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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.

If You Want a Meaningful Brand, Make a Meaningful Impact

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Being a Meaningful Brand

The data is in, and to be a meaningful brand, you must make meaningful impact. It is inescapable. The most powerful and profitable brands – regardless of sector – are brands that enhance well-being and enrich peoples’ lives.

The Center for Positive Marketing at Fordham University recently published “The V-Positive Report,” which ranks brands according to how they affect consumers along seven dimensions of human needs and wants. The dimensions of the study span from basic physical function to the capacity for building relationships. The most “V-positive” brand in 2015 was Google, and every member of the top 10 were household names –brands you would recognize as leaders. According to the researchers at Fordham, these are great brands, in part, because they enrich lives and add meaning to lives.

Another data point suggests why failing to be meaningful and emotive is so dangerous for brands. Havas’ “Meaningful Brands Survey 2017,” which sampled 1,500 global brands, more than 300,000 people, 33 countries and 15 different industry sectors, found that a mere 20% of the brands people interact with have a positive impact on their lives. This means that the vast majority of brands could disappear entirely and most people wouldn’t even notice.

So what does this mean for companies and brands?

It’s simple to say and harder to execute, but for a brand to be truly meaningful, it must, in the language of academics, have a “positive impact on societal well-being.” In the language of Emotive Brand, a brand must exude meaning and elicit emotion from its core.

A truly meaningful brand must enhance the vibrancy and vitality of what we feel in our day-to-day lives. It must have an impact that transcends product attributes, price, or performance. It must make people feel. It must make people feel something positive.

The key is understanding exactly how your brand can help people and communities become and feel smarter, healthier, stronger, safer, and or more connected.

According to Martin Seligman, one of the leading lights of the positive psychology movement, positive emotions are directly linked to a person’s sense of significance, social engagement, interest, and purpose in life. Seligman’s research proves that positive emotions have a demonstrable effect on nearly all areas of a person’s life. Brands that generate positive emotions among consumers will be rewarded in all the normal ways, such as growth in market share and in shareholder value, while positively contributing to society as a whole. In short, more positivity generates more good.

Finding and evoking this kind of emotional resonance is our mission at Emotive Brand. We help our clients discover the real essence of their brand promise and emotional impact. We help companies lead with purpose and empathy and believe that empathetic brands are more adept at recognizing and connecting with the values, interests, hopes, and dreams of their customers, prospects, employees, and partners – brands that naturally inhabit Seligman’s “sweet spot of emotional resonance.”

To us, data and findings from Fordham and Havas demonstrate what Emotive Brand has always known: for a brand to be meaningful and successful, it must positively impact people’s lives. If your brand can do that, it will improve your business performance, build your company’s fortunes, and enrich your customers’ lives.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design consultancy

Fresh Perspectives: Refresh & Energize in 2017

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

2017, A Different Year

Each new year marks a new opportunity for reflection, change, and asserting goals and objectives. 2016, like many years in reflection, was a whirlwind of ups and downs, successes and challenges, learning and progress.

By stepping away from the office and our workflow for the holidays, we gained distance from the happenings of 2016. And at Emotive Brand, we believe this space and time away is critical to gaining the clarity we need to take 2017 by storm.

There is great impact and value in stepping back in order to see things with a fresh perspective. Everything comes into focus and we are able to view our business with increased clarity. And this renewed vision gives us the charge needed to look forward with fresh energy and revived focus.

Stuck in Reflection

Oftentimes, people bring too much of the last year into the new year. And although we believe it’s integral to thoughtfully reflect on 2016 – what worked and what didn’t, and how we can do better – it’s also integral to embrace the new year as just that. New. A fresh start. A different opportunity. A time for change. An opportunity to refresh, positively re-energize, open up to new perspectives and possibilities, and embrace what the future has to offer us.

Hitting Refresh

Stepping away and hitting refresh generates the focus needed to achieve goals in 2017. By asking yourself and your business: What’s most important? What do we care about this year and why? You can strip yourself of excess work and worries that aren’t bringing you closer to your greater aspirations as a brand or business. 

Remembering your purpose and brand promise is integral here. The start of 2017 is a time to remember why your business really matters, and who it really matters to. Return to your purpose, and review your strategy to make sure you are still aligned. What’s no longer relevant? What needs to change?

The new year is a chance to refocus your efforts and kick-start innovation. And in order to do so effectively, organization and prioritization are both key. As is setting specific goals – both personal and business-driven – that clearly map to larger aspirations, dreams, and visions for what this year could hold. Be open to new ways of thinking and fresh perspectives that may shift how you did things in 2016. Embrace different POVs, approaches, frames of reference in order to rev up creativity, innovation, and teamwork from the start of 2017.

This time of the year is also the time to reset expectations. Internally, get aligned on what is expected from your brand and business in 2017 and how this vision dictates what’s expected of each individual and their work in the coming months. For any client-facing business, managing expectations with clients or partners in the new year is also important. Remind people of the timeline and what it’s going to take to create maximum impact. Reinstating feedback loops or building new ones if necessary is also important.

Positivity Moving into 2017

In addition, a fresh start means letting go of any negativity. Embrace new challenges, and let the things that didn’t go your way in 2016 go. Use your renewed energy to channel positivity and change coming into the new year. Strive for balance. Start with an open mind. Embrace new perspectives. Hitting reset can help breathe new life into your business and brand – motivating you to move forward with a clear purpose, straightforward goals, and an inspired, positive mindset.

Keep posted for more insights, news, and thoughts from us in 2017.

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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Purpose-led Business Leaders Gain Competitive Advantage

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Long ago we fell in love with this Fast Company article about purpose-led business leaders who are changing the way business works by embracing purpose. Here we recap its main points, and add additional perspective.

Generation Flux is a group defined less by age than by attitude.

According to the article’s author, Robert Safian, Generation Flux “refers to the group of people best positioned to thrive in today’s era of high-velocity change.”

Safian continues, “Fluxers are defined not by their chronological age but by their willingness and ability to adapt. These are the people who are defining where business and culture are moving. And purpose is at the heart of their actions. Don’t confuse this with social service. For these folks, a mission is the essential strategic tool that allows them to filter the modern barrage of stimuli, to motivate and engage those around them, and to find new and innovative ways to solve the world’s problems. Their experiences show the critical advantages of building mission into your career and your business. Businesses that find and then live by their mission often discover that it becomes their greatest competitive advantage.”

Purpose is the key to future business success

Many of today’s top leaders are thriving through their purpose-led business and brand strategies. They use purpose to better navigate the fast moving and changing world. Purpose has become a strong tool of differentiation, which is in itself the key to growth, loyalty, and long-term value. A purpose beyond profit raises the stakes both intellectually and emotionally, and gives employees, customers, prospects, and recruits meaningful reasons to think, feel, and act in new ways with respect to your brand.

Who are these Generation Flux leaders?

Purpose-led business leaders are emerging at many of the world’s largest companies, across a vast array of business segments. According to Safian, people like Steve Ells of Chipotle and Tim Cook of Apple represent, “a rising breed of business leaders who are animated not just by money but by the pursuit of a larger societal purpose. Their motivation may be personal, emotional, and, yes, moral; and yet their idealism is rewarded in the marketplace. In a world that is evolving faster than ever, companies such as Apple and Chipotle–and Google and PepsiCo, and even fashion brands like Eileen Fisher–rely on mission to unlock product differentiation, talent acquisition and retention, and even investor loyalty. The more they focus on something beyond money, the more money they make.”

Is this just about making people happier at work, and giving a “feel-good” factor to your marketing/advertising?

Many people confuse the main outcome of being purpose-led. It is not simply to make people feel happy (though there’s no problem if one of the sensations they have along the way is happiness). Purpose is a much deeper idea, one that drills down to satisfying core human needs. People seek meaning in their lives. According to Safian, “Jennifer Aaker at Stanford University has taken this idea even further. She challenges the very notion that a pursuit of happiness is what drives us most. Her work suggests that people’s satisfaction with life is higher, and of greater duration, when meaning–rather than happiness–is their primary motivation.”

How do leaders develop and execute a purpose-led strategy?

According to Safian, Generation Flux leaders follow an inside-out strategy.

“Purpose is at the essence of why firms exist,” says Hirotaka Takeuchi, a management professor at Harvard Business School. “There is nothing mushy about it–it is pure strategy. Purpose is very idealistic, but at the same time very practical.”

Inside-out is a new way of thinking about business and brand strategies. Generation Flux leaders embrace the discomfort that new thinking generates, and use the resulting energy to forge a new and more powerful approach.

According to Takeuchi, at a company built on an inside-out strategy,

“the beliefs and ideals of management become the core. Why does the firm exist?” The research Takeuchi has done with Ikujiro Nonaka at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo shows that the key differentiator between enterprises is how they envision their futures. “A very bland mission doesn’t resonate,” he explains. A dynamic, long-term plan requires a mission that’s clear, focused, and invaluable: “Look at what Walt Disney wanted: ‘to create timeless, universal family entertainment,'” Takeuchi continues. “If you have those five words, there’s no doubt in the mind of employees or anyone else what you’re about.”

Should you join Generation Flux?

As noted above, Generation Flux is about looking at the world ahead and deciding that yesterday’s approaches and tools won’t be enough. The leaders of the new powerhouses of our economy embrace brand strategy embedded with meaning and purpose as the “North Star” of their organizations. They rally all their people around this idea, make every decision based on fulfilling this ideal, and through all this, fundamentally change their brand’s ability to compete and thrive.

Can you see how purpose helps address key business issues? Can you see how your leadership would reach new levels of effectiveness? Can you see how a new energy would be there to help your organization propel itself through an uncertain future?

If so, welcome to Generation Flux. Go and be purposeful!

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

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