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Tag: San Francisco Branding Agency

What it Means to be a Meaningfully Different Brand

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Youngme Moon teaches business at Harvard and is the author of “Different – Escaping The Competitive Herd“.

In her closing she points to three characteristics of the brands of tomorrow – as they are driven to differentiate in order to succeed.

Here we summarize:

  1. “They will offer something that is hard to come by…restraint will be the new desire; whisper can be the new shout; there will always be a place for brands offering something that is hard to come by.”
     
  2. “They will reflect a commitment to a big idea…which is to say they won’t just be different in a litle way, they’ll be different in a big way; I would say the brands of tomorrow will be the ones that embrace this, even as they take that sharp left down the unpaved road.” 
     
  3. “They will be intensely human…which is to say they wil be conceived by individuals who are acutely sensitive to the complexities of the human spirit.”

In her book, Ms Moon is focused on the role of marketing and marketers. But the meaningfully different brand won’t (and can’t) come out of the marketing department. 

Continue reading “What it Means to be a Meaningfully Different Brand”

Why Every CEO Should Pursue a Purpose Beyond Profit

Posted on by Jerry Holtaway

It’s textbook management practice to formalize a company’s “mission, vision and values.”

And while these are important steps in helping form a direction and way of being for a company, many CEOs are nonetheless challenged with a litany of business issues:

  • Unengaged employees
  • An inability to attract the new talent needed
  • Customer defection
  • Lack of marketplace differentiation
  • Dissatisfied shareholders

This list goes on and on, doesn’t it?

Behind each of these business challenges is a big question: How can my business matter more to people?

When your business truly matters to people, they are far more likely to do what you need them to do.

They work with enthusiasm. They line up to join your organization. They become loyal advocates of your company. They put you at the head of the competitive field. They invest in your future.

How do you get your business to matter to people?

Modern businesses identify a “Purpose Beyond Profit”.

They step back and look at what they’ve been doing with fresh eyes.

They distill all the good that is buried under the layers, the data, and the anxiety.

They think about what people are really connecting to these days: companies that are doing good things, making work worthwhile, shaping a better future, and being a good citizen.

They then create a purpose that bridges what the company does well, and what people want from the company.

Operating on a higher, more emotional level than the obvious and the required business goal of making a profit, a Purpose Beyond Profit lifts spirits, engages minds, and touches hearts.

Easier said than done.

The biggest challenge for a CEO and team is to get the necessary perspective needed to sift through their complex business situation, and to arrive at the “truths” about the company that will fuel a meaningful, impactful, and hard-working Purpose Beyond Profit.

Which is why we have developed a method of helping companies reveal the hidden meaning of what they do, and to bring that to the surface through a compelling purpose beyond profit. We do this through emotive branding which is our brand strategy methodology.

We also help activate workplaces and marketplaces around a company’s Purpose Beyond Profit – with the goal of changing the way people see, think about, and act on behalf of the company.

CEOs who want their companies to be stronger today, and better fit for the future, will define – and heartily embrace- a Purpose Beyond Profit.

Want to understand how we help CEO’s and their teams to implement new strategies? Download the paper below:

Download White Paper

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

What is Emotive Design?

Posted on by Jerry Holtaway

Emotive design is a component of emotive branding that engages people in a focused way that strives to evoke the specific feelings the brand seeks to own.

Using color, lines, shape, form, texture, light – and nothingness – designers create both passive and interactive experiences that resonant with the brand’s emotional space.

Emotive design is not overtly emotional design. Operating at a subtle and subconscious level, these design cues work to reinforce and enhance other dimensions of the way people interact with the brand.

Continue reading “What is Emotive Design?”

The Purpose-Pivot

Posted on by Jerry Holtaway

Why smart brands are adding meaningful metrics

We recently came across a Huffington Post article, “Meaning is the new money,” that posits the notion of the  purpose-pivot.  According to the author, Blanca Rothschild, the term is a combination of “pivot” (being capable of turning around fast based on new knowledge, from Eric Ries’s book “Lean Startup”), and “purpose” (working to an ambition that transcends the goal of making a profit). In summary, a purpose-pivot is an idea that is “applied in a multi-dimensional way across all stakeholders, and involves redesigning HOW we succeed to include metrics of happiness, well-being, community, and the environment. Where traditionally a business would often choose to pivot toward a financial goal, instead it would now base the pivot on alignment with its defined higher purpose, while still keeping in mind the bottom line.”

As such, a purpose pivot is about adding new metrics to your current, financially-based, measures of success. These metrics help you forge meaningful connections between what your business does, and what is important to the people it touches.

Nothing that matters is easy

Rothschild notes that a purpose-pivot, however important to future success, is not an easy move to make. She offers six wise pieces of advice for leaders considering such a change:

1. It takes courage.

It may feel like the biggest risk you have ever taken in business. Depending on the size of the business or your levels of attachment, it can feel like turning around the titanic. Or free-falling waiting for a parachute to open.

2. It takes grit and determination.

Get ready for a journey. You will be learning new ways of thinking, new language and will be testing emerging ideas in real time in your own business or career. This is commercial innovation in action – there’s no text book just yet.

3. Step into purposeful leadership.

What happens in a purpose pivot is that your vision becomes vital to getting your team on board, and you will need to lead and inspire your team in ways that share your authentic mission, vision, and purpose. This will be new to most leaders who have been used to leading with financial and quarterly goals at the fore.

4. It takes authenticity, humility and trust in yourself.

You may feel naked in your first meeting sharing your new ideas, but you will also feel exhilarated at the freedom and joy that comes with aligning to a higher purpose, and seeing the purpose ignite your team.

5. You need to be married to your purpose.

You must be committed, really and completely, to the purpose and the pivot. There is no turning back. You may be tempted by shiny gold nuggets and easy wins that will steer you off track, but you need to stay committed.

6. Forget about work-life balance.

Integration is your new mantra. You are now actively seeking ways to bring energy and creativity to everything you do in work and play, so you don’t have to wait until you retire, or the weekend, before you have a joyful and meaningful life.

Making a purpose-pivot through brand strategy

When considering the idea of a purpose-pivot, a natural starting point and delivery vehicle is your brand strategy. When your brand strategy is built upon a platform of empathy, purpose, and emotion, it will integrate the idea of purpose-beyond-profit into your brand. When it includes ideas on workplace behavior, it shows you how to evolve your products, processes, policies, and procedures in ways that create the meaningful connections your purpose enables.

React to new knowledge: the traditional financially-led strategies are giving way to purpose-led strategies. To thrive in the future: it’s time to pivot with purpose.

For additional information, please download our latest white paper

Download White Paper

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Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

 

Brand Strategies That Change Capitalism for the Better

Posted on by Jerry Holtaway

According to philosopher Alain de Botton, Facebook thrives because it taps into an overlooked and underserved human need: the desire to have better relationships. So says a TechCrunch article recapping a recent speech he gave on the virtues of modern business.

TechCrunch correspondent Natasha Lomas summed up the Facebook story this way:

“Whether Facebook is actually serving that need well is a whole other question, but the appetite it taps into is undeniable. And de Botton argues that other core human needs continue to be drastically underserved by the modern business community — providing a fertile opportunity for startups to fashion and forge businesses that are successful exactly because they serve the goal of increasing our wellbeing.”

According to de Botton, business needs to move further up Maslow’s pyramid of needs:

“You just have to start with human need. What is it that really makes people happy? How we relate to others. The single greatest contributor to people’s wellbeing is what sort of relationships they are in. And we are hopeless at relationships. Think of Maslow’s famous pyramid of needs, at the bottom you’ve got material needs, as you climb up towards self actualization, meaning, friendship, connection etc. I would simply say that more of the economy needs to go further up Maslow’s pyramid.”

Just scratching the surface

de Botton sees huge business opportunities that are yet overlooked and underserved:

“There is a back to basics view that suggests that capitalism is sort of running out of steam because we’ve got everything that we need… I think that’s completely wrong. The world economy will only, as it were, have done its job when everything is perfect. There are so many needs which we haven’t yet learned to satisfy and a full economy will be one which properly delivers happiness across so many areas. At the moment we are just scratching the surface. We have managed to satisfy people’s basic material needs… but we’re unhappy, we’re squabbling, we’re looking for meaning. These are all businesses waiting to be born. Waiting for the ingenuity of entrepreneurs to harness human unhappiness and connect it up to profit.”

The role of brand strategy in transforming capitalism

Modern businesses need modern brand strategies that blend empathy, purpose, and emotion. Empathy as a cultural attribute naturally leads people to explore Maslow’s pyramid of human needs and to see how the assets of their company can be better matched to solving the problems and maximizing the opportunities those needs present. A purpose-beyond-profit, encapsulated in a brand promise, helps lift the sights of a company and its people, by engaging everyone in a meaningful and noble ambition to improve well-being. By recognizing the power of emotion, and learning how to modify products, processes, and policies so they evoke more positive, motivating, and gratifying feelings, purposeful brand strategies change the game of business, and help achieve de Botton’s vision of future capitalism:

“Capitalism has taken a real bashing over the last few years, is in deep trouble as a concept, assailed from all sides. Where we’re aiming to get to is a good version of business, a better version of capitalism.”

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

Bridging the Meaning Gap

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

A great post by Tom Fishburne talks about the risks of going too far in your efforts to matter to people.

He cites the example of the “Dove Campaign For Real Beauty”, a notable example of a meaningful brand presence, which started as a concept many steps up the brand ladder. When those “too grandiose” ideas were shot down by real people (formerly known as consumers), the focus turned to building meaning from the product up.

Continue reading “Bridging the Meaning Gap”

Gaining Customer Trust Through Both Experienced and Sensed Empathy

Posted on by Jerry Holtaway

Barclay’s Bank wanted to create a more empathetic understanding of customers with mobility issues. In this video, a Barclay’s office manager is outfitted with a special suit designed to recreate the physical world of his own elderly Mother.

The suit includes weights that make it hard for the manager to take steps, or to raise his hands. Goggles dim his vision and cast a yellow light over the scene. Headphones distort his hearing. Electric sensors make him feel the pain of arthritis in his joints. In this way, the manager literally “walks in the shoes” of his mother – and every other Barclay’s customer with restricted mobility.

It becomes vividly clear to the manager that the service isn’t aligned to the needs of the mobility impaired. By living directly through the experience, he shows others within Barclays where the minefields lie for such customers. He helps the people who create forms and devices better understand the role of design, and the people who design the physical structures of the needs of those with impaired mobility.

Continue reading “Gaining Customer Trust Through Both Experienced and Sensed Empathy”

Winning Leaders Change the Conversation

Posted on by Jerry Holtaway

We recently came across an interview with Lee Clow, who has been responsible for a slew of famous ad campaigns, including the landmark 1984 Apple commercial. In the interview he talks about how he now describes his role:

“Finding a voice as a tone for a brand is the art of what I do. I want to consider myself now as a media artist, not an advertising person, because advertising is kind of defined these days and has a negative stigma attached to it. But to be a media artist is to take a brand and find its voice and tell its story and make it interesting and likeable. I think brands are very much like a person. If you can create a personality for a brand that deals with it like a person and not just a one-dimensional entity—sometimes you’re funny, sometimes you’re smart, sometimes you’re thoughtful. Selling who they are and not just what they make is the exciting dimension of doing what I do, I think.”

“Selling who they are and not just what they make.”

No sentence better encapsulates the ambitions of emotive branding. In an age of sharp competition and increasing commoditization, what you make or offer is often the weakest link. Of course, what people will ultimately buy will be that which you make or offer. But, the key to bringing them to the point of decision no longer lies at the product level, or in the usual litany of features and benefits.

Strong and enduring brands are built upon the ideas, ideals, and way of being that shape “who they are”. Their differentiating appeal lies in the promise they make, and the ways they bring that promise to life. This more emotionally-based presence has the power to bring more people into the rationally-based proposition of your product or offering. Along the way, this purposeful and meaningful presence also forges stronger connections with the people vital to your brand’s success.

Forward-thinking leaders look beyond products

It’s hard for many leaders and organizations to look beyond their products. The price they pay is high, because their messages get lost as the noise increases, and as the only conversations that gain traction are those that revolve around how institutions like brands are helping their customers, the society, and the environment.

Winning leaders have changed the conversation their brands are having. They have transformed their organizations by aligning their people around a purposeful promise. They have upped their game, and the returns they earn, by moving beyond product features and benefits and by embracing purpose and meaning in their brand strategy.

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Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

 

B2B Brands Desperately Need Ways to Differentiate Themselves

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

The pressing need for differentiation in B2B

“Features easily blur into other features. It is increasingly difficult to differentiate on a product or service level as competitors find it easy to quickly duplicate innovation. So, where can B2B brands effectively differentiate? We think it’s by connecting to people on a higher level through meaning and feelings.”

It is natural for people engineering teams, product teams and product marketing teams to see their B2B product or service as something special, unique, and important.

Unfortunately, this makes it all the more difficult for them to see it clearly in the competitive context.

All too often, what separates one B2B offering from the next is marginal.

This leaves B2B brand owners in a most vulnerable position.

So, what can a B2B brand do to differentiate its presence in the marketplace it serves?

The first step is to acknowledge that the world has moved on in ways that offer new opportunities.

Even in B2B, people buy from people. It’s personal. It’s emotional. And those that forget that will miss out one of the easiest ways to differentiate their rand. The people who decide to buy your product, work for your company, partner with you, supply you, invest in you, or allow you into their community, are driven by different values and aspirations.

They want to do things that matter.

They want to deal with businesses that help them feel that their decisions and actions matter beyond themselves.

The questions to ask

The question for B2B brand owners is, “What are you already doing – and what else could you start doing – to make the experience of dealing with your business feel more authentic to your brand, gratifying, and meaningful to people?”

What hidden meaning is operating below the radar that could serve as the basis of a more meaningful brand?

What is the promise that you are making that resonates with people both rationally and emotionally?

The answers to these questions is purpose. Why you built the company or product in the first place. It is what drove you to start a company. It is what you use to recruit the people that believe what you believe.

Purpose

A purpose that inspires everyone in your business to work with greater satisfaction, to deal with customers in ways that make them feel special, and to think of ways to make your business ever more successful.

So, a purpose that makes people not only get the difference you offer, but feel it too.

With a meaningful purpose, and a new way of bringing that to life, your B2B brand is suddenly operating from a new position among the fray.

There’s a feeling about your business that draws people to it, engages them in it, and keeps them loyal to it.

Short of re-inventing the category in which you operate through unique technology or processes (that increasingly elusive dream), learning how to matter is the best differentiator for B2B brands to become stronger today, and better fit for the future.

In our paper, “Five Reasons Why B2B Brands Should Become Meaningfully Emotive,” we talk about the pressing need for differentiation in the B2B space:

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.