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Tag: Purpose

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.

Brand Evolution: Keeping Greatness, Adding Appeal

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

What is brand evolution? I think I found a solid example. I recently came across these photos showing two models of the classic Porsche 911.

50 years separate the two models, yet the clarity of the design concept are obvious in both generations.

It is a brand “evolved”.

Emotive Brand is about taking what is good and great about your business and brand today, and evolving it for a new generation, a new audience, or for the addition of a new product.

It is about transforming the presence and feeling of your brand to make it more relevant and appealing, given how the rest of the world has changed.

Just as Porsche has integrated new technology over the years, a meaningful brand integrates new insights about what matters for people in the 21st Century.

Meaningful Brands

Meaningful brands add a new, higher-level purpose to what they do – something that goes beyond simply going from A to B.

They also find ways to evoke positive emotions throughout the brand experience they create.

They still imagine, design, build, market and service their products, but with a new intent.

They still manage processes, have meetings and make sales calls, but with a new attitude.

They still do the business of business, but with a new, and more meaningful behavior.

They still create and design product, but with a renewed empathetic view of what people want, need, and desire.

Emotive branding doesn’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

It evolves what is great about your business and brand, and transforms it to be more relevant, meaningful, appealing and differentiated for the future.

If you are interested in a recent brand evolution project, please visit our work.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy firm.

The New Measurements of a Successful Business

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

What does it mean to be a successful business?

In the new age of meaningful business, it’s time for more inclusive forms of value. It’s no longer enough to measure financial impact. Companies, brands, investors, entrepreneurs, and consumers are asking: what’s the social impact of your business? What’s your environmental impact? Your emotional impact? In other words, people are asking: Why should I care? Why does it matter? And they are also wondering, can you communicate the value of these impacts to me quantitatively?

In any successful business, there is value outside the actual venture. Endless factors play into the success of a business, and these factors differ from company to company. In other words, measurements of success for one brand may not apply to another. This makes finding a universal measures quite difficult.

Purpose

Oftentimes, measuring purpose is ignored, put in the “aspirational” box, and left to sit – separated from business, undervalued, and never quantified. But we can’t separate aspiration from business. The two are intertwined and, in fact, hinge on each other. Alignment of purpose within a business energizes and focuses the brand towards success. Clear, strong, and inspiring purpose differentiates and gives brands a needed competitive edge. It empowers employees to do more valuable, impactful work and encourages a collaborative leadership team – a purpose-led business.

A purpose-led business helps everyone who is key to the business become aware of the impact they are creating each day. By measuring purpose, the “whys” become clear and tangible: why you go to work every day, why your work matters, why each individual’s contribution matters to the greater success of the company and the world at large. Focusing on purpose pushes the people who are integral to your business to take risks, think creatively, and dedicate themselves to their work each and every day.

Measuring Purpose

We wish we could tell you exactly how to measure the purpose of your business. The fact of the matter is that in order to quantify purpose for your specific business, first, you have to fully grasp and align your business – understand all the factors, emotions, and components of why you do what you do. In order to break down your purpose, you must approach it from all angles. What are your key values? Your main aspirations? How do you measure each of these tenants and promises?

In his article, “Measuring Purpose. The next key business imperative,” Hilton Barbour proposes ten potential questions that might help Nike measure its purpose: “to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.” We believe Barbour’s questions are a great example of how any business might measure and quantify their impact, be it innovation or inspiration, like Nike, or any different purpose.

  • What do we define as inspiration and what part do we play in that inspiration?
  • How many inspiring products do we sell (and therefore who do we inspire and to do what)?
  • What did those products cost to develop?
  • What do we make from them?
  • To what extent are we making money from products that continue to inspire vs. those that are re-inspiring vs. those that will inspire into the future?
  • What is the “inspiration” contribution of our product vs. that of the sponsored athlete, high school jock, and weekend warrior wearing it?
  • What innovations have we introduced in the last year for athletes?
  • How many of them have we sold?
  • What’s still in development and what are the projections for those products in the business case?
  • How quickly is our innovation cycle being realized in terms of saleable goods and what effect are those innovations having on our bottom-line?

We agree with Barbour that this introspection about measuring purpose is not only worth it, but necessary to do doing meaningful, purposeful, and impactful business.

Your brand’s purpose warrants measurement and time dedicated to building a personalized system for your business. Ask questions and believe in your purpose to the extent that quantification and qualification of it matters, that it truly does drive success both internally and externally. Build a measurement system that can be explained and communicated to all the people that matter to your business’s success.

One that:

  • Inspires and keeps your business moving and looking forward.
  • Demonstrates possibility and generates potential. That’s what purpose is all about.

To learn more about why meaningful brands should measure their positive impacts, check out our blog “If You Want a Meaningful Brand, Make a Meaningful Impact.”

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

The Benefits of Purpose-Led Company Cultures

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Purpose-led Company Cultures

What happens when all the people in your organization feel better about the work they do?

When they know they’re helping others achieve greater well-being?

When they have a shared belief and feel a kindred spirit with their co-workers? For your business, the benefits are multifold.

There’s more alignment, engagement, and motivation in play. Collaboration and innovation become more natural and prevalent. So everything runs more smoothly. New ideas are popping up all the time. Blank, confused, and dispirited faces are replaced by purpose-driven looks of determination and smiles of gratification. Your business thrives.

If these returns aren’t enough…

Consider the extended benefits of the general well-being that flows from a purpose-led company culture. Happier, more content, and gratified employees take less stress out of the office. This means their commute is more relaxed and fewer accidents are likely to occur. This means they are kinder to strangers and less negative energy is created. This means they are more alive for their love ones and friends, and those vital relationships thrive rather then being tainted by those feeling unhappy and unfulfilled by their jobs. This means these employees live more balanced, and healthier lives. This means that they can work productively, bring money into their own lives, and, through their efforts, increase overall prosperity.

When you consider all your employees, all their loved ones and friends, and all the strangers they encounter every day, the positive outcome of your company culture multiplies radically. Perhaps the idea of an employee being nicer to someone on their drive home may feel distant and unrelated to your business. But really, it’s not. Consider this: have you ever come close to having an accident because you were driving aggressively following a stressful day at the office?

What drives these positive business and social outcomes?

For many companies, it is a brand strategy that is built upon, and promotes, the concepts of empathy, purpose, and emotion. The purpose economy is gaining ground. Why do you need a brand strategy? Because it is a powerful and pervasive channel into hearts and minds of people, both outside and within the company. When thoughtfully crafted, a brand strategy works as hard at reshaping the company culture as it does creating appeal and differentiation among outside audiences.

A purpose-led company culture driven by an empathetic brand strategy, better understands what will improve the well-being of both customers and employees.

Brand messages and actions can create ways to promote the skills of empathetic understanding and decision-making.

A company culture driven by a purposeful brand strategy will help employees clearly see what they can do to help make the company’s meaningful ambition come true.

A company culture driven by an emotionally-sensitive brand strategy, will lead to policies and procedures that make the workplace itself a more sensitive, thoughtful, and gratifying environment.

Is your business and its culture benefiting from a purpose-led brand strategy?

Download our white paper on how to transform you brand with a purpose-led brand strategy.

Download White Paper

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

Brand Purpose Drives Trust

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Brand Purpose Drives Trust

How does brand purpose play into building trust? As customers become more connected, more involved, and more engaged than ever before, it becomes more and more difficult for brands to earn their trust. And this trust is key to successful business today. High-trust companies “are more than 2 ½ times more likely to be high performing revenue organizations” than lower-trust companies.

One of the strongest drivers of trust today is purpose. People want the brands they buy from and the businesses they support to work in line with their values, goals, and greater aspirations for the world as a large. A good product is no longer enough. It’s about what the product stands for – what the greater brand represents. That’s why brands that commit to authentic, transparent CSR, meaningful innovation, and lead with purpose are outcompeting their competitors.

Here’s what we believe makes a brand purposeful and trustworthy to consumers:

  1. Responsive customer needs and feedback
  2. High-quality products and services
  3. Treats employees well
  4. Places customers above profits
  5. Takes actions to address an issue or crisis quickly
  6. Practices ethical business
  7. Embraces transparency
  8. Communicates frequently and honestly
  9. Works to protect/improve environment
  10. Addresses society’s needs
  11. Positively impacts their local community
  12. Innovates of new products
  13. Respected and highly regarded top leadership
  14. Delivers consistent financial returns
  15. Ranks on a global list 1
  16. Partners with third parties

Asking Yourself About Your Brand Purpose

The problem is that sometimes business’s own brand behavior doesn’t match up with what makes a brand purposeful and trustworthy to the people that matter its business.

Addressing these questions can help align consumer’s priorities with you own – making your brand and business more purpose-led, more directed, and more strategic moving forward.

So take the time to ask yourself and your business:

  • How are the attitudes and behaviors within your organization pushing your brand up the meaning ladder through purposeful actions?
  • What’s driving the people who develop your products? What shapes the way your organization sources materials, manages, and recruits employees?
  • How do you positively impact the community, society, and the environment?
  • What guides the decision making processes of your top leaders and managers. How do leaders choose to connect with people inside and outside of the organization?
  • How do your customer service people converse with your customers? What tone do they strike?

Driving Meaningful Business Forward

Asking these questions can help you examine how your business is currently addressing these top concerns – guiding how you reframe the attitudes and behaviors within your organization and better address those areas where your brand purpose may be weak. Purpose points your brand in a new direction, inviting everyone to re-evaluate what they do, and how they do it. It adds more meaning to your business and creates the energy to transform the business in ways that matter most to people.

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

How Culture Brings Strategy to Life

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

Culture and Strategy

Business, culture and strategy can work harder for companies but how?  For many businesses, company culture and strategy exist in two different worlds. They take on separate conversations and are designated as separate leadership and separate budgets. And although many executives today realize that both culture and strategy drive their business, they fail to link the relationship between the two. But not grasping how strategy and culture can work together means both become less impactful.

More Connected Than You Think

There are many misconceptions about what company culture really means and, as a result, what its true value is to a business. Some dismiss culture as an ‘HR-only issue’ or address it as the ‘fluff’ of what a business really is. What they don’t realize is that company culture is one of the most integral drivers of long-term success, sustained growth, and competitive advantage.

Because company culture is often undervalued, when we see companies struggling, HR departments are often the first to have their budgets cut. And even when smart companies allocate funds towards building a stronger strategy, many dismiss culture as part of this conversation – leaving HR leaders out of the conversation.

This is a mistake. Without focusing in on employees and building a cohesive, strong culture, even the strongest strategy can’t really come to life. In the end, your people are the ones who bring a strategy alive. And so no brand strategy is really strategic without making company culture part of the discussion.

Culture Can Bring a Strategy to Life

In order to get your brand strategy out of a presentation deck and living in your business, you need motivated, inspired, aligned, and vision-driven people. People who are strategically in-pace, clear about the brand, and directed towards a shared vision.

In the end, culture can make or break a strategy – giving it an environment to thrive in or die in. Here’s how a focus on culture can help bring a strategy to life.

Greater Focus and Alignment Around the Vision

Although the first step of a successful strategy is getting leaders aligned around a shared purpose, it doesn’t end there. Everyone within the business – from the higher-ups to the new hires — has to be driven towards the same vision. It starts with the leadership but needs to trickle down. Without everyone on board, business goals and objectives will float further and further out of reach.

When businesses get smart about sharing their strategy, giving new voices a place at the table, and finding exciting, innovative ways of getting their employees on board, the strategy thrives. It’s important that employees feel clear about what the strategy means for their business and their own personal work. What changes? What is there to get excited about? What is everyone driving towards? How does a new strategy change the culture? What are the specific behavior changes within the workplace that reflect this new strategy? These are all questions that require transparency and that need to be addressed.

When the whole company is united around a shared vision and clear about how to get closer and closer to that vision, the business becomes more focused, more efficient, more inspired, more productive, and in the end, more impactful. With culture and strategy – together — driving it forward.

More Consistency and More Collaboration

When culture becomes a part of the strategic conversation, recruiting and retaining employees who are going to have the most impact on your business becomes easier. And finding the right fit and keeping people motivated, happy, and inspired becomes more of a reality.

When you’re clear about the kind of people who are going to drive your business into the future, and help shape the culture you want to build, collaboration flourishes, innovation thrives, and creativity rockets. Employees feel empowered because they are clear and excited about living the brand every day. The strategy comes to life through employees who come together and instill the emotional impact in target audiences, bring the brand promise alive, and keep business moving forward every day.

Culture and Strategy Working Together

Brand strategy has a very direct connection to the issue of culture change. When culture becomes a part of the strategic conversation, and employees gain clarity around why the brand matters and why their business is different, they behave in ways that are aligned strategically with the values, vision, and aspirations of the company. Coming together with a shared focus is what puts that strategy into play, and allows businesses to outperform the competition and position themselves for success. 

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

Girl Scouts: Embracing a Purpose Bigger than Cookies

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

Girl Scouts

Girl Scouts have always been bigger than the cookies they sell. In fact, Girl Scouts of the USA is currently the world’s biggest organization dedicated to girls. Founded in 1912, a long list of prominent women today were Girl Scouts – Celine Dion, Venus Williams, Nancy Reagan, and even Michelle Obama (a big fan of the organization and its impact).

Slipping Membership

The organization currently has 1.8 million members, a drop from the 2.1 million members three years ago. And many are asking why the drop? Slipping membership can be explained in several ways. The organization may be losing girls to other activities – sports, arts, school work, or even, in today’s day and age, social media. A decline in parent-volunteering may also be a cause. Some families have voiced complaints about wanting more activities and outdoor experiences and less cookie selling. The organization has also been criticized for its lack of diversity. Two thirds of current members are Caucasian and there is low membership among minority populations.

It seems that at the heart of the slippage is the perception that Girl Scouts is simply old-fashioned – behind the times of what girls want today and what guardians want from the organizations who support those girls.

Shedding The “Campfire Image”

The organization responded to slipping membership and recently revamped its brand for the first time in decades. Because we’re interested in brands and how they are positioning themselves to succeed in today’s world, this rebrand caught our eye. Here’s why.

1. Focus on experiences

The recent rebrand is shifting focus away from the products and materials classically associated with Girl Scouts – think thin mints and badges – and towards the valuable experiences girls can gain from membership. That being said, the organization is by no means ending cookie sales (they bring in about $800 million in annual sales). But instead, repositioning the sales around the experiences and skills girls can gain – business experience, money management skills, knowledge about successful collaboration, and the overall confidence to tackle any project head on.

Similarly, the organization plans to move away from the long-standing tradition of badges. By introducing a new curriculum, called Journeys, they aim to create a learning environment tailored to help girls build a foundation for success down the road.

Girl Scouts is presenting themselves as a more modern brand by focusing in on experiences, and we predict this to serve them well down the road. Powerful, personal, and meaningful brand experiences tailored to the people that brands and businesses are trying to reach, are the future.

2. Fostering diversity  

The organization was smart and dug a little deeper into who their audiences really were. What was the demographic of the girls and families who joined and supported Girl Scouts? And even further, where was brand awareness and reach weak? Like many businesses today, Girl Scouts realized they weren’t reaching some groups of people that had the potential to connect meaningfully with their purpose and what they had to offer girls – leadership skills and a foundation to go and get whatever they set their mind to, taking risks and innovating along the way.

A key group that was getting left out of the conversation were girls of immigrant families. These girls represented a population that had the potential to find great value in the new program meant to transform girls into confident, savvy leaders and connect them with other girls in their communities.

When the team in charge of the rebrand conducted focus groups, it was revealed that many immigrant parents weren’t aware of Girl Scouts in the first place. And those that were didn’t find it to be the right cultural fit. Many parents didn’t feel comfortable with the concept. Amelia de Dios Romero, the Multicultural Marketing Manager, notes: “Selling cookies, to them, meant going door-to-door to strangers and camping was sleeping in the woods with danger there.” Some parents even thought the organization might turn out to be more of a party influence. 

So Girl Scouts’ newly appointed brand manager (in fact, the organization’s first ever brand manager), Laurel Richie, went out to change this. With Richie in charge of building the brand the team envisions, Girl Scout leaders have started to meet one-on-one with mothers to explain how the program might help their children adapt and feel comfortable in their new home or community. By listening to other perspectives and opening up a new conversation, the organization is beginning to foster the kind of culture they want to build – diverse, aware, welcoming, and connected. And as a result, embracing diversity and reaching a group of urban and minority girls who they have failed to reach in the past is more easily seen as an authentic, genuine goal of the organization.

3. Embracing a larger purpose

At the heart of this rebrand is the greater embrace of purpose. The GIRL initiative – standing for Go-Getters, Innovators, Risk Takers, and Leaders – exemplifies this purpose. Ms. Aceveo voices the larger aspiration: “letting girls know we are the premier leadership organization for them.” Strategically, all the changes that Girl Scouts has initiated so far have stemmed from their larger purpose of helping girls become leaders and connecting with each other. The new anthem, the new public service announcement featuring Girl Scouts playing different leadership roles (“I’m prepared…to lead like a Girl Scout”), their promise of partnering with more community-based organizations, the announcement of their Girl 2017 gathering, and their digital fundraising effort echo this purpose.

Like any rebrand, there’s always a risk. Gender roles have shifted so much since 1912, when the organization was founded. And many worried that the rebrand might be too progressive. Others worried it might not be progressive enough. Strategically, the organization rebranded itself in a way that created a brand open to flexibility. Leading with purpose created this ability to shift and create new programs that still ring true to the heart of the new brand.

Focus on Brand

In many ways, the shifts of the rebrand were subtle, especially design-wise. The new logo added bangs to the profile, attempting to give more life to the girls and making the girls appear more contemporary within the playful, familiar shape. The switch to lowercase aimed to make the organization seem more approachable and welcoming. A recent review of the rebrand noted “this project is a great example of what can be called a revitalization, breathing new life into something a lot of people are familiar with.”

But in other ways, the organization made some major shifts – towards experiences, diversity, and a greater purpose. And above all else, Girl Scouts appears to have embraced the power of building a strong, clear, meaningful brand. They signaled this shift when they hired their first-ever brand manager last year. We, at Emotive Brand, will stay tuned for what’s to come with the Girl Scout brand, and it’s more than cookies.

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

Co-Founders On Brand Strategy Today

Posted on by Paige Lansing Valle

Co-founders, Bella Banbury and Tracy Lloyd, weigh in on what matters in brand strategy today.

It’s important to remember that, in the end, the age-old question is always the same. Client needs all come down to “How do we differentiate our brand?” It’s just the way people ask the question and the way we answer the question that evolves. Here’s what we’ve been seeing more specifically in the market:

1.Heightened attention around data security:

Since 2016 was all about using data, now it’s all about safely storing and accessing that data. Gartner predicts that by 2018, 50% of business ethics violations will be related to data. There are lots of questions and doubts about how brands are collecting information and keeping it safe. People are distrustful and worried about privacy issues. Smart brands are focused on security and smart storage. And those brands that can keep data safe, and their users even safer, are winning.

2. Even greater demand for trust:

Companies with a culture of trust have outperformed the S&P 500 by a factor of three, and high-trust companies are more than 2½ times more likely to be high performing revenue organizations than lower-trust companies. Nothing is as important as trust for any brand looking to make an impact moving forward. In 2016, we saw a lot of brands lose people’s trust, both internally and externally, in banking, in technology, in the automobile industry, and in the food industry. So this year a lot of brands are working on building and keeping trust this coming year. And this effort always comes back to brand strategy – helping brands make promises that they can keep to both build and keep the trust earned. That’s what we do.

3. Purpose divides:

The conversation around purpose-led business continues. There is more and better research coming out that supports the ideas of purpose-led business and the research supports our belief. When companies articulate and embrace a meaningful purpose or vision, their people naturally pay more attention to all the elements that drive sustainable growth. Brands that want genuine purpose to fuel innovation, culture, and business need to make sure they live authentically by it and communicate it clearly.

4. It’s all about disruption:

It’s clear that people are drawn to brands that are challenging the status quo, saying something new, and making a splash today. Whatever is it –disrupting a category, challenging the way we pay for things, changing the way we get healthcare, the retail experience – it’s all about disruption. Industries we’ve been most excited about are insurance, healthcare, wellness, and education because of this same reason. Brands that reimagine what is possible and deliver new ways of behaving will gain momentum over their competitors who remain stuck in the same thinking.

5. Digital health, on the rise:

There are many changes afoot in wellness and digital health. Last year, we saw more investing in this space and we imagine brands will need to start working harder to differentiate themselves in the next year. Right now, the future seems exciting and yet somewhat vague. This space will require digital health brands to clarify, differentiate, categorize, and tackle shifts head on. The digital health market is huge, and those brands that can figure out how clearly articulate why they matter and deliver on that promise could very well become Wall Street darlings.

6. Role of the CMO changed for good:

The role of the CMO is almost unrecognizable to five years ago. CMOs are now expected to deliver against P&L metrics, grow the top line, and drive the brand forward. Steering the brand in the driver’s seat means delivering on the brand promise. It also means ensuring all customer experiences are aligned to the brand purpose. It’s about understanding the customer journey and embracing customer experiences across all channels. So in order to compete, the CMOs of 2017 need to be brand focused, technically savvy, and data driven. They need to deliver better customer experiences and use insights to strategically deliver business growth.

7. All about brand experience:

Because expectations of brands are continually rising, smart brands are uber-focused on creating meaningful experiences. The real challenge is creating cohesive, connected experiences that resonate across platforms and at every touchpoint. These experiences drive engagement, build loyalty, and drive ROI. And brands need a clear strategy for succeeding in creating the right kind of experiences for the people they are trying to reach. Developing strategies to outline brand behavior has become more relevant for brands looking to deliver something people can count on – whether it’s B2B, B2C, or B2B2C.

As a San Francisco branding agency, we are excited to continue to help our clients develop the right brand strategies to transform brands in order to transform business.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

Why Lack of Internal Alignment May Be Holding Back Your Business

Posted on by Paige Lansing Valle

When Internal Alignment Is Holding Back Your Business

The sky’s the limit. The future is full of opportunities. Until internal alignment becomes a dark cloud that prevents your business aspirations from being realized.

What happens when the brand is ready to grow and thrive, but there is no internal alignment from leadership about where the business is going? Nothing. The brand is paralyzed by competing visions and nothing happens. And a lack of decision making due to misaligned leadership is a problem that will hold up your business.

Strategy Without Alignment

A brand strategy is hard work and involves a tremendous amount of collaboration. When it’s clear that your brand needs to make a change in order to stay competitive and relevant, a brand strategy will articulate the shifts needed to grow and thrive. A brand narrative will clearly explain where the brand is going – what makes it different and special now and in the future – and gives your brand the launching pad to get there.

But if your leadership team doesn’t share the same vision for the business trajectory, it’s impossible for the brand to embark on the journey of transformation. Oftentimes, it’s not until businesses engage in developing a brand strategy that they uncover the depth of the misalignment. Before any progress can be made for the brand, the business needs internal alignment.

Focusing On Alignment

When you need to create momentum around your brand, internal alignment is the clear answer. The challenge arises, however, when leaders in your organization aren’t willing to share their honest vision for the brand. Sometimes leaders hold on to their vision as a form of intellectual capital – if the vision furthers their personal agenda for success it might be strategic to pursue it in a silo. Or other times, the vision is only shared with a select few as a power play to keep others at bay. Or general poor communication creates lack of trust and therefore reticence towards an open and honest dialogue about the future of the brand. Regardless of why leaders aren’t sharing a common aspiration for the business, overcoming the misalignment for the betterment of the brand’s future is critical.

Leaders Unite

Leaders must have clarity around the brand’s purpose in order to focus on making any strategic shifts. There must be agreement from all the key stakeholders in an organization about what the brand stands for and how that maps to the business. Since getting alignment involves teamwork and breaking down silos, a third party can be extremely useful.

Path to Purpose

At Emotive Brand, we’ve been on the front lines working with disconnected leadership and know all too well the challenge of articulating a clear brand strategy if there are competing views about the business plan. We developed Path to Purpose as way to bring executives together in a collaborative workshop series that aims to identify, articulate, and align leadership around the purpose of the company. By doing so, we help create internal alignment around the business strategy and map the brand strategy to it.

Our workshop paves the way for a corporate purpose statement and identifies the shifts your business should consider making in order to live its purpose more authentically. When you’re ready to push your brand beyond its stagnant state and truly reach its potential, you need a brand strategy with a strong purpose statement. If developing a brand purpose seems like an insurmountable obstacle due to a misaligned leadership group, consider Path to Purpose as the key to unlock your brand’s potential.

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

Moving from B2B to B4B: A New Code for B2B Brands

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Could a subtle change in the way you think increase your potential as a B2B brand?

For example, consider the difference between business-to-business (B2B) and business-for-business (B4B).

B2B: Business-to-business suggests two separate and different entities, one “selling” to the other.

B4B: Business-for-business suggests many companies in a value chain working toward a common goal of ever-greater end-customer satisfaction.

A shift to a B4B stance means making your brand known as one that embraces the shared interests of all the businesses and people who will benefit from a stronger and more purposeful collective effort. It is the B2B brands that foster greater knowledge exchange, instigating more active collaboration and fostering stronger alliances.

Of course, I’m not talking about underhanded market collusion. Rather, I am promoting the idea of aligning the interest, energy, and capacity of the individual contributors to an ultimate customer solution for the greater benefit of all.

This requires a meaningful intent, an empathetic attitude and new behaviors on the part of your brand and its people.

B2B may be your mode.

B4B should be your code.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco Brand Strategy firm.

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