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Who Thrives at a Brand Strategy and Design Agency?

Posted on by Chris Ames

What type of person thrives at a brand strategy and design agency? Looking around our office, we have people from advertising, journalism, psychology, economics, sociology, sales, graphic design, media – and like any successful venture, a few restless English majors.

Is there a through-line? In our line of work, we privilege business acumen, technical fluency, big idea thinking, writing prowess, collaborative mindsets, passion, curiosity, empathy, and an obsession for the details. We get just as excited by an experiential brand launch as an exquisitely organized messaging matrix.

With our clients, we identify the full range of levers – rational and emotional, strategic and aesthetic – to create an impact across business, brand, and culture. It’s a holistic approach to solving business challenges that requires a little bit of everything.

In a roundtable interview with the Emotive Brand team, we’re attempting to connect the dots by asking: What initially drew you to branding? And what does your unique background bring to the table?

Kyla Grant, Director of Operations

To be perfectly honest, when I started with Emotive Brand, I had no idea what branding meant. I thought I knew, but little did I understand that what I had in my mind was the tip of the iceberg, the small sliver of what branding meant. It’s so much more than the superficial logo, it’s the heart and soul of what a company is. My background is pretty varied, but my strength lies is operationalizing things, in figuring out how to bring an idea, a concept, a strategy to life. My mind lives in the gaps of understanding that I look to fill in order to bring everyone along, without any missteps.

Carol Emert, Strategist

I’m naturally into meaning-making through insight, and branding lets me make a living at what would otherwise be a very passionate avocation. Brands sit at the very root of meaning for organizations, which means that they are absolutely critical for organizational well-being. Just as individual people seek meaning in our personal lives, it’s important for both organizations and for the people who are passionate about them to understand the organization’s meaning and its purpose. Then we can really live it.

Bella Banbury, Founding Partner

I started my career in sports marketing and was always fascinated by which brands were attracted to a specific athlete or sport, and those that were successful in lodging their brand into our hearts and minds often without us even knowing it. I loved brands that were creative and clever in their approach. Fast forward to today, we now sit on the front end of crafting those strategies. As an aside, I don’t think there is anything specific about my background that influences our work other than I am curious about how brands influence and shape our culture. I’ve always worked on the agency side and I never ever take clients for granted or forget this is a service industry.

Robert Saywitz, Design Director

I would say that branding sort of found me rather than me searching it out. When I was in art school, “branding” wasn’t the ubiquitous term it is today, and I found myself in a Visual Identity course where we were tasked with creating brand identity systems, a logo being at the center of it all. My background in drawing and painting, especially my sense of craft – draftsmanship, attention to detail, and visual storytelling – suddenly brought my design ability, and design thinking, to a higher and ultimately much more personal level when faced with the challenges of creating logos and expanding their story into a brand landscape. It wasn’t until working in New York did all of this crystalize into the more tangible world of branding but similar to my first epiphany in school, everything still begins with crafting an iconic logo and expands outward from there.

Jon Schleuning, Strategist

I grew up in Oregon and ran cross-country in high school. The early Nike campaigns struck a chord. There is no finish line. The sense of being part of something instead of just buying a shoe.

Thomas Hutchings, Creative Director

I am actually interested in the subversive side of what branding is: mass consumerism, the ability to use subliminal tactics to make people buy or feel something or just to provoke a reaction. To me, I actually have an ability to manipulate through something not everyone can do. I think in the early days, I was always fascinated by advertising, then somewhere along the way, I learned that I can use design with branding to make a more prolonged effect. Advertising is the 100m sprint, branding is a marathon. I may not always know what is right for the greater design world, but I know what’s right for the brand or understand it as a personality to know what’s right.

Chris Ames, Creative Strategist

I think that thing that I both love and hate about branding is the power of narrative to inform, sway, misdirect, or charm. Those who study the Humanities are often told that their skills will not translate to a “real job” after college. And then when you enter the job market, you find that most companies biggest problems – building a healthy and inclusive culture, telling a cohesive story, articulating their purpose, cutting through the noise – are humanistic disciplines. I try to bring a sense of empathy to this process and constantly remind myself that the best branding puts real people at the center, not glorified technology or embarrassing jargon.

The Only Prerequisite Is Curiosity

Regardless of background, it seems the unifying principle of brand strategy and design is a deep curiosity for how things look, feel, and influence the world around us. At its best, branding is an investigation into meaning. It’s engaging with the unseen and overlooked aspects of business, products, and experience. If you’re interested creative problem-solving, design-thinking, or the intricacies of brand strategy, don’t hesitate to contact Founding Partner Tracy Lloyd.

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

Culture Is Everything: A Roundtable with Emotive Brand

Posted on by Chris Ames

Atmosphere. Vibe. Energy. Mood. That certain je ne sais quoi. It’s often difficult to describe a company’s culture, but you can feel it the second you walk in the door. Rajeev Bhardwaj described work culture as “an intangible ecosystem that makes some places great to work and other places toxic.” BambooHR says it’s “like a set of miniature societies within a larger society, and their cultures are expressions of the work they perform, the values they adopt, and the collective behaviors of the people who work for them.”

Culture can bring strategy to life, ignite business success, and contribute to some truly raucous holiday parties. The wonderful and terrifying thing about culture is that you can’t really control it. Executives can shape, model, or guide behavior, but true culture is defined from the employee out. Today, we’re having a roundtable discussion about culture: its definition, its importance, and its influence on our work.

Bella Banbury, Founding Partner

I think about culture as the connective tissue that keeps employees connected to each other and their work. It is vital. Nothing functions well without it, people start pulling in different directions, pain points are elevated, people start focusing on the wrong things and losing sight of what matters. Everyone loses. Culture is unique to the set of people involved and the environment you work in. You have to recognize that people are different, need different things, perform in different ways, contribute in different ways. Let it grow and change based on the unique set of circumstances that are present. Make time for it. Water it.

Saja Chodosh, Strategist

I think of work culture as the personality of a workplace. When you bring a bunch of diverse, unique people together to work around common goals – what bubbles up? How does “the team” operate, think, work, and live as one? Work culture means a lot to me. I want to work for a company where I feel like who I am meshes with and drives the greater personality, goals, and aspirations of the company as a whole. I think culture is influenced by small behaviors, ways of interaction, little moments, that add up to something big. The culture at Emotive Brand is vivacious, always moving, passionate, bold. We are a team that blends hard work, strong viewpoints, and personal integrity with a sense of ever-flowing empathy, generosity, and collaboration. The occasional tequila bonding, too.

Keyoni Scott, Designer

Culture is incredibly important because I think it’s the lifeline you look to when things are stressful. When things are intense, culture is a reminder of why you’re working so hard. It can uplift your day and keep you focused. I’ve never been in a cubicle job, thankfully, but one of the things I love about Emotive Brand is that you’re invited to be yourself. Your voice is heard and I don’t feel afraid to be myself. You’re given space to try, to mess up, and to solve the problem at hand.

Jonathan Haggard, Senior Designer

I think the Bay Area, in general, can have a very demanding work culture. Unfortunately, many companies intentionally provide a culture of excessive work and dependence. I think there needs to be a paradigm shift in how we approach the relationship between people and work. In order to win the war on talent, employers should be willing to embrace remote work, flexible time tables, and promote quality over quantity. So much of traditional work culture is about projecting a façade of productivity for eight-plus hours. I would much rather engage in a culture that cultivates a vibe of doing your best work, and when you’re done, be encouraged to live a full life outside of the office. You end up getting better work in the long run.

Shannon Caulfield, Project Manager

For me, culture is one of the most crucial things about running a business. You build the right culture by hiring people you believe can further promote a company’s vision and mission, and finding people whose values are aligned. But an aligned culture doesn’t mean everyone thinks the same – there’s so much value in diversity of thought. You get to learn so much every day by surrounding yourself with people from different backgrounds and walks of life. It leads to much more creative solutions. We have a very close-knit and collaborative culture at Emotive Brand. Everyone is always willing to lend a helping hand, regardless of what role you have here. You know when you come to work, you’re not alone.

Monica Colver, Studio Manager

Cultivating a healthy work culture is important so that employees feel engaged, appreciated, and motivated to do their best work possible. Instilling a sense of community in the workplace is vital because work is where we spend the majority of our waking hours, so we might as well improve our quality of life by improving our relationships with our colleagues. The culture at Emotive Brand takes that sentiment to heart. We are a close-knit team, and as the Studio Manager, I am always seeking out new ways to facilitate connection within our team: organizing trips to museums, group hikes, rallying the team for spontaneous happy hours, as well as simply making a point of learning about everyone’s interests and personal projects.

Beth Abrahamson, Senior Designer

A positive work culture is not only essential to employee happiness, but can improve relationships with clients and the quality of the work itself. There is real value in intentionally creating space to get to know the people you work with every day. Bella and Tracy are major proponents of bringing your whole self to work, and encourage all of us to share our personal interests and passions, which ultimately creates a more vibrant and dynamic culture at Emotive Brand.

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

The Value of Outside Creativity on In-House Work

Posted on by Chris Ames

As an agency, we have the benefit of outside perspective on client work. Our distance allows us to see situations with a more objective lens. But what happens when we get too close to our own work or get caught in a creative slump? As Design Director Robert Saywitz tells us, sometimes the best solution to in-house problems is outside inspiration. We sat down to discuss how his background in illustration, graphic novels, and mixed-media informs his design thinking.

Tell us a bit about your artistic practices.

I do a little bit of everything: painting, drawing, ink, mixed-media works on paper, graphic novels, personal and commercial illustration. I work with many non-traditional and found materials, such as antique books, wooden crates, or music-related items like vinyl and cassettes. Part of my process is to breathe new life into discarded or antiquated things that often find themselves on the street or in second-hand shops. I not only try to find materials that will work as a blank canvas for a drawing or painting but I also look for specific materials that relate to the subject matter, and to my own sense of storytelling.

For example, as part of my series, Music Was My First Love, I used antique, leather book covers as canvases for ink drawings of jazz musician and composer, Ornette Coleman. The triptych shows him at three stages in his life – a rising star, at the height of his powers, and as an aging legend. The deterioration of the materials adds much more to the story than any ink wash or layered background I could have tried to create by hand. This was also a nod to the process and how we convey and gather information – reading about art and music – as well as my own love of the physical book. At my heart, though, I’m a drawer. It all goes back to pencil and paper.

Outside creativity on in-house work

How does that sensibility feed into your practice for client work?

I never start on the computer. You have pens, paper, scissors, drafting boards, and oh, a computer as well. It’s just one piece in a massive toolkit to tell a story. I’ve always viewed myself as a visual storyteller. Whether it’s a singular poster or a super complex brand system. For me, I’m always searching for that layered story. Too much focus on any one instrument, like the computer, tends to dilute the experience. The computer is an amazing tool, but it’s not an idea generator. You can have happy accidents, but you can’t let the tools dictate the idea. I didn’t get into design until later in life. I came to it from an art background – and I think my sideways path in has made a big difference in how I approach work.

You mentioned the idea of posters. You often start projects by designing a poster, even if it won’t necessarily live in this format. What does this process illuminate for you?

The poster, for me, is a perfect object. It’s that blank slate, open canvas, anything-can-happen object. Whether it’s a logo or complete brand identity, I tend to think in terms of the poster. If you can figure out what the big idea is in a single frame, then you have the spark that allows you to expand the idea into an entire campaign. Solving the poster is like this secret puzzle that will inevitably answer questions that come up later in the process.

Initially, it was album covers and film posters that sparked my love for design and it was people like Saul Bass, who you felt could capture the entire mood of a two-hour movie in a 2-D plane. There’s something magical about starting from a simple rectangle and trying to tell a story in multiple parts. Again, for me it goes back to the pencil and paper – the sheet of paper is essentially that blank poster frame where the problem needs to be solved in a clear and compelling way. That’s how I approached the poster for Knucklehead, which is another example of letting the idea (not the computer) drive the design. My watercolor and ink illustrations with collaged magazine clippings captured the emotional quality and narrative of the film more than traditional photography could have hoped to achieve.

Outside creativity on in-house work

How much of your client work is inspired by these other worlds?

I think you can see it in almost everything I do. If there is ever an opportunity to bring in something that feels hand-drawn, organic, or illustrated, I think it adds warmth and empathy. My gut instinct is the pencil, not the mouse – and that line of thinking will always filter in. The art of making something is nuanced and gestural. I love when you can feel the hand of the creator a little bit. Especially in the digital age, when things can feel a little too slick, too polished, too clean. Obviously, every project has its own parameters, but at the end of the day, everything is human and you need that component. Even if it’s just a starting point that gets digitally refined later, the emotional core will bubble up.

For example, the identity I created for Normandie – a new restaurant in Portland, Oregon – began as an actual linoleum block print before getting tediously refined on the computer. The only way to create a bespoke, block-printed logo was to make it by hand.

Outside creativity on in-house work

Outside creativity on in-house workHow can say, a B2B tech company, get out of their comfort zone and let outside creativity bolster their offering?

It sounds cliché, but inspiration is everywhere – you just have to be willing to see it. A lot of that is just getting outside and looking for answers in unexpected places: the museum, the used bookstore, public gardens, architecture, travel guides, novels, even the design of old appliances. You’d be surprised how many times the work of someone in a completely different field can inspire or solve the problem you’re working on. It can be as simple as watching a really good documentary series, like Abstract, which showcases the work of designers in different fields at the top of their game.

A very tangible lesson is to set up Google Alerts under research categories you’re interested in. I have one set up for “book arts.” Every day, I get four or five unique articles sent to me from places I would never think to look, like a local paper in Des Moines, Iowa. You need to be open to everything serving as a potential source of inspiration, whether it’s going on a trip to the post office or wandering into an estate sale. The beauty of the iPhone is you always have a way to capture that random spark.

Beyond the digital, I think it’s incredibly important to start a physical inspiration folder. Put one in your design department and start to collect objects that intrigue or inspire. It doesn’t have to make sense right away. The internet tends to feed on itself, and there’s something liberating in having your designers get bold new ideas from the world around them. My personal studio is full of seemingly random artifacts: old instruction manuals, maps, magazine clippings, keys, matchbooks, old manual typewriters, compasses, ticket stubs. Design is all around us and you never know what object will unlock or inspire. I recently submitted to The Sketchbook Project, which is a crowd-funded sketchbook museum and community space. My submission was all about tiny maps, and its creation was a direct result of the process of maintaining this archive of physical inspiration.

How do you manage your creative and professional lives? Do you view them as at-odds or supporting one another?

A big internal obstacle for most working creatives is separating your two lives – the creative and the professional – because they don’t fit in. You feel like your day job is taking away from your art, or vice versa. I’ve struggled with that.

To be honest, coming to Emotive Brand is the first place where I truly feel those two lives are intermeshed. There’s no shame to keep one hidden. In fact, we’re encouraged to share and inspire others. In all the jobs I’ve worked, it’s never been that way, and it does a huge disservice to the employee, the agency, and even the client. When you build a culture of expression, the ideas just get better and feed off one another. It’s liberating and opens up all these other doors. I’ve always bifurcated my creative lives, but I don’t have to do that here. At a previous job, I would have my work included in a group show at a gallery and not tell anyone. Here, I feel totally enabled to let my outside creativity influence and improve everything else I do.

Check out all of Robert’s work on his website here.

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

Cover Image by Robert Saywitz: Chinatown (detail), watercolor and graphite on paper, 5 x 7 inches

Branding Agency, Emotive Brand, Turns 10 Years Old: An Interview with Bella Banbury

Posted on by Chris Ames

Last week, Emotive Brand, Oakland-based branding agency celebrated its ten-year anniversary. To mark the occasion, we sat down with Co-Founder Bella Banbury to discuss her experience starting a business with her best friend, the importance of culture, and what it will take to be successful moving forward.

What accomplishments are you most proud of?

Ten years ago, Tracy Lloyd and I were working together at another agency that abruptly closed its doors. We found ourselves unexpectedly without jobs and we needed a plan. So, on the first day of our newfound freedom, we met for breakfast at the W Hotel in San Francisco, evaluated our options, and agreed that we might as well start our own company. Most raised their eyebrows and said, “You’ll never do it, you’ll fall out, it’s too hard.” Well, it was hard. But we did do it, we’re still doing, and we’re still best friends. I’m incredibly proud of that fact. Ninety-five percent of small businesses fail within the first five years and, not only have we continued to thrive, we’ve managed to stay independent.

For me, one of the biggest markers of success is our sustained relationships with clients over time. I’m proud of the reputation we have in market, the following we’ve cultivated, and the fact that many look to us as thought leaders and for inspiration all things brand related. When I think about the amount of work we have done – clients, projects, pitches, even the ones that got away – we have probably touched something like 500 or 600 companies since we started. That’s a massive impact.

What risks are you most proud of taking?

We launched this company on the premise of feelings driving behavior to create meaning – and then we took that idea into arguably the least emotional space possible: the B2B world. Looking back, that was pretty risky. Especially in the beginning, when we were trying to build credibility. Over the years, we’ve watched other agencies lean into our thinking and approach. Our methodology continues to evolve to stay at the forefront of what businesses need to grow, but the emotive DNA remains constant.

What has your experience of being a women-led agency been like? Do you view it as a differentiating factor?

I’ve always wanted this company to stand on the strength of its ideas, not the identity of its founders. Personally, I never really thought the fact of being a women-run company was important or differentiating until people started telling us how inspiring it was for them. Especially during the interview process, I constantly hear candidates say, “I think it’s incredible to see two women founders. I’d love to work for a women-led company.” It’s a story I hear a lot, which makes me feel great. I guess women do think and process information differently than men. We definitely play to our strengths and instill a work culture that focuses on communication, empathy, and multitasking.

What has been the importance of culture in building and sustaining Emotive Brand?

Culture is vital to sustaining our business and brand. It connects our team to each other, it’s what drives us. How people show up each day is a direct reflection of the culture we have developed. We have a huge amount of respect for each other and embrace our talents and our differences. We know our team is stronger when we each bring something different to the table. We care deeply about each and every person who works with us and never forget they have families and lives outside of work that impact them on a daily basis. We don’t expect people to leave those aspects of their lives at the door when they come in each day. Instead, we try to nurture and support them. We think the small gestures add up to making a big difference in people’s lives. We spend a lot of time together, we demand the highest standards, but we try to have fun along the way. We’ve worked our way through a lot of tequila over the years – that helps, too.

What will it take to continue to be successful in the future?

The absolute number one thing we cannot get around is talent. To do the work we want, at the level we want, requires an unbelievably skilled, unique, and special group of people who are passionate and curious about the world we live in. They seek out the trends and forces that are at play in any given situation to help craft solutions to the most complex problems, turning them into something inspiring, engaging, and memorable. Our clients are some of the most forward-thinking leaders, disrupting industries and categories globally. They come to us to help them solve their problems and tell their stories, so we have to stay current and always one step ahead. That game’s not for everyone.

As we grow, we need to continue to build our methodology and develop tools that help us solve problems. Whether that’s new workshops, new ways to facilitate meetings, new technology, or embracing more agile work styles. Staying relevant is a constant battle. You can’t assume what worked yesterday will work for tomorrow, never mind the next ten years. Every client is unique and has its own flavor – the last thing we want to do is throw them into a one-size-fits-all template.

I’m in the middle of watching the Queer Eye series on Netflix right now, I love the stylist, Tan, because in many ways it reminds me of what we do every day. I love the considered way he applies style to each individual. When you’re an expert, it’s so easy to bulldoze the situation and force your own rules onto someone. What’s fantastic about Tan is that he’s able to see the individual for who they are – whether they’re a NASCAR fan, bartender, or married with kids but living like a college student – and make them see the best version of themselves. In a funny way, that’s what we do here. Our continued success is built upon the belief that we meet clients where they are at, and help them see the best version of themselves within the structure and methodology we provide.

If you were starting all over, what do you wish you knew on day one?

I would just remind myself how lucky we are to do this. Over the last ten years, people gave us a chance. They trusted us. They followed our lead – most of the time. We’ve seen the insides of so many different companies in cities across the U.S., like VMware, Citrix, Informatica, UPS, and Western Digital. We’ve had the opportunity to learn about so many different industries, from machine learning and AI to blockchain and big data. We get to work, think, sweat, challenge ourselves, and laugh out loud every single day. And so, I’d just remind myself that this is one hell of an opportunity. This job is about lifelong learning. You carry around this backpack of experiences and stories, and it only gets richer over time.

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

San Francisco Branding Agency, Shares CEO Perspective on the Industry

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

San Francisco branding agency shares POV

As co-founder and CEO of Emotive Brand, a San Francisco branding agency, Bella is committed to the Agency promise of helping to transform brands and making the greatest impact possible through our work.

Bella works to maintain the highest standard of client services and delivers strategic solutions that meaningfully connect brands with people. We sat down with Bella to get the latest on what’s happening at Emotive Brand and her perspectives on brand strategy globally. In the following, she gives her insight on daily challenges, high-paced growth, and how to inspire and sustain meaningful business in the midst of it all.

Emotive Brand has created a new offering – Fast Forward – designed for high-growth startup clients that need to make strategic shifts to quickly address product, industry, competition, alignment, and other issues.

How does EB help companies move FAST?

Developing brand strategy can be a long and expensive engagement. People get frustrated with the amount of time it takes to reap the benefits. Our new Fast Forward offering is about delivering a quick win. It’s great for a company that needs lots of work, but can’t prioritize what is needed most or what will make the most impact fastest. Fast Forward allows us to engage in an intense, immersive phase of work. Together, we help our clients identify what their priorities should be in real-time and then create a deliverable during our working session with them. It’s like instant gratification. This agile approach also creates the opportunity to get to know each other and provides a real feel for our process and what working together on a larger project would look like. Clients see the value of what a more robust process would be because they’ve experienced the accelerated impact of a Fast Forward. This is often just what a team needs in order to gain internal alignment around the level of investment needed to continue to move forward.

As a branding agency, why are you always recruiting?

We’re in growth-mode right now at EB. We’re constantly looking for where the talent is as we expand our team. And talent is much more mobile than it ever was before. People aren’t looking for a job for life. They want rich experiences that they can fill up on and then move on to new ones. People want to be constantly learning. They don’t want to be doing the same thing again and again. I think that’s one of the benefits of working at an agency. The work is always changing. But there’s a trend in the Bay Area where a lot of creative talent is moving in-house and out of agencies. This means it’s more competitive than ever to find and grab those great people.

In terms of client services, how do you build and maintain meaningful client relationships?

At EB, we recognize that people buy from people. And clients, quite simply, want to deal with people – people who understand them and are empathetic to their problems, needs, and emotions. They want people who listen. At the end of the day, we are people and we strive to engage with people as people and not just clients or business partners. We understand what it means to juggle the challenges of a corporate environment, of reporting to a Board, of satisfying different stakeholders, and of managing office politics. We understand what it means to take risks and that it can seem scary. We know how hard it can be to stand behind something different. It’s not easy to be a client and we recognize that.

What are the latest and greatest EB successes in your mind?

As a brand strategy firm, we continue to lead the conversation about what it means to be a purpose-led company and how brand strategy can support that. When companies seek us out for that kind of work it feels good. The types of companies that we work for in the B2B, technology, and professional services recognize that being purpose-led can give them an edge. I’m proud that we continue to pioneer the thinking around purpose-led brands. And our clients keep coming back for more. We hold valuable, long-standing relationships and our work continues to grow.

In your opinion, what are the main challenges facing brand strategy today?

Time. Time is the biggest challenge. Everyone wants to move really quickly, but doing great work takes time. However, if you take too much time, things move on. The industry you’re in moves forward without you. It’s about finding a balance between moving too fast and being too slow. You can’t cut all the corners. As an agency, we have to find the balance of dedicating the right amount of time to our work and building flexibility into our process. We take the time where it is needed most and look to move quickly though areas that need less time. It is the same for our own brand. We are growing as an agency and it’s important that we continue to invest in our own brand and behaviors. We have to practice what we preach and that does take dedication, hard work, and practice.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

The Role of Insights in Brand Strategy

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

The Role of Insights

As a strategist at Emotive Brand, Carol Emert leads client engagements with a focus on close collaboration, deep insights, and compelling storytelling. Her passion is to deeply understand the unique truths of each client – their goals and vision, challenges and opportunities, people and purpose – and create strategy that propels them toward their highest aspirations.

In this post, she offers her thoughts on the powerful role of insight when it comes to creating a resonant and meaningful brand strategy.

What’s your best definition of an insight?  

Insight is, by its nature, tricky to understand and therefore hard to define. Insights aren’t linear, like data or information. They are triangulated from information and other inputs – notably emotions – to then come up with something new.

Information is 1+1=2. Insight is 1+1=3, and the 3 literally feels different.

In branding, insights inform the core truths of your brand strategy and work as the foundation on which everything else is built. 

What is the goal of a strategist making insights in brand strategy?

There are probably infinite truths about any brand. The role of the strategist is to figure out which ones are the most important to the brand itself and at the same time resonant with its stakeholders. Good insights make sense both intellectually and emotionally. Once you find a powerful insight, you’re playing in very rich territory for the brand.

How do you get to an insight?

To drive brand success, the most powerful insights are the ones that triangulate powerful core truths about the brand itself, its target audience, the competitive landscape, and the broader cultural context. So strategists need to immerse themselves in the brand, its key audiences and the greater fishbowl it is swimming in, whether that context is business, technology, pop culture, or what have you.

To understand the brand itself, a strategist will investigate its origins, its history, its products or services, what its people and internal culture are like, what its highest aspirations are, and how it speaks and acts in the world.

For target audiences, it’s important to uncover peoples’ key challenges and aspirations that are relevant to the brand, their met and unmet needs (both functional and emotional), their perceptions of the brand and its competitors, and how the brand might best fit best into their needs and aspirations.

How do insights help change how people inside the brand see their business?

When we present clients’ brand story to them, it’s like we’ve articulated something that maybe has always felt true, but has never been fully expressed. It suddenly crystalizes what really matters about their brand and business – and this clarity can inspire action, excitement, a unified vision, and really power the brand forward.

Can companies do their own branding? What do you think is the value of an external agency?

It makes sense that the people who know a brand best should be the best at articulating it, right? But, my experience has been that many companies struggle to brand themselves.

There are a few reasons. For one thing, companies already have an emotional investment in who they think they are. Everyone will know how the CEO thinks about the brand, too, and inevitably that’s going to unduly influence the thinking.

Instead of unearthing real insights, company insiders will typically be operating on the more superficial level of information. As a result, they fall short of the depth and richness they know their brand story should have. When you look at internally developed brand strategies, they typically feel rather flat and obvious instead of rich and insightful.

Essentially, it usually takes an outsider to get a clean and unbiased view of the brand and then tell its story in a really powerful way. 

What are the key characteristics of a person who is good at unearthing insights?

The most important is empathy. Understanding emotional truths requires being emotionally attuned to the situation and the people. If there is no emotional attunement, there will never be an emotional insight.

You have to be a truth-teller, willing to put aside your own ego and ideas, and prioritize finding the truth no matter where it lies. This requires not bringing too much of your own filter and biases to it too.

At the same time, you must be analytical. This isn’t an exercise in just feeling. You have to be moving down a path of useful insights that lead to meaningful brand strategies that help your clients realize their highest aspirations as a brand and as a business.

When you strike that balance between empathy and analysis, you can create rich and compelling brand strategies that are absolutely game changing.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency.

How to Make a Business and Brand Transformation Successful

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Emotive Brand hinges itself on the power of business transformation through brand strategy, and brand strategist, Jo Schull adds a honed strategic mind to our team. By working directly with clients to help understand the true essence of their business, she uncovers the necessary internal and external strategies needed to transform the potential of their brand into a reality. In this interview, Jo offers her thoughts and expertise on how to make a brand and business transformation successful.

People are always talking about business transformation – what does that mean?

Business transformation can mean different things to different people. Some leaders see business transformations as bold, quick moves meant to shake things up. Others look at business transformation as the start of a change – a process that starts with purpose, strategy, and vision, and then takes shape through a series of changes to the business.

When or why should businesses attempt a transformation?

Many businesses wait too late to ‘transform’ themselves. They wait until they’re in trouble. They wait until competitors have encroached on their territory, until employee morale is low, until recruiting is difficult, until share prices are down. They wait for when the business is stuck in a downturn. These are all certainly good and necessary reasons to attempt a business transformation, but smart businesses are always looking ahead. These leaders know that the best transformations anticipate and head off crises.

What’s an example of that?

Smart businesses are constantly thinking about what’s next.  They ask themselves: what’s the next phase of their evolution? For some, it might be about a product expansion or moving into other markets. For others, it might be about refining their customer experience: how can their offering become the best and most beloved brand for their core customers? In the end, it all comes down to honing in on the business’s purpose — understanding and communicating clearly why you exist as a business. From this, the business can be intentional about its future, who you serve, and why you want to serve them.

What are the essential components of a successful transformation?

  • The business must have executive-level participation and ownership. The leaders of the company have to be an essential part of the process. They set strategy, make business and brand decisions, and are responsible for the company’s overall performance. They lead the change.
  • The process must be inclusive. All cultures are different. Some are top-down, and others are more inclusive and democratic. The most successful transformations are those that feel authentic. And the best way to achieve authenticity is by including many voices in the process. As much as it’s important that leaders lead the process, it is equally important that the process involves perspectives and participation from across the organization. This includes different divisions, different geographies, different functions, and different levels within the organization. Many top-down transformations have failed because leaders did not understand the day-to-day realities of the business.
  • The transformation must be true to your brand and business. There’s nothing worse than attempting a brand and business transformation that is misaligned with your brand or business position. Your employees will be the first to see the disconnect and your customers won’t be far behind.

How do you work with leadership teams to create alignment during a business transformation?

We start by getting the leadership team clear on three things:

1) Why does your company exist in the first place?

2) What’s the next big problem you can solve for your customers?

3) Where are the biggest threats and opportunities?

Ideally, leadership teams are aligned on these questions. But occasionally, they are not. Either way, it’s important that when going into any sort of transformation that leadership teams are aligned about these questions. A transformation will get them on the same page about why they exist, what they are trying to do, and where the next opportunities lie.

How do you rally employees?

When we talk about rallying employees, there’s no one right way to do it.

You may ask: Is this a course correction, or a 180° shift? What’s the state of employee morale? Will this come as a shock or has the leadership of your company been transparent and brought employees along the journey? How large is the company? There are always many factors at play, but here are some guiding principles.

  • Inspire: To many people, ‘rally’ implies large events where leadership teams unveil big visions and strategies to employees. Those events have their purpose – especially in large companies where leaders need to reach hundreds or thousands of employees at once – but a one-time event isn’t enough to create sustainable change.
  • Demonstrate: What’s equally important, if not more crucial, are the actions of the leadership team every day following those large inspirational events. Employees need to see evidence of change – both progress toward goals and examples of new ways of working.
  • Involve: If employees have been involved in the process, they’ll already have a stake in the transformation. They’ll understand the reasons for change and will believe in the vision for the future.
  • Reinforce: Examine internal systems such as messaging, reviews, rewards, and recognition to make sure they’re supporting and reinforcing the change you want to make, especially when dealing with culture change. Nothing erodes employee trust more quickly than policies and procedures that are at odds with a company’s stated values and beliefs.
  • Communicate: Keep the new strategic direction top of mind. Build it into employee communications and presentations. Bring it into areas where employees will see it. Highlight a section of the strategy and focus on it for a month or a quarter. But whatever you do, don’t let your new strategy languish in a drawer.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy firm.

Top Brand Strategy Firm Shares Thoughts on Brand Purpose

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

A brand strategy firm perspective

There’s been a lot of buzz lately around brand purpose – a concept that San Francisco’s Brand Strategy Firm, Emotive Brand has championed from our very beginning. Unfortunately, with buzz, comes confusion. It’s easy to get lost in the vernacular and repetitions and lose the answers to the key questions at hand. Tracy Lloyd, founding partner and Chief Strategy Officer of Emotive Brand, offers some clarity, opinions, and answers to questions surrounding the concept of purpose-led brands.

1. What does it mean to be a purpose-led brand?

A purpose-led brand is a brand that is driven by a shared ambition, goal, or reason for being. Being a truly purpose-led brand means so much more than marketing your company’s purpose. I think many leaders have the ambition to be purpose-led, but are unwilling to do what it takes behaviorally to live their purpose. Purpose is something that people can identify with, internalize, and put into action for themselves. Purpose-led companies go beyond the obvious drivers of generating profit and creating shareholder value, and try to connect with people in authentic and emotionally meaningful ways. In 2016, I’m seeing a trend and stronger conviction in the idea that there is room for purpose AND profit, and I imagine we will see more and more leaders move toward this belief as they manage their business. Those leaders who are truly guided by their purpose will see their business gain the benefits of both purpose and profit.

2. How can brand purpose differentiate your business?

Purpose is what people are looking for in their day to day lives. So brands that lead with purpose have a real opportunity to connect with people in ways that matter. Be it to recruit top talent to an organization or to encourage people to choose your brand over another, purpose is becoming a deciding factor in our decision-making. We want to buy into something that makes us feel good. Something that makes us feel like we are a part of something larger than ourselves — larger than a single and fleeting purchase or a uninspired job that pays the bills. Purpose differentiates businesses because it connects ideas, people, activities, causes, and products that make lives matter in new and compelling ways.

3. How do you find your purpose?

I believe purpose finds you. And it is the one thing that drives people to build something that can change lives. Purpose is what drives you. For business owners, it might be the “why” that explains their decision to leave a previous job and create something new – something they believe in, are inspired by daily, something they feel could change the world. Your purpose is what attracts people to help you build it, and people to buy it. It is the common denominator of belief and this sets the foundation for other to be willing to work toward your shared ambition. When you lead with purpose, you can develop incredibly energized followers who share your beliefs.

4. Why should companies be thinking about purpose in the workplace?

There is no doubt in my mind that leading with purpose is what enables a thriving corporate culture. It is what will attract the right employees to you, keep the right employees with you, and more meaningfully engage employees in ways that will help both them and your business thrive. Workplaces automatically become more meaningful when employees share in the purpose of what the company is about.

To take this one step further and drive even more alignment and meaning in the workplace, outline the behavior shifts that employees and departments should work toward to support the purpose. This provides the opportunity for them to understand how their roles matter in the larger scheme of delivering on that purpose. When companies take this step, great things can happen: to the culture, to the bottom line, to how people feel about you internally and externally. A shared and embraced goal creates an aligned and engaged workplace.

5. Are purpose-led brands just the marketing buzzword of 2016?

I don’t think so. We’ve created a proprietary methodology and have been building a practice around purpose-led brands for the past 10 years. I believe purpose-led will become the defacto standard at some point. The world is changing, and people are looking for more meaning in their lives. We built Emotive Brand on this premise. And as time goes on, I think the value proposition, that, people want to work for, buy from, and engage with purpose-led brands, will be the most important way for brands to meaningfully connect with people today and in the future — which will create a win-win for everyone.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy firm.

The Value of a Sales-Led Brand Strategy For High-Growth Companies

Posted on by Paige Lansing Valle

A Sales Perspective

Tracy Lloyd, founding partner and Chief Strategy Officer of Emotive Brand, shares how her sales background informs her work today, and offers insights on the true value of bringing sales to the strategy table.

Tell us about your sales background.

I have an interesting background that has led me to the agency world, and on to brand strategy. Initially, I got my start in non-profit fundraising and development. A start-up CEO bought an expensive table from me to attend a gala event I was hosting. Throughout the sales process of getting that deal done, he said to me that I was in the wrong job, and thought I should be in sales … at his company. And so I did. And from there, I sold technology for many years—some emerging technologies, other enterprise solutions—in the states and living as an expat overseas.

How does your background shape your approach?

Everyone brings their past experiences and jobs with them. My background happens to be in sales. And I bring that knowledge into our approach at Emotive Brand.

Because I know how to sell and understand what it takes to be successful in sales, I focus a lot of my time there. It helps me back into brand strategy. With a sales mindset, I can reach a full understanding of how to position and sell technology to the enterprise. In fact, I’ve realized I can’t really brand something until I know how to sell it. I need to grasp what’s working and what’s not from the perspective of the sales team.

Since the sales team is closest to customers, they have a strong understanding of what customers need to buy. They are naturally driven to be successful. And they want everything at their disposal to be successful. They are the people I want to spend time with so I can witness first-hand what is going on. Understanding what will help them helps fuel our own team and our work. It is also a good reality check for me to balance what I hear from other parts of the organization directly for myself, and to witness the realities of what it is like for the sales team who is out on the front line.

Other people might come from different angles, but I think that this particular angle is something that is distinct to the way we work at Emotive Brand. I think it differentiates the way we approach strategy.

So sales teams are involved in your brand strategy process?

Yes. I like to involve them in a few, key places in our process. Early on, I like to go on sales calls and listen in whenever possible. It helps me get grounded in what’s going on. I listen to their pitch – how they address objections and how they position the technology. I pay attention to tone of voice. I look for signs that indicate that the customer understands. I want to know the exact point at which a no transforms to a yes, and then pinpoint why.

Later on, I like to involve sales when we begin work on prioritizing target audiences and then again when we are developing the value proposition(s) and messaging. At the end of the day, so many aspects of brand strategy have value by being vetted by sales – positioning, messaging, defining categories, and go-to-market strategies. I gather huge insights from the sales team – insights, I might not be able to get anywhere else. It’s my job to ladder back these findings and connect all the dots, and from there build the most impactful strategy possible.

It is obvious to work with the marketing team when developing a brand strategy. It’s not as obvious to work with the sales organization. But, for us, it works. Bringing sales to the table creates alignment, and breeds a better, stronger, smarter end product.

What kind of clients are your skills in sales of particular value to?

We work with a lot of high-growth startups that are going to market with products and services that are new, and often times inconceivable to most people today. They’ve built and engineered products that are ahead of the marketplace. This requires hard work from the brand in order to cut through the clutter. Our clients need help clearly articulating their true value to customers. Often times the market needs help understanding the brand’s value proposition and our clients need these tools to help their marketing and sales teams execute successfully. They need to quickly penetrate the market and sometimes even create a new market when one doesn’t exist. We have done our very best work for companies who have complex B2B technology, are beginning to sell into the enterprise, and who need to create new value for old thinking.

Where does brand strategy come in to play?

Brand strategy is about solving business problems. It’s as simple as that. All of our clients come to us with a business problem and we create a strategy to solve it. Most often the problems we are solving are about growth, differentiation, and creating a strong value proposition. Our clients almost always have a solid understanding of the features and benefits their product offers, but leading with that is not working. They may not know it at the time, but this is where the brand needs to step in and help them better tell their story.

For us, it always starts with defining why a brand matters at the highest level. We make it easier for a target audience to understand a technology and its role. From there, it’s all about creating the corporate narrative. Nailing the category, the positioning, and creating a strong value proposition and messaging to appeal to your top buying personas.

Brand strategy answers integral questions like: Why does your product matter? Why does it matter now? How is it different and better than what competitors are doing now? Sales teams need to understand the answers to these questions in order to be successful.

Knowing how to sell makes it easier for me to think about the end user buying our clients technology and how to best support a sales team with the tools they need to go to battle and more easily articulate this new way of doing business. We arm them with the tools that more easily helps them do what they do well — close deals.

Are there any challenges involved in bringing sales to the table?

Taking sales people out of the field is hard. So it’s important that we use them strategically and not waste their time. We don’t need everyone in sales involved in the process, but we make sure to include enough people so the strategy can benefit from their front-line experiences. They are very good at helping us gauge reality.

What’s the bottom-line payoff of bringing sales thinking to brand strategy?

There is so much exciting stuff going on in technology right now. For our clients’ customers, it’s hard to keep up to date and understand who’s going to bring the right value to their business. Brand strategy can help position a business to thrive – creating the right tools to go to market, and helping customers more clearly understand why a business matters and how it’s different. Using my sales background is a way for us to get to the heart of why the brand truly matters so we can create the right brand strategy.

This understanding helps create a value framework, situate the brand and its people for success, and ready a business to scale. Our work is about creating a brand that truly connects with people rationally and emotionally. A strategy doesn’t have real value unless it actually helps a brand reach the people who matter most to its business in meaningful ways.Bringing a sales mindset to the strategic table makes for a more impactful strategy. That’s the bottom line. 

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy agency.

 

Brand Guidelines: An Interview with Emotive Brand Senior Designer

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

The Importance of Brand Guidelines

Emotive Brand hinges itself on the ability to transform businesses through brand strategy and strategically informed design. Miguel, a senior designer in the studio, works to bring brands to life by creating clear, inspired, and emotive brand identities. In this interview, Miguel discusses a process of branding that is often overlooked: building brand guidelines. Read to learn more about the importance of having a roadmap for your brand and how it should be used to create maximum impact.

Why might businesses overlook the importance of brand guidelines?

They aren’t easy. No one wants to read a manual. And it can be overwhelming, both to digest and to create. Building a clear guide takes focus, a high attention to detail, and a deep understanding of the brand itself. I think part of the reason why people disregard the importance of guidelines is that they don’t fully grasp all the places their brand touches. It isn’t just a logo. It’s composed of a variety of elements that when used correctly together make your brand recognizable and meaningful to people. You need a roadmap to keep the brand consistent. Brand guidelines are essential to every brand no matter how big or small, local or global, new or old.

How do guidelines help bring a brand to life?

The goal of brand guidelines is to help your people – designers, writers, strategists, new employees, veterans, freelancers, hired agencies, etc. – bring your brand to life. Brand guidelines help those people build a cohesive, clear, and recognizable brand and they are the people enabled to propel your business. Without guidelines, the brand assets have no value – the guidelines bring them to life. They provide a clear and simple toolbox that includes a set of standards for using brand names, logos, typefaces, and other design elements in ads, brochures, newsletters, packaging, digital communications, and any other ways the brand might communicate.

What happens when a brand doesn’t have clear guidelines?

The brand will inevitably become inconsistent. It will be diluted. This means that brand recognition goes down and customers and employees become confused about your brand. With all the pieces and no instructions on how to use them, the brand assets become valueless. Without a roadmap, your brand seems unsure of where it is and where it’s going. Especially during times of growth, those new to your brand need to have a clear understanding of how they can help your brand live. So you need a strong, consistent, and solid brand to stand out. Without a guide, that just isn’t possible.

How do the guidelines help employees?

In the end, having a clear guide helps the whole team become aligned. It doesn’t matter if you’re a strategist or a designer, everyone has the tools to build the brand in the most meaningful way. Everyone has a map and this map makes people feel empowered and able to do their job. Less time is wasted. Less people are frustrated and lost. Even when a business is onboarding someone new, the guidelines get them quickly on board with how the brand lives. And when you’re brand is truly living and all the parts are working altogether, that’s your emotional impact. That’s your brand doing its job.

What are some of the challenges of creating brand guidelines?

For me, as a designer, writing is not my strong suit. But I’ve learned to make sure whatever I’m writing for the guide is detailed, yet still clear and simple, much like a manual. It really has to take people through the process, step by step. It can’t be complicated because at the end of the day, complication will dilute essential brand information. I’ve learned that the simpler the visuals are, the fewer steps you need to communicate. It’s about achieving the right balance between visual and verbal instructions so the guide is the clearest it can be for everyone who might use it.

Another challenge is finding balance between laying out rules and structure, while also allowing for brand flexibility. When I’m working, I’m also thinking, “What’s the next thing for the brand?”. You have to try and imagine possibilities for the future so that the brand can grow. One thing that helps is showing examples of how the brand lives in real life situations. At Emotive Brand, we always outline parameters for print, digital, and environmental signage. These situations might not exist for the brand yet, but we are trying to help build a brand that thinks ahead and work within those parameters while still moving forward.

Do you think brand guidelines can help businesses grow?

At the end of the day, guidelines are what make a brand recognizable. The consistency a guide creates is key to people’s ability to recognize your brand. When people recognize your brand, your brand is able to grow. Strong brand guidelines help steer your business towards growth. Guidelines, in the end, are all about creating maximum impact for your brand.

Read Miguel’s post on Brand Identity: What’s Your Type?

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy firm.