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Tag: Leadership

The Evolving Role of the CMO: Chief Alignment Officer

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

No role in an organization has evolved more rapidly than the CMO’s. It used to be that owning branding, communications, and campaigns defined the job. Now, CMOs need to be experts on customers, marketing tools and advanced analytics,and business strategy. Brand management remains an essential duty, but in service of driving business growth. Most importantly, because a CMO’s work connects directly to sales, product development, IT, finance, and other parts of the organization, CMOs find themselves needing to play a growing role in aligning their organization around new ways of thinking and work that will help them engage customers more effectively.

For those in TL;DR mode, the quick takeaway is: CMOs are being stretched, so they might sometimes need a hug (but please ask first).

Here’s a by-no-means exhaustive look at some of the shifts that we’ve seen impacting how a CMO shows up:

From To
Voice of the Brand Voice of the Customer
Intuition & Instincts Data & Technology
Brand Management Brand Innovation
Strategy + Execution Alignment

 

Voice of the Customer

The amount of information we have about customers is only increasing. How does a temperature between 70-75 degrees impact consumer behavior on Monday’s v Fridays? What is the correlation between a new Netflix series and GPU buying decisions? What invisible patterns in customers can data now make visible? More and more, it’s up to the CMO to develop the customer insights that shape how a business goes to market. And because so many groups touch the customers, from sales to product to finance to corporate strategy, the level of collaboration required to align on these insights requires a significant investment.

Data & Technology

The increase in customer data a business can capture also gives rise to new suites of tools and technologies that a CMO can use to mine for insights, optimize campaigns, and deliver experiences across channels. When almost every brand action can be quantified, decisions about how to go to market are becoming increasingly data-driven. As a result, the CMO is responsible for leading the digital transformation of the marketing organization which requires deep partnership with IT (among others) to develop the tooling and data models that align with the organization’s technology systems. While a CMO needs to rely on her or his instincts and intuition when it comes to decision making, increasingly they need to justify their strategies with that data that points to a certain direction. The more fluent a CMO becomes in technology, the easier it becomes to reconcile data-driven insights with gut instincts.

Brand Innovation

More than anyone in the organization, a CMO needs to connect the dots between a brand’s legacy and its future vision. As much as products need to innovate, brands must as well to remain relevant: messages need to resonate with how the world is changing, and their expression needs to drive differentiation. But in doing this, a brand must also feel familiar and to take advantage of the equity it’s built with audiences. As brand management becomes increasingly data-driven, brand innovation is also becoming more dependent on analyzing trends, creating new audience definitions and segmentations, and audiences, and delivering next-level experiences that are hyper personalized and hyper-relevant. And these insights provide fuel for both brand and product innovation. The CMO that can use data to drive innovation across the organization is one that will stick around.

Building Alignment

It’s not enough for a CMO to develop a winning marketing strategy and execute flawlessly. As organizations become increasingly customer-centric, a CMO needs to bring every function in the C-Suite into the conversation about how to drive growth. From gaining the full embrace of Chief Revenue Officer for their marketing strategies, to the creativity of the CTO as you make your strategies more data driven, to HR working to bring new talent to the table, to the head of Product working in partnership around how to claim new audience segments, and the CTO finding budget to drive the strategy forward, marketing has become increasingly a team sport.

It’s no wonder that CMO turnover is high, and those in their positions feel they’re continuously in the hot seat. While the complexity of marketing is growing and budgets are coming under increasing scrutiny, there’s never been a more exciting time to be leading a marketing organization. All the data organizations have been amassing and the tools ready to parse it can reveal truly amazing insights about customers and how to connect with them. But only if a CMO can enlist the organization in lending a hand in making this all happen. And this comes down to storytelling and building alignment.

We’ve worked with many organizations to craft what we call a Growth Manifesto—a narrative that shows how the thinking that goes into brand development can open up new possibilities across an organization—from how people think about innovation to the collaboration required to bring new ideas to life. We’ve seen that a Growth Manifesto serves as an incredibly effective tool for building that alignment that is essential to getting every part of an organization living a new brand promise. While CMOs will always own the brand, communications, and marketing lanes of a business, as their role evolves, we’re seeing how they also need to become experts at building alignment between the functions that marketing depends on.

If you have thoughts about the new challenges CMOs face today please add to the conversation below. And if you’re thinking about ways to address specific marketing challenges in your business, we are always happy to help you think through how to approach the challenge.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and creative agency that unlocks the power of emotion to propel a brand, culture, or business forward. We are a remote-first agency with a footprint in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Engine of Productivity: Wellness in the Workplace

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

How we define the workplace has changed radically over the last few years. Offices no longer represent the primary workplace, and remote and hybrid modes of working are becoming the norm rather than the exception. And this has greatly disrupted the way we work. The “office rhythm” is out the door when you’re zooming with people three time zones away one minute, taking a call from the car while you drive your kids to school the next, and collaborating with colleagues face-to-face once or twice a week. It’s hard to connect. Hard to disconnect. And it’s hard to orient yourself in a culture without the daily cues to keep you on track.

All of this leads to wellness issues. The stress of being connected all the time. Or the self-doubt that leads to quiet quitting behaviors. The physical toll of being rooted at your desk all day. The erosion of mentorship in the workplace, and the rise of coaching to fill the gap. HR professionals are on the front lines of a crisis, and they’re responding by paying more attention to wellness than ever before. Employee well-being has emerged as a major focus as organizations replace the free-lunch and foosball-driven ethos with programs aimed at helping people thrive personally so they can thrive professionally.

The data supports this trend: corporate wellness directly influences the emotional and physical health of employees and, by extension, the health of the entire organization. Companies that prioritize wellness not only see an uptick in morale but also in productivity and retention​​​. In fact, 83% of employees report that having a psychologically and emotionally healthy workplace correlates with a significant increase in productivity.​​

Crafting Cultures That Resonate with Employees’ Needs

Leaders in HR play a pivotal role in translating these programs into strategic elements of the company culture. The trend is clear: holistic wellness programs that address the full spectrum of well-being—mental, physical, emotional, and financial—help retain people and attract new talent. They make people more productive, as happier employees take fewer sick days, are more loyal, and bring a higher level of creativity and energy to their roles. And they add to your overall organizational resiliency, which is critical to navigating the ups and downs of today’s volatility.

How to make well-being a strategic element of your employer brand

1. Define a Wellness Philosophy: Have a candid conversation with leadership about why your organization values wellness, and how much you’re willing to invest in it. This is a crucial first step to getting your leadership team aligned on the value that wellness creates for the entire organization. You’ll need to address the holistic equation of well-being—physical, mental, emotional, and financial—and how each dimension drives employee performance and satisfaction.

2. Consistently communicate your POV on Wellness: Use every communication channel to consistently reinforce how wellness is woven into your corporate culture. Share stories that highlight the positive impacts of wellness initiatives on employees, strengthening the perception of your brand as caring and supportive.

3. Align Wellness with Strategic Goals: A key part of your wellness initiatives involves connecting the dots between employees’ well-being and the strategic objectives of the company. For example, link mental health programs like mindfulness sessions to innovation to demonstrate how they result in a more creative and productive workplace.

4. Showcase the Impact: Evidence that wellness works only deepens belief in it as a necessity. Share real-life examples of how wellness programs have improved workplace outcomes. Highlight case studies and testimonials from employees who have benefited from these programs. Create case studies that demonstrate improved productivity, reduced stress levels, and better teamwork.

5. Lead with Wellness: When leaders actively participate in and advocate for wellness programs, it sends a powerful message that no matter where you sit in an organization, you’re still a person with the same needs for support. The more leaders participate and evangelize your wellness programs, the more they become a core part of the company ethos.

6. Offer personalized Wellness Options: There is no one-size-fits all when it comes to well-being. By offering personalized wellness options that can be tailored to individual needs, you underscore your commitment to supporting each employee uniquely. This flexibility makes the programs more effective and highlights your company’s dedication to its workforce.

7. Measure Success and Adapt: As your employees engage with wellness programs, their needs will change. You need to continuously assess and adapt your wellness initiatives to keep the offerings relevant, the energy fresh, and the impact high. By actively managing the portfolio of wellness offerings, you show your workforce that rather than checking a box, the organization is committed to making wellness a foundational element of your employer brand.

Thinking Beyond Wellness Programs

Wellness programs alone can feel like Band-Aids if they’re not connected to the employer brand—the internal expression of your mission, purpose, and values—that drives your organization. As employee well-being emerges as a dynamic force that shapes every aspect of workplace engagement and productivity, employees need to feel that it is part of your organizational DNA.

At Emotive Brand, we specialize in connecting business strategy to culture strategy to develop employer brands that are not just smart—they resonate emotionally. Making sure that employees experience wellness programs as part of a larger narrative around how you value people is essential to delivering the experiences that contribute to an organization being a great place to work.

If you have thoughts about the role wellness programs play in culture strategy, please add to the conversation below. And if you’re thinking about ways to get your culture better aligned to your business strategy, we are always happy to help you think through how to approach the challenge.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and creative agency that unlocks the power of emotion to propel a brand, culture, or business forward. We are a remote-first agency with a footprint in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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.

How Do You Get Your Team Excited About an Uncertain Future?

Posted on by Jamey Aiken

How Do You Get Your Team Excited About an Uncertain Future?

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. 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 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.

At Emotive, we believe that companies need more responsive tools to adapt to the future—whatever it holds. They need ways to connect to what employees are feeling. And they need to equip their organizations 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. 

When you understand the emotional state of your organization, you can move forward. Faster.

How do your employees feel? 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.

We use the lens of brand to audit the emotional state of an organization and identify alignment opportunities that can reduce friction, create efficiency, and drive growth. Our approach recognizes that businesses are more than just a collection of employees working towards a common goal. They’re complex networks of people with myriad emotions, attitudes, and beliefs. When you actually know what’s animating people’s behavior—the critical emotional drivers—you can craft more resonant, engaging stories about what you’re all working toward. 

Emotional understanding only makes a difference if your growth story is clear.

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. 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. 

We’ve created a wonderfully simple approach to helping businesses fulfill their ambitions. When clients need to realize important outcomes, we work side-by-side with executive leaders to co-author a strategic narrative of how—and why—they want to grow. We call this a Growth Manifesto, and it serves as a powerful tool for cutting 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. It connects major initiatives—corporate strategy, product, go-to-market, brand, people & culture—in a single, coherent narrative that aligns everyone behind the promise of the brand and the actions required to support it.

Your growth story can’t be separated from the quality of storytelling.

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 grow in times of uncertainty, you need to understand how your people are feeling. You need to address their emotions with a story of how you plan to grow. And you need to get them focused on a future that they are empowered to create. 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.

The Secret to Thriving Business

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Purpose-Led Business, Now the Expectation

Surviving – let alone thriving – in today’s uncertain economy is hard. Successful companies share one unifying factor: they are purpose-led companies. Purpose is the driving force of thriving business today, a key mobilizer for employees, and the key attribute for well-built and sustainable organizational cultures that can grow, thrive, and shift with the times.

Research shows that people are demanding and craving more from the businesses, brands, and companies they work and buy from, and leading with purpose is not a bonus but an expectation for business in 2022.  A good product or service is just not enough to stand out, guide your business forward, or recruit the people you need for long-term success.

Purpose needs to penetrate more than just marketing or branding. It should  guide how a company conducts itself. Authentically purpose-led businesses use purpose to drive innovation, and as a guide for how the business sells, sources, recruits, hires and fires. It’s easy to lead with purpose in your marketing, but far more meaningful to lead your company with purpose that rings true through behavior and business decision making. And developing strategies for how to “live purpose” is the difference between purpose-led marketing and purpose-led business. A guiding aspiration (your purpose) gives people something to believe in and work towards. And in today’s business world, a strong, unifying purpose has a strong ROI.

The Buzz and Confusion

Because of all the talk around the importance of purpose over profit, “purpose-led” has become a buzzword in the business world. And like any buzzword, confusion accumulates around what it really means, why it matters, and how your own business can authentically and successfully lead with purpose.

So how do you insure that your business is genuinely purposeful and not just another marketing facade that your customers will see right through?

An authentic purpose needs to flow through your company seamlessly. It needs to drive your company’s way of being, the experience of dealing with your company, and your company’s presence in the marketplace. This includes how your brand behaves internally and externally.

Here are four examples of high-performing, purpose-led businesses we can learn from.

  1. Chobani: Empowers Employees

Hamdi Ulukaya, founder of Chobani, gave 2,000 of his full-time employees’ ownership of a stock worth about 10% of the company that employees will receive once the company goes public or is sold. Valued at about $3 billion dollars, this is no petty decision. The earliest employees could be given more than $1 million dollars. Ulukaya wants to share the wealth that his employees have helped grow since the company’s inception. The future of Chobani and consequently, each individual’s own future, now lies in their hands. Employees are empowered to continue building and share the prosperity of the business. Everyone has involvement, interest, and ownership. And this makes working for Chobani all the more meaningful. Imagine how much more inspired, driven, and empowered employees now are to see Chobani succeed in the long run.

  1. Unilever foregoes short-term profits

Staying true to your purpose even when your business has to sacrifice more immediate profits will drive business in the long-term. Unilever CEO, Paul Polman, assured that the company’s carbon footprint would be cut in half, while simultaneously focusing on doubling revenue. Even though sourcing 100% of its raw materials using environmental, social, and ethical principles meant sacrificing some short-term profits, the Unilever leadership understood that this choice would actually drive profits. Similarly, CVS stopped selling cigarettes, taking an estimate $2 billion loss, to lead by purpose — helping people on their path to better health. Purpose-centric businesses understand that how you do business should be dictated by why you do business.

  1. Google gives back

Genuinely generous brands give in a way that aligns with their purpose. Google, a thriving company, has a major philanthropic mission. Google helps “innovators around the world who are using technology to combat humanity’s biggest challenges.” By helping accelerate and scale the work of others who share their same purpose, Google reinforces its own purpose with each act of generosity. This makes the Google purpose more authentic, genuine, and impactful. For example, recently, the company gave a 1 million dollar grant to Unicef engineers who are working to fight Zika virus. On the cutting edge of technology, Google makes sure the way it gives is always towards the future.

  1. UPS is committed to accountable reporting

Because of our work with UPS, Emotive Brand learned first-hand that efficiency is the DNA of a vast logistics company. Scott Davis, UPS Chairman and CEO asked the right question: “How do we meet the needs of the many in the most efficient, responsible way possible?” Asserting that “such a challenge requires continual innovation, a global perspective on what matters most.” UPS’s sustainability reporting shoes that they are “committed to more.” The company is more than just a transportation giant. In every aspect of business, they work to “help customers pioneer more sustainable solutions”— delivering more efficiently, creating global connections, taking action, and giving back. Similarly, Salesforce makes sure to point out that sustainability is more than just a buzzword, and considers the environment to be one of its key stakeholders.

So if you are looking for a purpose-pivot for your business, be sure to create a strategy that moves beyond just marketing and branding. Take stock in why you matter. Develop a purpose-led strategy that aligns to your business. And then use that strategy to make the necessary shifts to ensure you are actually leading with purpose. Live and breathe it internally, while creating the right brand experiences externally so that people really feel it throughout all that you do.

When you lead with purpose in this way, your customers and employees will feel more invested, engaged, and loyal to the brand and your business will be positioned to thrive.

If you are in need of formally articulating your corporate purpose, learn more about Path to Purpose.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

Uncovering the True Dynamics of Strategy + Design Synergy: A Conversation Between Robert Saywitz and Giovanna Blackston Keren

Posted on by Robert Saywitz

Our recent work rebranding Topstep—a financial trading platform based in Chicago, IL—shed light not only on our belief in the power of simplicity and clarity for our client but also on internal agency processes that helped us create an authentically differentiated brand. I sat down recently with our Director of Strategy, Giovanna Blackston Keren, to have a candid conversation about our roles in this process and why agencies seem to talk about the relationship between Strategy and Design more often than it comes together successfully in real life. We used our work on Topstep as a prism for this discussion because, in many ways, the project typified how we seamlessly crafted a strategy + design experience from start to finish. Giovanna asked all the right questions.

Why are agencies always talking about the collaboration between Strategy and Design? If it really happens so seamlessly, and if it’s the norm, then why are we all still talking about it?

The truth is, a seamless integration of the two is the ideal but not all agencies are able to pull it off. With Topstep, as with other clients, we were able to bridge the gap by bringing designers into the project early and keeping strategists involved throughout the process. Inviting designers to the initial kickoffs and key meetings helped them absorb the full brand story, informing their creative development. Inviting strategists to provide quick gut-checks throughout the creative process also kept things moving forward while also voicing moments when design needed to shift or even stand down and let the strategy come through more prominently. Extending involvement in both directions is often a problem of bandwidth, but well worth it in the end.

Why do you think that Strategy and Design often seem to be on such different pages, that actually finding a way for us to be talking the same language is challenging?

There is often a natural divide between the expert skill sets of the Strategist and the Designer but, here at Emotive Brand, we bridge that gap in a few ways. One is by having designers involved in Strategy meetings and vice versa; we have also started to share knowledge within our teams through skill-sharing workshops so that Strategists and Designers understand what each other do and literally begin to speak the same language. It also helps that we have specific roles for Creative Strategists—strategists with design/writing backgrounds and steeped in design but performing as a high-level strategic thinker and, at times, a copywriter for the designers and presentations. Their role often transcends boundaries and is the connective thread between strategy and design processes, as well as the articulation of creative thinking to the client. Specifically, with Topstep, this seamless dialogue between Strategy and Design allowed us to focus on the inauthentic, dry, and confusing nature of the language of most financial institutions. Our designers utilized this insight to tap into something bespoke and authentic—cutting through the clutter with radical honesty and a bold, language-driven typographic system.

So often throughout my career, I’ve felt like when I’m finally sharing the strategic blueprint with designers, they tend to see it as shackles rather than a wellspring for exploration—even though the strategy platform is usually built upon months and months of research, interviews, and insights. Do you see Strategy as a constraint in your process?

I actually find that the right kind of constraint can function as a creative accelerant to get you to the strongest ideas much quicker, but perhaps guardrails is a better word than constraints because, without the guidance of the strategy, you’re often jumping around in different directions, exploring far too many ideas that don’t have the grounding of the strategy. I have a fine art background so I know all too well that stepping up to a blank canvas with no plan in mind is much more of an overwhelming challenge than when I have my sketchbook full of notes to guide my process. When you have strategic limits in place, it creates much more freedom and opportunity for a deeper exploration rather than wider, and in this sense, the rules can actually set you free. When we started our initial ideation for Topstep’s new brand identity, we cast a wide net with 20-30 different mood boards but the strategy helped us efficiently narrow our focus to 5 of the most relevant and resonant options that embodied the strategy and the kind of brand that Topstep wanted to be.

Ultimately, we’re not creating just brand strategies, and we’re not creating visual identities. We’re creating brand experiences, brand worlds, and those worlds have to be built out of Strategy and Design.

Yes, the success we enjoyed with Topstep came from the constant conversation between designers and strategy along the journey—using the strategic platform as a foundational road map for creative exploration. We were very purposeful in bringing the client along on the journey as an active participant and everything we presented to them was met with a very open discussion about our rationale for design decisions—no feedback or pain point was too delicate to unpack between us, which is often a missed opportunity between agency and client. I think that level of honest conversation from the very start of the strategy process through the end of design helped build a foundation of trust and respect between us and the client that allowed us to move much more efficiently and make great decisions together. Ultimately, it helped a great deal when it came time to sell in a radically simple design direction.

The final design direction for Topstep was directly inspired by one of the territories that we brought to Topstep in our Strategy Workshop “And the rules shall set you free.” Traders often feel that the rules hold them back from really being able to be the successful trader they think they can be but, in reality, it is these very rules that keep them on the right path to ultimate success. Seems like a meaningful parallel here with our conversation about the relationship between Strategy and Design?

Definitely. Just as Strategy provides guardrails, it also allows you to explore freely without feeling like you’re staring at that blank canvas, reaching for any idea that may be well-executed but has no relevance with the business or what it is we’re trying to achieve, and in that way, the rules really can set you free. For Topstep, we harnessed this strategic freedom to move against the grain of the natural instinct for many clients to add as many elements into the composition as possible to tell their story and opting for being utterly clear, simple, and to the point, and in the financial world, that becomes quite radical.

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” — Hans Hofmann

Click the link to see our work for Topstep: https://www.emotivebrand.com/topstep/

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

Mission, Vision, and Values: But First, Executive Alignment

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Start with Executive Alignment

Vision, mission, and values give a company direction. They describe what a company stands for and what it doesn’t. Solid mission, vision, and values statements give guidelines for a brand’s behavior, help distinguish a company from its peers, and serve as a foundation for the brand’s ultimate personality. Without them, a company is rudderless.

So, when’s the right time to write these statements? Some companies don’t launch before they have a mission, vision, and values. Others develop them when time allows. With COVID-19 changing so many things from the way we show up to what gives us meaning in our work, now is a perfect time to embark on this exercise.

Though timing varies, the most important element in creating your mission, vision, and values is executive alignment. I promise it will be the hardest part of the process, but if you miss it you’ll end up with meaningless fluff. Start with alignment and the wording of the mission and vision almost takes care of itself.

Here are the steps to get you there:

1. Get your executive team on board

Include your executive team from day one. Yes, another project that takes time away from your “real work”. We get it. Mission/vision work doesn’t feel as urgent as launching a new product on time or making this quarter’s sales goal. But the longer you delay, the longer you have to wait for the impact. And if executives don’t take ownership of the project, they won’t have respect for the work that comes out of it.

2. Put it all out in the open: one-on-one interviews

Once you’ve got your executives’ attention, gather feedback from each exec individually. When we work with clients on mission/vision projects, we start by interviewing the key internal players. (If you are doing this project on your own, someone on your team, preferably a neutral player, could handle this step.) Big picture, you want to know where they think the company should go in the future and how it will get there. Again, 2020 has likely thrown a wrench in what you had previously planned for the business.

You also want to gather opinions on the current business and service offerings, market and competition, trends and regulations affecting the market in the short and long term, and current and future target customers.

3. Tackle the big issues and hot topics: executive alignment

Coming out of the interviews, you’ll have a list of statements that cover the kind of future that people in the organization desire for the company, how comfortable they are with change, and where they want to focus first.

For example, in a recent engagement, these were a few of the statements we generated for our client:

  • “We need to change the status quo.”
  • “Our vision should be internally vs. externally focused.”
  • “We’re more comfortable as an ingredient brand than an innovator.”

4. Expect disagreement

If you are like most companies, people won’t always be in agreement. So rather than be frustrated by this, see it as your opportunity to find alignment.

Bring everyone together into one room—even virtually. Remember, people own what they build. Put each statement on a poster with an “agree/disagree” scale and ask individuals to use a post-it to show how they relate to the statement. When everyone is done, it’s time to discuss. (Pro tip: Google Jamboards combined with Zoom are a great way to do this virtually.)

Second, pull out from the interviews the “hot topics”, the issues that are holding the company back. If the team doesn’t address these issues, they’ll destroy the company.

We recently worked with a disability insurer. Their hot topics included things like the following:

  •  “Startups have already moved into term life and car insurance and erased the middleman. How will we prevent this from happening to us?”
  • “We’re in the midst of digitizing the underwriting process. How does this project and that one overlap?”

 5. Follow the Critical Path

Get everything out in the open before you start building a vision and mission. It can be painful and frustrating to hash out these topics but it’s an essential step in the process. You learn where people sit on every important issue and you figure out the hurdles you need to jump over to get to the mission and vision development stage. Only then can you decide together where the company is headed.

Speaking of the critical path, don’t focus on marketing before you have set your vision and mission. People get excited when they hear about a new strategy. They want to get started. We recently worked with a company that lacked a strong, energizing strategy. The marketing department recognized this more than any other part of the organization. They realized that the company was moving in a new direction and was so eager to communicate a new mission and vision that they put something in place before the executive team reached alignment on the mission and vision.

When we talked to the executive team about the mission and vision work we planned to do for the company, though, many felt uncomfortable with the marketing work communicating the new strategy. Misalignment all around.

Alignment Drives Business

Put in the hard work to get everyone around the table aligned on the path you’ll take. Focusing on alignment will pay off in the end. It will save you time, frustration, and energy, and allow you to better focus on what really matters—what will drive your business and brand into the future, with everyone on board.
If you need help building alignment, please reach out.

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

Talking Purposeful, Global Leadership in a COVID-19 World: Interview with Emily Chang, Senior Executive

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

An Interview with Senior Executive, Emily Chang: Purpose and Profit, Meaningful Global Leadership, Commercialization, Innovation, and Mentorship in a COVID-19 World

We sat down with Emily Chang, a Senior Executive with 20 years of global experience in Customer Experience, Business Strategy, Cross-Cultural Team Leadership, Change Management & Organizational Renewal, and Brand Building at enterprise organizations such as P&G, Apple, IHG, and Starbucks. Emily is in the midst of writing a book that focuses on ideas of purposeful leadership, community, and culture. In this interview, she shares insights and thoughts on her career and life path, the implications of this time on brand, commercialization strategies, marketing, and culture, as well as the kind of mindset leaders—young and established—should be adopting as this crisis continues to unfold.

It’s apparent that you’ve followed a rich and diverse career and life path. Can you tell us a bit about your journey?

I’ve tried to follow a path that offers opportunities for learning and joy. I started out pre-med and then found my way to business school, which opened the door to an internship at Procter & Gamble. My career really unfolded at P&G, where I had the opportunity to move across a range of business units over the course of 11 years: retail sales, international, upstream design, brand management, and marketing…These experiences were like the ultimate sampler platter of general management! I was then recruited by Apple for a dream job, helping establish the face of the brand in China, just when we were first opening stores. Then an incredible few years working for and with world-class leaders at InterContinental Hotels group, and then Starbucks…which eventually enabled our family to move from China to Seattle. Most recently, I’m considering family alongside career and providing my daughter the chance to experience living in America.

I feel incredibly lucky to have had such rich and joyful learning experiences so far. And importantly, I’ve discovered what I love to do. The opportunity to connect dots that haven’t been previously connected, unlocking new potential. What motivates me is adding value to people and to business. Regardless of industry or geography, realizing that potential gives me deep satisfaction.

While COVID-19 continues to affect the health and economies of countries across the globe, what do you think must be top of mind for executives at global enterprise companies?

I’ve been advising a number of leaders as they write their strategic plans, and three common themes have emerged.

  1. Exercise a new level of agile strategic thinking: We need to stop thinking of “post-COVID” as a solid milestone. It’s quite likely we’re not done with the after-effects of the virus and there’s not going to be a “new normal” as much as a series of “next normals”. COVID-19 has triggered a series of consumer and market shifts that will only give rise to further behavioral transformation. We will need to plan, engage, and lead with unprecedented agility.
  2. Allow shared purpose to unearth new capability: Living life with intention and purpose has been a huge passion of mine. It’s what I’m focused on in the book I’m writing. In the workplace, I’ve been so inspired by those who have pivoted their operations to serve a broader purpose. Sports and auto manufacturers are producing ventilators, while distilleries are pivoting to producing sanitizers. These companies seem to be identifying new capabilities, even as they challenge old sacred cows. They’re serving new needs and streamlining processes—and making money! They’ve discovered the beautiful, value-added intersection of purpose and profit.
  3. Interrogate the data: We must recognize that the world has changed. Consumer habits, media consumption, online behavior, and digital engagement have all taken a quantum leap. As we seek insights from our databases, we must exercise discernment and not allow old data to inform new decisions. Obsolete data isn’t that which was collected and shared in 2018… it’s as recent as January 2020.

What kind of leaders do we need to lead amidst a COVID and post-COVID world?

Leaders who balance head, heart, and soul will draw followership. Those who don’t just deliver business performance, but also nurture and advocate for their people (heart) and identify ways to do good while doing well (soul). I agree with the Business Roundtable; social leadership is a business imperative. That’s really the intent of my book. I wanted to share an example of someone in the business world embracing personal contribution because I truly value it and believe the social legacy we create resonates as much as our professional legacy. It’s going to be tough to drive a purpose-driven brand if you’re not a purpose-driven leader.

Selling in a time where uncertainty is the norm is a challenge. What’s your approach to shifting commercialization strategies right now? Does Marketing continue to market? Does Sales continue to sell?

It really comes back to purpose. Some brands are investing in heartfelt messages like “We’re all in this together” and, although those messages might be completely genuine, they can come across as generic because the purpose of the brand doesn’t necessarily align. First, you have to get clear about who you are and what you stand for. Then, you can communicate in a way that feels authentic and cohesive. I think McDonald’s hit the right chord here. They did a spot highlighting the workers who work all night, thanking them. It paid authentic tribute to the workers, but also communicated the message, “hey, we’re open”. Another recent spot I loved required a celebrity spokesperson to be a little vulnerable. Eva Longoria uses at-home hair color, providing an incredible product demo, a peek into her own home, and loads of credibility (e.g. she really uses the product herself!).

Many think of constraints as obstacles to innovation. But, creativity and innovation often thrive under constraint. Do you have a perspective on how global enterprises should be defining innovation today?

I think innovation requires the constant reinvention of the value we contribute to the world. Grounded in a deep commitment to who they are (their purpose), innovative companies unceasingly ask how they might improve their offering and disrupt their industry. Innovation tests the limits of and then transcends those perceived boundaries. This is a time to see, think, imagine, and do differently.

How do you see the ripple effect of this on culture and how we connect as global entities and communities? What are the long-term implications? How does this ripple out on the internal cultures of companies?

When we view trends over time, we often observe a pendulum effect. For instance, the deeper we move into the future of AI and ML, the more we discover a craving for hands-on learning and manual creation. We see close-knit communities struggling while physically apart, and leveraging technology to maintain togetherness. At the same time, communities that haven’t been close in the past are more connected than ever before. In our neighborhood, strangers are hiding painted rocks on the hill for others to find, infusing delight into each other’s lives even from afar. Pre-COVID, people would have been like, “Who are these people?” Now, we’re craving that sense of togetherness.

In terms of culture in the workplace, teams always learn faster than individuals. Progress unfolds when egos are set aside. When a company’s culture allows the best idea to win, the business serves customers better than ever. IKEA did some incredible, insightful work, leveraging ideas from their open source platform to make novel accessibility add-ons available via free download and 3D printing. This was a good idea for an underserved population that was also good for business.

What advice would you give to younger talent looking for work or early in their careers? How can they use this time to their advantage?

I think it’s about adopting a growth mindset vs. a scarcity mindset. Recently, my family took an RV trip across the western states. Instead of focusing on what we had lost, we asked ourselves, “What new opportunities have presented themselves?” I would ask young people today, “What’s your COVID story?” You’re living through something unique, something that hopefully people won’t live through again. And in the future, you will be asked, “What did you do during that time?”

So, what’s your answer going to be? With this in mind, you can more intentionally adopt a growth mindset. Are you going to say, “I sat at home in my PJs and got Zoom fatigue?” Whether it’s learning to make bread, sewing masks, or getting in an RV, this is your opportunity to write your story.

We will continue to look outside of our own agency for inspiration, advice, insights, and perspective on COVID-19 and the implications on business, brand, and culture.

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

Leadership in a COVID-19 World: Navigating “Fields of Paradox”

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Turbulence Takes a Toll

The acceleration of COVID-19, the speed and intensity of change, the current economic terrain, and the pressure to innovate, adapt, stabilize, and address each new challenge (of which there are many) with focus, grace, empathy, and precision is no doubt taking a toll on all of today’s business leaders. 

The current state of affairs reminded us of an interview with Gianpiero Petriglieri, Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at INSEAD, who provides insights into the implications of turbulent times on leadership. 

“Whatever sector or industry you look at, we face enormous uncertainty and anxiety. Leaders operate under an increasing amount of pressure and great visibility. They are called on to provide predictability, at the same to spark leaps of innovation; to be resolute and inclusive; to have a firm point of view, yet to also take into account a plurality of constituencies; to be self-confident and question themselves at the same time.”

“Fields of Paradox”  

Professor Petriglieri refers to this tension between resolution and plurality as a “field of paradox”. And to prevail in this turbulent environment, leaders need to operate mindfully, effectively, and responsibly.

For many (if not most) leaders, this signals a significant change in their normal approach to leadership. It pulls leaders out of their isolation and forces them to rethink their leadership intents, attitudes and behaviors. It prompts leaders to translate their personal vision, purpose, and ambition to a new language and behavior that up-levels empathy and compassion,  ensures relevance, and truly responds to the concerns of others.  

Finding Solid Ground: It’s Universal

Remember that everyone–your customers, employees, partners, suppliers, investors, and even your own friends and family–are also caught up in their own “fields of paradox”. Feeling both fear and love, anxiety and calm, uncertainty and hope, loneliness and community, distance and closeness. This means the people that you need to reach are seeking out, choosing, and gravitating towards the ideas, people, products, and businesses that will help them navigate these daily paradoxes. 

The leadership challenge becomes how to meet people where they are, wherever they are. This requires an unparalleled level of empathy and ability to understand the contradictory emotional states of your employees, customers, and business partners. 

Toward a Meaningful Position

As a discipline, Emotive Branding, our proprietary methodology, seeks to move businesses to a new meaningful position from which their beliefs and offerings more closely align with what people are seeking–both emotionally and rationally. For any leader today looking to “rethink” and “translate” their personal vision, purpose, and ambition to better resonate in today’s status quo, please reach out with questions. 

Read my full interview with Gianpiero Petriglieri here.

Please reach out if you want guidance on how to rearticulate your leadership vision during this time. 

Emotive Brand is an Oakland based brand strategy and design agency. 

Why Business Leaders Must Address the Big Picture

Posted on by Paige Lansing Valle

Business Leaders, Caught in the Small Picture

It’s easy for business leaders to get caught up in the details of everyday business, assuming the role of micromanager, not leader. And because leaders may not be focusing on big-picture questions surrounding the vision, mission, and value of their business and brand, many leaders end up feeling stuck—trying to figure out how to implement strategies without any real framework to guide these decisions. As a result, employees and middle managers can often suffer.

Too often, big-picture questions are dismissed as important, but not necessarily urgent for business. But gaining a clear vision is the most important thing you can do to propel your business forward—with everyone aligned behind and empowered to make that vision a reality.

The Big Picture Demands Time

In the end, many business leaders ignore the big picture simply because they feel they lack the time. Repositioning, realigning, and rebranding all take time and resources. And building a big-picture mentality requires really looking forward.

Because many leaders are taking on too many priorities (many of which exist on a micro-level), it’s difficult for them to feel as though they have the resources needed to address big questions. And instead, they focus on aspects of the business that might, when it comes down to it, not really be their job.

In fact, business leaders may be so connected to the brand—a brand they’ve built, owned, and currently hold a lot of stake in—that they struggle to let go of their reigns and empower others to create change.

Leadership needs to focus on seeing the big picture before anything else.

These are the key macro questions that we believe need to be answered:

  • Why does your organization exist (what’s your purpose, vision)?
  • What does it deliver (what value do you offer)?
  • Why does what you deliver hold meaning in people’s minds and hearts?
  • And how will it bring its promise to life (how do you behave)?

In order for leaders to find the answers that will empower others to do their job, they need to:

1. Create Guardrails

Defining what you are not—what you do not strive for, what you do not deliver, and how you do not behave—helps gain clarity around who you are and why you matter. Creating guardrails forces leaders to think through consequences of positioning and the various trade-offs of a strategic decision. This kind of clarity can inform your brand and business moving forward—informing how you speak, how you look, where you’re headed, and how to make each decision down the road.

2. Think Strategically, Not Tactically

Big-picture thinking means strategic thinking. Brand strategy and business strategy are all about seeing the whole picture. Considering things in a silo never creates an impactful strategy. And often, leaders get hung up on tactical details that stall powerful, strategic thinking. Although it’s important to occasionally check validity by considering your thinking on a micro level—how actually would you implement this?—it’s important to think big.

3. Listen to Everyone

Often, seeing the whole picture requires widening your perspective. It’s not just about what the C-suite has to say. Everyone should have a voice. Listening is key here. Alignment demands good listening. Give everyone within your company the chance to have a voice and even consider involving an outside perspective that might help put it all into context, identify gaps, and change the conversation.

4. Focus on the Future

In the end, every leader is responsible for driving their business into the future. And there must always be something worth moving toward. A clear vision increases employee productivity and commitment. And being clear about what that future could hold has the power to fuel innovation and empower the people most important to making your vision a reality. It’s easy to feel caught up in the present, stuck in today, and unable to think toward tomorrow. But being a leader is all about the ability to look forward. Then you go back and rally the troops who will make that possible.

If you want your business to succeed, you must focus on the big picture. And a clear and acted-upon purpose that comes to life through consistent behavior is a requirement for brands today. So, take the time and dedicate the resources to taking a macro approach to your brand and business. Be a leader, not a micromanager. Think big and reap the benefits.

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