everything from brands. Consider this excerpt from Barbara E. Kahn’s book Global Brand Power:

“A brand must be elastic enough to allow for reasonable category and product-line extensions, flexible enough to change with dynamic market conditions, consistent enough so that consumers who travel physically or virtually won’t be confused, and focused enough to provide clear differentiation from the competition. Strong brands are more than globally recognizable; they are critical assets that can make a significant contribution to your company’s bottom line.”

That’s a tall order, but it’s a necessary one if you truly want to grow. A focus on long-term brand building doesn’t mean you can’t have quick wins. Sometimes, quick wins are necessary to boost morale or capitalize on a time-sensitive trend. It just means that each endeavor needs to ladder up to larger brand strategy.

In a conversation on brand building, Angela Richards, KFC’s Group Marketing Director, discussed the importance of creating lasting emotional connections, even when the immediate goal might be a short-term tactical one.

“We have a really big innovation funnel and a really strong retail calendar, but for us more recently, that functional retail calendar has morphed so the brand directs the retail calendar – and the brand’s job is to create that emotional connection,” she said. “It’s okay now to say we are less reliant on new product development to drive those sales, because that emotional connection of the brand leading the retail calendar is driving core sales and core growth.”

The Magical 60:40 Ratio

The big challenge for CEOs and CMOs is finding the perfect balance between the short and long-term. Unsurprisingly, the aforementioned IPA study highlighted the fact that long-term brand building campaigns and short-term activation campaigns worked best in synergy. Strong brands had better results from their activations channels and strong activations, in turn, drove more sales for the brand. On average, they found that “effectiveness seems to be optimized when around 60% of the communications budget is devoted to brand building, and around 40% to activation.”

Whether it’s the mad rush to keep pace with the digital era, the lure of immediate ROI, or simply a lack of education around the importance of brand building, many companies are sacrificing an enduring market share for quick wins. As McKinsey and IPA have demonstrated, correcting this balance is essential if you want your growth to last.

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

Brand Growth in a Saturated, Competitive Market: Yes, It’s Possible

Posted on by Shannon Caulfield

Brand Growth Despite Growing Competition

Brands saturate our world. They are all looking to innovate faster, compete harder, and disrupt bigger. Why? Competition is tough – from both emerging and established brands. This forces companies to always be on their toes.

But competition isn’t always a bad thing.

Competition is what gives brands the motivation to do better and be better. If your market is crowded, it doesn’t mean your employees must work 18-hour days or that you have to outspend on advertising. Instead, what you really need to do is work smarter.

Here are some ways you can grow your brand even when you’re not the only player on the field.

 

Growing Awareness in a New Category: Make Competitors Your Allies

It might sound destructive, but partnering with competitors can actually benefit your brand – if you do it right. This is an especially good tactic when you compete in a new category. And you’ll likely find willing partners. In fact, 74% of companies are open to supporting opponents as a means for building brand or category awareness. Take kombucha, the drink of choice for Silicon Valley and hipsters everywhere. During the category’s early stages, the awareness rate was only 20%. Companies such as Health-Ade and KeVita went to tea festivals together and handed out samples of their products to spark buzz around the fermented drink. They came together with a shared mission of raising awareness and realized they could make a bigger impact together than separately. In turn, each brand was able to grow over time as the category grew into one of high demand.

Growing into New Segments and Channels: Take a Leap into Something New

If you aren’t ready to join forces with the competition, a co-branding partnership may be the perfect way to step out of your category’s predefined box. American Express and Foursquare, both players in the payments industry, leveraged each other’s reach to solve a unique motivation. American Express used Foursquare’s platform to offer discounts to their cardholders, reach a younger, tech-centric audience, and expand their merchant network. Foursquare leveraged the Amex partnership to push more users to shop via their phones, increasing user traffic. This cooperation gave each brand the data to reach new market segments, expand into new channels and, ultimately, elevated each brand’s position.

Growing Brand Loyalty: More Rewards, More Brand Love

Financial success does not equate to long-term loyalty. The modern-day consumer demands that brands deliver personalized experiences. Loyalty programs, in particular, connect brands with consumers and gives them a reason to stay. When AAA entered the market, for example, their primary value was emergency assistance. While this offering has been well received in the market, AAA established an even greater reason for their users to continue using the platform by offering third-party discounts and rewards. That value goes well-beyond a jump start.

Think Creatively to Grow

If you feel the only way you can compete is with expensive ads and promotions, think again. It takes a little creativity and effort to try unconventional tactics but, we promise, it will be worth it. And we’re happy to help.

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

Is an Agile Strategy the Right Approach for Brand Strategy?

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Dynamic Times Require Agile Strategy

We have seen a a large rise of requests for our proprietary agile strategy methodology for brand strategy. More than ever, sudden market changes, disruptive business models, rapid-paced technology, and ever-evolving competition demand agility. As customers change, new competition enters and new categories emerge, so businesses must be able to flex and adapt with the times.

Without Agility, Less Impact

Agility is becoming more and more of an expectation. And being agile doesn’t mean being hasty or impulsive. In fact, it’s the opposite. Agile strategy should help businesses and brands make better, smarter decisions faster and enable teams to get to the heart of key business problems, prioritize goals, and stay true to their purpose.

High-growth companies who aren’t able to move fast and work in sprints face potential complications. Projects that get stalled lose impact. Slow deliberation leads to decision-paralysis and can deter leaders who simply need to put a stake in the ground and stick to it. And doing incremental parts of a strategy, over a long period of time, can render that strategy irrelevant by the time it’s actually brought to life. Agile strategy is all about quickly getting to the heart of the problem at hand, and creating smart, efficient, maximum-impact solutions.

Accelerating into Brand Strategy

High-growth companies need new ways to adapt their business, product, culture, and brand with an agile approach to brand strategy.

An Agile Approach to Brand Strategy

1. A Sprint Mindset

Framing brand strategy as a sprint allows a business to be more agile and able to effectively flex and adapt. There is great value in condensing what normally would occur over weeks or months into a single day or series of days. A sprint structure demands that everyone really focus and give their full attention. It allows people to really dive in and not be distracted.  Even if the strategy occurs over a longer period of time and takes multiple sprints, developing a sprint mindset can help people be more dedicated, focused, and productive.

2. Flexibility

Digital disruption and the fast pace of markets today requires a brand strategy that can flow and flex with change. An agile brand can’t be thought of as a logo or image – because it isn’t. It’s a system. It’s a way of living for your business and should be felt, understood, and brought to life by every member of the team. In order to be able to intelligently and powerfully adapt and flex, the strategy must be have a clear, directed brand purpose that allows for flexibility without losing clarity.

3. Collaboration

Agile brand strategy hinges on collaboration. And this often requires a mindset shift. People have to hold confidence in the idea that working together helps create better solutions faster. It requires being open, listening to new perspectives, taking outside advice, and coming together to be more imaginative, innovative, and creative in order to help your brand and business stand out in a competitive landscape.

Fast Forward

Last year, our agency honed in on how to solve our clients’ more pressing business challenges via an agile approach. We developed the Fast Forward program to empower learning and accelerate implementation – a much better approach for high-growth companies.

We also embraced the practice of working in sprints, both strategically and creatively. We found it encouraged a higher level of collaboration with our clients and enabled us to meet the many demands of leadership teams managing high-growth companies. We believe sustainable growth depends on this type of agile brand strategy. High-growth companies looking to succeed in 2017 will have to evaluate and learn to embrace agility, or face irrelevancy.

Visit our case studies to see how we put Fast Forward to work.

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

Your Startup’s Growth Strategy Starts with Brand Strategy

Posted on by Carol Emert

You’re running a startup. When should you invest in brand strategy?

Put another way, when do you need to grow? When do you need to acquire new customers, build your culture and recruit the right people?

For a startup whose primary job is growth, brand strategy can be a critical tool. So the answer to the question about when you need brand strategy is: Not at the very beginning, but probably earlier than you think.

We recently branded a stealth-mode software startup whose CEO is a highly successful serial entrepreneur. He has worked with Emotive Brand several times. This time, he brought us in earlier than ever, because he has seen how brand strategy can power growth.

When his startup leaves stealth mode and launches into growth mode, as it is poised to do, it will be powered by the right customer insights, the right value proposition and the right messaging to succeed.

Too Early v. Too Late

That doesn’t mean you need brand strategy on Day One. Startups are right to get their products built and tested before worrying about anything else. If you don’t have a viable product, you have nothing to grow a brand or a company on. So early on, tunnel vision is good.

The next stage, the growth stage, is where brand strategy can have meaningful impact. Brand strategy can power your growth strategy by identifying who your best customers are and clarifying what you do better than anyone else to address the pain points they face every day.

Brand strategy defines your company’s unique brand experience, the voice with which you will speak to the marketplace and the messaging that will get you leads with the right people.

If your brand isn’t clear, your growth strategy will have a tough time defining both long-term goals and the short-term tactics for getting there.

Avoid Stalling Growth Before It Starts

We worked with a startup client a couple of years ago in exactly this position. The company had a great team and top-notch venture backing. It enjoyed a successful run with its initial friends-and-family customer set – but when the time came to implement its growth strategy, it hit a wall.

The company was trying to build its business with a tech-heavy product story rather than directly addressing the challenges it solved for its customers. Its venture firm sent the startup to us.

Three months after engaging Emotive Brand, the startup was ready to relaunch with a fresh story – and quickly started hitting its goals. The same startup has engaged us on a number of projects since, to keep its story relevant amid shifts in its competitive landscape.

As your startup prepares for growth mode, your team will be growing too. Brand strategy that clarifies who you are and what you believe can help internally as well as externally, helping you recruit the right people and build a strong internal culture.

Whether your startup is poised to grow internally, externally or both, brand strategy can make your growth strategy smarter, clearer and more successful.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy firm working with high-growth B2B companies.

Consider This Before Developing Your Go-To-Market Strategy

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Preparing to Develop Go-To-Market Strategy

Developing a strong go-to-market strategy (GTM) is hard to get right – especially for any startup in high-growth mode. The right GTM requires bringing together all of the strategic assets that address your business and growth strategy: sales, marketing, product, channel, brand, and vision. The benefits of developing this kind of strategy are huge, but a lot of pieces have to come together in order to properly prepare and ready your organization for investing in it.

Bringing in experts to help create a GTM strategy brings both a strategic and a valuable outside perspective to the table. It can also help evaluate if you have all the necessary strategic components in place. And also extremely important, that those components are tightly aligned to each other, laddering up to your business goals and objectives.

Evaluating Required Critical Components for your Go-To-Market Strategy

Most times, when a company looks to develop a go-to-market strategy they are pressed for time and looking to execute now. They don’t want to take any detours to evaluate readiness. But this kind of evaluation is a critical step — one that separates a winning GTM from one that falls short.

Developing a GTM strategy requires an evaluation of readiness of the following strategic assets:

1. Category:

What category are you in? Are you developing a new one?

2. Customers:

Who are you selling to? Who is your target customer? What markets are you considering?

3. Positioning:

What unique value do you offer in relation to your competitors?

4. Brand Promise:

Why does your brand matter?

5. Messaging:

Does what you are saying to each target audience to ensure your brand resonates and connects to the business problems they are seeking to resolve?

6. Narrative:

Do you have a strong story that articulates what you do, how you do it, why you matter, and what people can expect from you in the future?

7. Channels:

Where do your target customers buy? Where will you promote your products?

8. Product Offering:

What product/service are you selling? And what unique value do you offer to each target customer?

9. Pricing:

What is your pricing structure? Are you offering a SaaS model? Do you price differently for different customer types?

Methodically evaluating each component of a successful go-to-market strategy is hard. It is often an emotional process. Leadership teams feel like they’ve addressed these many times. From their perspective, all the elements are interconnected and built upon each other. But taking the time to address each one singularly and allowing outside help to bring them together more cohesively can deliver even greater value and stronger ROI, and actually save time.

Getting it Right

Timing is everything. The biggest mistake we see startups making when they go to develop a GTM strategy is two-fold:

  1. Not having all strategic components articulated and strategically aligned
  2. Not allowing enough time to develop a strong GTM strategy that ladders up to your growth and business strategy

Whether you’re developing a go-to-market strategy internally or working with outside help, allow enough time to systematically and methodically go through the process of evaluating each of the components described above. Evaluate them with an open mindset. More likely than not, some of those components might need adjustments and tweaking. Each are critical individually and work even harder for you as a set. They are hard to get right. And it does take time. But when they are truly working together, you are really ready to develop a rock solid and winning GTM.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco strategy and design agency.

For further ready, try: https://www.emotivebrand.com/demand-generation/