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Tag: Technology

Redefining What it Means to be a Tech Branding Agency

Posted on by Emotive Brand

This year pushed us to refine how we work with high-growth tech companies to deliver brand positioning that resonates—tight budgets, big expectations, and the ever-present need to differentiate forced us to deliver smarter and stronger. The lessons we learned didn’t just challenge us—they made us better.

They sharpened how we deliver impact, aligned us even closer with our clients, and the outcomes? They speak for themselves. Here’s what we learned about speed, emotion, simplicity, and alignment—and how those lessons are driving real sustainable growth.

The Speed Trap
Speed is non-negotiable these days. Clients demand it, and we’ve gotten pretty good at delivering—getting them what they need, in the way they need it, and at the level of quality we’re known for. But here’s the thing: speed only works when it’s a team effort, and that means getting stakeholder engagement from the start.

What I’ve learned is this: you can’t wheel in your CEO at the end and expect them to be on board with your new brand positioning and strategy. If they’re part of the decision, they need to go on the journey with us. When that happens, speed isn’t just fast—it’s transformative. You get that unanimous, “Yes, let’s launch this” kind of moment, where the team is aligned and energized. And that alignment often leads to bigger budgets, more opportunities, and an even greater impact.

The irony? Speed doesn’t mean less input—it means more. It requires buy-in, collaboration, and executive involvement at every stage. When that’s in place, speed becomes a strategy for not just delivering fast but for delivering bold, game-changing brand transformation.

Mergers and Acquisitions is an Emotional Journey
M&A is often framed as a numbers game—valuations, synergies, integrations. But what I’ve learned is that mergers aren’t just strategic—they’re deeply emotional. You’re asking people to let go of what they know, trust new teams, and find their place in a completely reimagined structure and company culture.

Here’s the truth: getting the product architecture right is where it starts. It’s not just a technical exercise—it’s about helping people see how their work fits into something bigger. Driving internal engagement takes empathy, emotional intelligence, and a lot of patience. When leaders and teams go on that journey together, you can move past the fear and resistance that derail so many mergers and acquisitions.

When the product and brand architecture is clear, everything else—company culture, brand positioning, and go-to-market strategy—starts to align. But if you skip this step, the whole thing falls apart. The real work of M&A isn’t just building a unified company—it’s building trust in what comes next.

Emotion as a Strategic Catalyst
For years, emotion was dismissed as soft or secondary to logic. But this year, I saw that narrative change. Leaders are finally recognizing that emotion isn’t a nice-to-have—it’s a strategic force that drives brand growth, brand loyalty, and product innovation.

In B2B especially, emotion plays a critical role. It’s what builds trust, inspires confidence, and creates the kind of connection that sets your brand apart. Decisions in this space carry personal and professional risk—people don’t just want rational benefits, they need to feel like they’re making the right choice.

What I’ve learned is that emotion isn’t optional anymore. It’s how you differentiate in a crowded market. It’s how you connect with your team and customers on a deeper level. And it’s how you transform your brand from something people notice into something they believe in.

Great Work Comes From Great Partnerships
I’ve always believed trust is the foundation of great work, but this year reinforced just how important it is. The best projects weren’t just about deliverables—they were about partnerships built on trust and mutual respect.

When leaders let us in—when they trust us to challenge their thinking on brand strategy and positioning and push them toward their biggest ambitions to achieve sustainable growth—that’s when the magic happens. These partnerships didn’t end when the project wrapped—they stayed connected. They came back to us for advice, shared their wins, and asked for guidance on new challenges.

The takeaway? The best work happens when you stop treating the relationship as transactional. It’s not just about the results you deliver—it’s about the trust you build along the way.

The Hard Truth About Simplicity
Everyone says they want simplicity. Clients want clear brand positioning, differentiated product positioning, cohesive product and brand architecture, and straightforward brand narratives. But here’s the hard truth: simplicity isn’t hard because it’s complex—it’s hard because it means letting go.

Letting go of old narratives. Letting go of the way things have always been sold. Letting go of the familiar and embracing something new. That’s emotional—there’s fear in leaving behind what feels safe, even when it’s not working anymore.

But when you push through that resistance, simplicity becomes transformational. It sharpens your story, aligns your team, and makes your brand or platform truly customer-centric. Simplicity isn’t a shortcut—it’s a leap of faith. And when you take it, the impact is undeniable.

The hardest work isn’t about strategic frameworks or deliverables—it’s about getting to the heart of what matters. Simplifying complexity, building trust, and leaning into emotion aren’t easy, but they’re where real transformation happens.

It’s been a year

This year brought challenges and clarity. For that, I’m grateful—grateful to our team, our clients, and mostly to my ride-or-die, business partner, and best friend for navigating it all with me. She just knows how to make shit happen.

Strengthen Your Health Care Brand During Your Digital Transformation

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Room for Digital Transformation for Health Care Brands

You’ve probably had a friend tell you about her amazing physician. But did you ever hear anyone brag about their health insurer? Unlikely.

Overall, individuals are pretty happy about the quality of care. What they complain about is customer service. According to the Advisory Board, the top patient complaints include: communication (53%), long wait times (35%), medical practice staff (12%), and billing (2%).

Fortunately, powerful organizations—companies who see shortcomings in today’s system—recognize the room for improvement. The triumvirate of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase say they want to disrupt healthcare and we all eagerly await their solution.

Of course, the existing system operates at a disadvantage to the growing cohort of startups. These companies have no legacy technology baggage and are digital-first. Fitbit, Apple, and Omada Health offer individuals new ways to manage their overall fitness and health. Others focus on corporations and companies—the major healthcare payers – that watch the costs of care for their employees rise exponentially. For example, Collective Health helps self-insured companies manage their healthcare investment and support operations. Another, Lyra, helps companies and their employees connect directly to mental health providers.

Don’t Wait Around for Transformation, Start Strengthening Your Brand Now

Not all health care companies have the luxury of starting with an all digital approach. In fact, the biggest, most important players don’t. It’s why traditional healthcare providers, insurance companies, hospitals, and clinics are all in the midst of a digital transformation. This doesn’t mean, though, that they—or you—should wait until after a transformation is complete before you start making changes to your brand.

Take the opportunity to strengthen your brand so your customers are still there when you make that transformation a reality. Here’s how.

1. Make the Process Feel Good

A great place to start when looking to build a better process is to think about how you want to make people feel. Maybe your customers now feel frustrated? Unconfident? Even anxious? How can you make them feel optimistic? Even calm and confident?

The midst of a transition is the perfect time to start thinking about this. Focus on building a more frictionless process and making quick changes across the board that make for a more positive experience.

Ask questions like: How can we make it easier for customers to access the information they need? How can we better understand how they can prevent illness? Get in touch with a doctor or nurse when they need? Or even pay a bill more quickly and easily? Can we communicate with less complicated, more human language? Can we better train our people to act with empathy and patience?

It’s these small changes that will help build the frictionless experience people now demand from the brands they pledge loyalty to. And making the experience feel good can sustain your brand and ensure you keep your customers while you’re in the midst of a digital transformation. They’ll be committed to you, and delighted when you do transform.

2. Behave Consistently

It’s great when a health care brand says they “care about their patients”. But when a customer calls and has to go through multitudes of layers just to get a terse answer to their question and can’t even understand the coverage they signed up for months before, the brand loses credibility.

So while you’re in this transition, ask yourself what promises you make your customers. Are you living up to those? How can you better behave at every touchpoint? How can you really act like you care?

People don’t want the health care brands they buy into to be unpredictable. And businesses in the middle of change tend to let all rules go to the wayside. Just because you’re in the middle of digital disruption, doesn’t mean you don’t need guidelines for the present. Behave in line with your core values and make sure your behavior at every touchpoint lives up to what you promise the people you want by your side when you do transform.

3. Employees – Activate Small Wins

As your company invests in cutting-edge technology, dedicates time and resources to innovation, and prepares itself for a digital transformation, it’s integral that employees know and understand what’s important right now.

Leaving employees behind for a future state that is yet to come is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. When you are clear and transparent with employees about what they should be focusing in on and why, they can activate small wins.

It’s easy to think that change comes in one fell swoop. But small, incremental changes can make worlds of difference—especially in struggling industries with low trust, low convenience, and low brand loyalty. Employees are the people who are going to build that trust, leverage that convenience, and help build loyalty. Look to them and communicate with them about what matters.

There’s Always Need for Improvement

Health care is ripe for disruption because people want something more. Whether it’s a frictionless experience, a more empathetic brand, or a clearer and easier way forward, you can start delivering people what they want while you’re in the midst of a digital transformation. Ask yourself what should happen while you wait. What can you do to make improvements today?

Consider how you can better behave, better connect, and better build meaning with the people most important to your business. And dedicate time, energy, and resources to making those changes. Small changes can bring big rewards. By focusing on what you can change now, you’ll be more ready for digital disruption later—with a better process, a better way of communication, a better strategy, and better people behind you.

If you need help creating and implementing strategic change, please reach out.

Other posts you may enjoy on the subject are Digital Health: A Future With Millennials, and Why Digital Health Brands Need a B2B2C Strategy

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

When Designers and Developers Collaborate, Everyone Wins

Posted on by Jonathan Haggard

A great developer recognizes and enhances design decisions. A great designer understands the technology they are designing for. Both developers and designers need to have an intimate understanding of each other’s fields in order to produce better experiences for brands.

In order to deliver a bespoke experience for a brand, a collaborative environment needs to be fostered.

How to Actually Collaborate

A key element to facilitating design and developer collaboration is reshaping the reviewing process. The traditional way is to do a bunch of design work upfront, get client approval, polish the entire project, and hand it off to a developer completely “designed.” This often results in quite a few design decisions being compromised because of poor documentation, developer interpretation, or non-feasibility.

The new way of doing things is beyond agile—its actual collaboration.

Collaborate

Setting a frequent and casual cadence of check-ins between designer and developer not only speeds up each other’s workflows, but it also allows each party to influence each other’s practice. True collaboration is a developer showing a designer an interaction that is 50% of the way done, so that the designer can fiddle with the code in order to make it perfect. True collaboration is also a designer showing the developer what they are thinking for design early on, so that the developer can raise any flags or offer suggestions to improve the design.

Using contemporary tools is the best way to achieve this type of working relationship. Gone are the days of sharing Sketch files over email and setting calendar events where eight people on the agency side show up to have a formal conversation with a developer.

Today, we use Figma so that the developer can see and modify the designs as they are being worked on. We use Slack to keep in communication on a regular basis and have video/screen share calls when reviewing things that keep updates frequent and easy.

Building Collaboration via Overlapping Skill Sets

To actually collaborate with someone, having overlapping skill sets is key. If each party has an understanding of the other’s expertise, they can make decisions together confidently. This also establishes trust between one another. For example, if a certain interaction is going to be too time-consuming to develop, the developer can offer a suggestion that is rooted in the agency’s design expertise. This is great when needing to come to a consensus on changing a piece of the design to fit the timeline since we can trust that the developer’s suggestion is going to be feasible. It also gives designers a new model of interaction to design against, so we can refine the design accordingly.

Building Collaboration via Remixing

When you have two parties with overlapping skill sets, the other party will often take the idea you have designed and enhance it.

Internally, we used our knowledge of front-end development to deliver custom interactions to our developer Cory, and he would surprise us by making them even better in his implementation. This type of relationship is critical in creating a site that expresses the brand to its fullest potential.

To be technical, our original design intended to use CSS to pin one part of the design while the rest scrolled. The developer went even further and added an overlap to the pinned area once a certain scroll threshold is reached.

This design was enhanced in implementation because the developer split up a Lottie animation and CSS animations that aligned perfectly with the timing. This needed to be implemented this way because the text needed to be editable in the CMS.

Start Today

The best way to build a culture of true collaboration is to start actually collaborating with people today.

Are you working on a document that you are trying to perfect before sending off? Get on a screen share and get input from a developer.

Do you work with a team that has a skill set you don’t have? Start learning their skills, gain empathy for what their jobs are, and bring them into the conversation. Show that you care about their craft and that you’re willing to learn outside of your role in order to make something better than you could have done alone.

Did someone send you a project to execute? Think creatively about it and enhance it beyond what they were expecting. Those little one to two-hour experiments add up over time and really improve the quality of what you’re working on.

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

How to Hire the Right Branding Agency

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

The Business Case for Hiring a Branding Agency

In all the years of working with tech companies, we have heard the same story time and time again about the trials and tribulations of VPs and marketing executives trying to secure a budget to invest in hiring a branding agency with limited success. On top of that, how to hire the right agency can be just as confusing.

We hear about them making strong and compelling business cases to invest in the brand to leadership teams and hitting a wall. It happens at every budget cycle, management meeting, and discussion around disappointment in growth, differentiation, and lead gen that fails to meet expectations. And still, there’s no investment in the brand.

When so many founders and CEOs of technology companies don’t yet see the value in investing in brand strategy, it’s often because they are deeply invested in building a product and often feel that the product will sell itself, until, well, it doesn’t. They try and fix the things that are easy and seem obvious, but oftentimes it takes more than that. They don’t know what you know: investing in the brand is investing in the business. Yes, it’s frustrating. We feel your pain.

Investing in brand strategy is not easy for many founders and CEOs to wrap their head around, but when they are ready to pull the trigger, you need to be ready.

How to Hire the Right Branding Agency

Hiring the right agency is critical to your success, the success of the business, and the agency’s success. So, how do you hire the right agency when it’s finally time? Very, very carefully.

Some things to consider:

Do your homework to see who are the top agencies. Tap your network, do your research, check the rankings to see what firms measure up.

Be incredibly clear about the goals and objectives of the project. Map them out to get sign-off from the leadership team.

Set appropriate expectations about timing so they are clear what their time commitment is on the project.

Be realistic around what budget is required to engage an agency to do great work, and the reality of how long it will take from start to finish. Set this expectation with the leadership team so they know from the outset.

Tap your network for strategic agencies. Find agencies that have relevant experience, a strong portfolio, and a great reputation, but offer different approaches to solving the problems you are looking to address.

Choose three agencies to prepare proposals. Cast a wide net at first and bring the top three back to go through the process with you.

Be very clear about what you are asking help for. Help each agency understand what you are trying to accomplish—big picture—with this project, what the dynamics of the leadership team are, and what you personally are trying to accomplish. If you set the agency up for success, you’ll be successful too.

Compare apples to apples. Give each agency the same project to scope so that they can prepare a proposal, timing, team, and budget for you to be able to compare each agency to the same scope.

The pitch. Once you’ve kicked the tires of each agency and checked references, invite your top two agencies to come in and pitch.

Trust Your Gut

This is where you should sit back and watch the dynamics of each pitch. Which agency fires up your leadership team about what is possible? Which agency enables the work to begin even within the pitch? Which agency provokes a meaningful dialogue? Which agency feels right?

Once you’ve checked all the rational boxes, this decision becomes an emotional one.

So, how do you hire the right agency for your brand project? Choose who you feel can help you manage your leadership team and this project, deliver a meaningful brand strategy that delivers the results you need, and who you can imagine working side by side with for the next few months—because you will be spending a lot of time with them.

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

On Creating Resonant Digital Brand Experiences Today

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

Digital Brand Experiences

We asked our design team about their point of view on building resonant digital brand experiences today. Here’s what they said.

Historically, brands used to rely heavily on brand marketing and advertising for awareness of their products and services. But in the digital age, many brands are born solely online or as an app. In essence, screen only experience(s). What makes some of these brands good vs. great?

Great digital brands are true utilities. Once you get into someone’s life and seamlessly integrate into their every day, that’s when you find success as a digital brand. Venmo comes to mind first. It’s a brand that made paying people back—something we do every day or every week—fun. PayPal started P2P payments and acquired Venmo as a next generation digital experience. PayPal is good, but Venmo is great. Fun, easy, fresh, and simple.

A testament to a great digital brand is the number of “super users” the brand has acquired, as in the number of people that can’t imagine not using them every day. Moving beyond marketing and advertising, it’s brand awareness through repetition and word of mouth. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google are all very prominent digital brands today. Most people are “super users” of all these experiences. Now that’s true utility.

What’s the real value of being a digital brand today?

Consumers today expect a lot from the brands they buy from and/or show loyalty toward. They expect brands to understand them perfectly. They want personalized experiences and brand experiences that are tailored to their every moment.

And digital brands have the opportunity to give just that—to get down to that person, that place, and that unique moment. They have the data to serve up relevant content and experiences in a personalized way—essentially wrapping around a person and his/her environment at the perfect point in time. That’s what it’s all about. And when you pair that kind of deep knowledge of the audience and what they’re doing with utility, you have a very powerful thing.

The question every digital brand should be asking is, “In today’s busy world, what value does this thing add to a person’s life, right now?”

Where do you see digital branding headed in the future?

There’s absolutely no doubt that digital experiences are going to become way more powerful over time. That means less paper, fewer stores, more connectivity, more automation, and more machine learning. But it’s important to remember that as brands get more advanced and even more connected, they also need to behave more humanly. We see a lot of attempts to humanize the digital customer experience for a reason. Chat/Messenger bots are an example. People, for the most part, don’t want to talk to computers or be trapped in a world that feels separated from their own.

Moving beyond sites and apps, VR/AR is here, but not here yet. It’s going to be a long transition to truly integrate these digital experiences into our lives at scale and in meaningful ways. No matter what the form factor, digital brands can champion the human side of technology as it gets more powerful. SnapChat is a perfect example of using AR in a fun and simple way before we even knew what AR was.

Another fast-moving area is IoT and AI-connected devices and services. Think Amazon’s Alexa—she’s basically becoming a brand within her digital self. The Amazon brand has a digital voice that can have real conversations with us. Apple’s Siri has new friends. Our TVs are smart and we can control things in our homes like our cable, thermostat, light bulbs, door locks, etc. from anywhere. Brands will need to be confident, trusted, and safe in their design, feel, language, and approach.

What are some tactics that brands succeeding in the digital space are adapting?

Today, with more mass in the digital space it’s harder for people to remember who to go back to and why. It’s a crowded space and building brand equity is a big challenge. Everyone’s advertising and spending and it sometimes seems near impossible to gain that mass adoption. That explains why loyalty programs are finding a lot of success in the digital space.

The Nike Plus platform is a great example of this. It basically lifts a physical act such as a sport and surrounds it with a digital layer of data, engagement, competitive feel, and game aspect. It’s a non-commerce loyalty play that can eventually lead to commerce. It can also be considered a utility as well—your digital companion to your everyday fitness.

In the end, it’s the brands who’ve figured out strategically how to make people feel good and give them some sort of differentiated value that end up on top. So it’s about the emotional coupled with the rational.

Speaking of challenges, what are some other challenges brands trying to build resonant digital experiences are facing right now?

A lot of the times when brands fail in the digital space it’s simply about too many people trying to do the same thing. Like circling in on too small of a segment or trying to solve something that never really needed solving. The home delivery meals category is a good example of a category that is simply too competitive and brands are struggling to stand apart.

As designers, the big challenge is creating a brand story and experience in these predefined, digital spaces. The brand needs to work and be compelling screen after screen, frame after frame, pixel after pixel. And the thing is that people don’t look at it for very long. We have very short digital attention spans. Our hands are moving faster than we can even process. It’s a real challenge to stop a user in their tracks, but that’s the goal.

Then there’s also the challenge of balancing how much you push your digital experience into the future. Digital brands always have to be one step ahead. But at the same time, the experiences have to resonate with people. You can’t push too far or not far enough.

As a designer, what’s the most exciting part of building digital brand experiences?

The digital world is in a perpetual state of redesign. Think about how often Facebook updates its platform. There’s more opportunity for change when everything is happening digitally.

As designers, we constantly fiddle and shift—continually tailoring a brand moment to better fit a person and his/her world. And that’s exciting in a brand world where consumers are at the center of everything.

Also, digital always looks forward. It never looks back. It doesn’t even stay the same. And it’s not slowing down.  It’s a big, growing train, moving forward—full speed. That’s both an inspiring realization and an exciting challenge we have to accept and let fuel our creativity, innovation, and design approaches moving forward. 

Emotive Brand is an Oakland brand strategy and design agency.

Can Collaboration Tools Actually Help Build Better Teams?

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

More Than Your Average Team Building Activity

If you know us at Emotive Brand, you know we love a healthy dose of post-work cocktails, a Friday spent hiking as a team, or the occasional holiday extravaganza. We can genuinely say we enjoy spending time with each other. Even so, we would be lying if we said productive collaboration always came naturally.

Like any business, we run into communication issues. We question whether we have the right people in the right roles on the right projects. Some of us work best in short bursts, others need longer spans of time to be productive. Some love structure, others, room to breath and create. In short, we’re all different (which is great) – but sometimes, our different preferences, approaches, and paces, can make collaboration more difficult. It’s just natural.

However, as a highly collaborative agency in a highly collaborative business, we would be wrong to push aside these challenges. So, this week, we put aside an afternoon to invest in a different kind of team building. 

Using Tools to Assess How We Collaborate

There are a lot of different collaboration assessments and tools out there. The one we did – Compass, by Shirlaws – hones in on workplace communication, leadership styles, and work pace. In short, the assessment told us four things about ourselves.

  • Communication style: This assessment categorized each individual as either Think, Feel, or Know to better understand how each of us processes information. Reductively, thinkers are those who thrive on details – think data, facts, logic. Feelers process information through emotions and energies. Knowers trust their gut instinct – they’re intuitive and direct. We all are some combination of Think, Feel, Know – we may just lean into one or two more.
  • Business role: This assessment told us if we operated as an entrepreneur (all about ideas, innovation, the future), a leader (all about tomorrow, strategy, change), or a manager (someone who makes sure what needs to happen today happens). Any business thrives when it has a spread of all three.
  • Pace: This was all about how fast each of us moves through work, life, and leisure. It revealed if our work pace differed from our natural pace and explained what any gaps might indicate.
  • Appetite for risk: This showed us where we sat on the spectrum of risk taking. 

Once we had our results, the Compass team came into our office and facilitated a workshop for us to better understand these assessments and leverage them as tools for better collaboration.

We learned a lot that might be helpful – whether you’ve taken Compass, a like-minded test, or nothing like it yet.

Everyone has unique strengths. The question is: how do you leverage them?

One of the great things the Compass team explained right away was that there were no perfect results. Being a thinker is no better than being a feeler. Working fast is no better than working slow. Naturally innovating is no better than being an incredible manager. There are advantages to all of the above. And, the fact that all of us were different made us stronger as a team.

Once you recognize our teammate’s strengths, you can apply them to the way you build teams, engage with clients, and work with each other. For example, say Madeline (hypothetical person A) is a Think. When you have a client who needs data and details to get on board with an idea, Madeline is your girl. Theo (hypothetical person B), on the other hand, is a Feel. He’s a great storyteller and can read a room like a pro. He might be the perfect person for a pitch. Need someone to read a brief fast and report on what they conjecture is the core problem that needs to be solved? Call up your highest Know.

Empathy is everything, as always.

In the same way you can transform a business through empathy, you can transform a team through empathy. Much of the value of these assessments is the respect that comes with acknowledging that we don’t all approach or process things in the same way. Understanding that people come at work from different angles and accommodating or flexing to what people need to be successful can mean a lot. It can fuel more productive collaboration and better decision making.

If you surprise someone who needs time to look at the details with an impromptu meeting, understand that this isn’t optimal for their way of processing information. Try to give them a bit of warning next time, or explain the urgency of this particular situation. Similarly, before you jump into the details with someone who processes through emotion, try to take a step back and just ask them how their day is. It’s little things like this that can help build a better functioning team.

We are malleable, flexible, and always growing.

These assessments should never set you in stone. Some of our teammates had taken the Compass test a couple years ago and gotten different results (some changed more than others.) Shirlaws explained that these results can be affected by lots of things – what projects you’re on, how fast business is growing, how new you are, what your teammates are focused on, and even, what’s going on at home.

People are capable of growing into different roles and expanding into different communication styles. It’s important to assess where you are now, why you might have landed there, and how you can might strengthen, grow, and shift. We all assume different roles at different points of our lives – that’s what makes it interesting. So don’t put yourself or your teammates in a box. Challenge each other, ask questions, and try out different roles and approaches to communication. Try noticing what you don’t usually or attempt to approach an assignment from a different angle.

Good communication takes work and time.

Figuring out how to communicate and work with people doesn’t always come overnight. It takes patience, openness, and often, real effort. Giving yourself and your teammates the time to learn and practice good collaboration is essential. Read up on best behaviors or just simply ask your teammates what works best. And make sure you voice appreciation for when engagements do go right. Emails like “thanks for warning me in advance” or “thanks for helping me connect the dots” can go a long way. Celebrate what you do well as a team and learn from specific situations that may go amiss.

Power Team, Off to Practice

Even since our Compass workshop, I’ve noticed a lot more “How are you today?” questions and advance calendar invites. We’re already talking about building optimal teams fit to our clients’ needs and preferences. We’re considering the kind of strengths we need to consider when recruiting and growing our teams. We’re just getting started but I won’t be surprised if we find our team performing better, collaborating more effectively, making decisions faster, and connecting with our clients more meaningfully. As always, we will keep you posted.

Learn more about how Compass can help your team here.

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

AI and Machine Learning: A Future Forward for Brands?

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

The Future, It’s Here: AI and Machine Learning

It’s easy to think of an AI-led world as a thing of the future – that movie-like image where robots run hotels, TV ads know your name, and data is more valuable than the gold people ran to California for decades ago.

Yes, the future is blurry, exciting, full of fear, and countless unknowns. Yes, it is changing every day – and fast. But the future is happening, now. In fact, AI is already integrated into the way each of us experience brands every day – even if we don’t know it. You wake up in the morning and ask Alexa what the weather is. You Google Map how to get to your meeting and blast your Spotify Discover Weekly playlist on your drive. You buy a new book based on an Amazon recommendation. You scroll content on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter – all while your bank is making sure you’re safe from credit card fraud. There’s AI integrated into all of those brand experiences.

And it’s no longer something solely owned by the tech giants. Smart businesses and brands – big and small, old and new, B2B and B2C – who want to elevate their brand experiences and build a brand fit for the future are investing in AI and machine learning in innovative and strategic ways, today. 

It’s Complicated

Right now, the breadth of AI is huge, and it’s only getting bigger. AI is being used to improve decision making, fuel creativity, increase speed and flexibility, and personalize at scale. Right now, AI assistants are being trained to display complex human emotions like sympathy. Brands like Microsoft are building teams of data scientists, data sustainers, poets, playwrights, and novelists to develop the right AI personality for their brand. Autodesk’s Dreamcatch is being programed to enhance the imagination and fuel the creativity of the most exceptional designers out there. At the same time, GDPR regulations are arising intricate and important questions surrounding privacy and data collection. Teams are hiring in-house ethicists to help navigate issues. With every innovation, comes another challenge.

Each day, the circumference of possibility expands. And this can be overwhelming for brands and businesses trying to find their place in the future.

 A New World of AI and Machine Learning

As a brand strategy agency that works to help brands navigate their space and build better experiences for the people that matter, we have also been watching AI. There is so much to consider, but here are some insights we are keeping top of mind.

1. Voice Matters

In the same way that people can be disappointed or delighted by an experience with a customer representative, they will also have an opinion of your chatbot or AI system. So what’s important for brands building chatbots today (as are many) to remember is that the voice of your AI system must reinforce everything you want people to believe about your brand.

Alexa is confident and polite but Siri, unlike Alexa, is sassy. This distinction in voice reveals a difference in brand. Apple strategically built Siri to be just like it’s brand – individual, bold, not afraid to say something different. Sephora’s Kik bot is conversational, fun, in-the-know, and a little bit sparkly (think emojis galore) – just like the teen-targeted brand. On the other hand, Microsoft’s Cortana is helpful, but not bossy. So like any new touchpoint, put strategic thought into the experience and use it to reinforce your brand.

2. Decisions, Decisions – Better? Faster? Stronger?

Take Stitch Fix – an online clothing retailer that offers subscription clothing and styling service. The differentiator? Users don’t actually shop for clothes. Instead, they give measurements, connect their Pinterest boards, submit personal notes of preference, and fill out style surveys. Stitch Fix’s machine learning algorithms take in this data and communicate key findings to the company’s fashion stylists (real life humans!).

In short, AI superpowers the productivity and effectiveness of those stylists’ decisions. With greater speed and better accuracy, stylists can recommend even more creative, personalized, in-tune clothing options. The data collected in the process allows Stitch Fix to see style trends before the market itself catches on. The brand even develops fashions entirely born from data – which they term “frankenstyles.”

The collaboration between machine learning technologies and creative, visionary employees is key here. When you join the forces of human and artificial intelligence, amazing things happen. Innovation increases, creativity soars, and employees can hone their strengths. So never forget about the power and intelligence of your employees – you’ll always need their capabilities.

3. Extreme Personalization at Scale

We’ve talked again and again about the power of personalization – and, the demand for it. Now, AI gives brands the opportunity to achieve unprecedented levels of personalization, at scale.

For example, Mercedes-Benz created Cobot arms (with AI-technology) that act as extensions of their own employees on the ground. These cobots allow employees to do less manual labor and heavy lifting, and act as pilots of the robots. Customers at the dealership want to see the car with leather seats? Add new dashboard components? This innovation creates the agility to customize right there. No two cars that leave the dealership have to be the same. And customers can see their unique desires become realities in real time.

Considering the moments and experiences you can tailor to your customer’s needs and desires can be one of the best ways of tapping into the power of AI.

4. Trust, Transparency – Are You There?

Although, there is a lot of buzz out there surrounding AI – there is little talk of trust.

And in a world where what privacy is being questioned more than ever, leaks in data happen every day, discussions around face recognition and data collection ethics are commonplace, and new rules and regulations are emerging in response, ultimately, brand trust matters more than crazy algorithm or hyper intelligent robot.

GDPR gives consumers the right to receive an explanation for any algorithm-based decision. Businesses globally are hiring what people call “AI sustainers” – employees who work to ensure that the systems are working properly, safely, responsibly, and ethically. This all comes in response to a greater demand for transparency, and a larger need for trust – one that has been bubbling over for quite some time.

So put resources and focus towards building trust before you launch into something that risks jeopardizing it. And never forget to be human – brands that feel human to people build better, more trust-filled relationships.

Like Anything, Get Strategic

The future might be here, but the fact is that brands are still struggling to use AI technologies to solve real business problems. It’s not that the tech doesn’t work, it’s that people aren’t clear around how to actually use it strategically.

Part of what’s so scary for brands and consumers alike is how open the world of AI seems. It’s expansive and complex – a huge and often risky investment for brands who might not sure how to approach it.

The worry is that AI becomes a black box. So if you choose to invest in AI, don’t make it just another separate R&D initiative. Get people around the table – not just data scientists, but leaders and creatives too – to think strategically about how AI can strengthen your brand, deepen and complement your employees strengths, help you connect with the right people, position you for growth, and ultimately fuel your business into the future.

That’s the future we can’t wait for.

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

The Next Frontier for Employer Brands: Healthy Behavior Change

Posted on by Carol Emert

At Emotive Brand, we’ve seen a jump over the last year in clients seeking help with employee behavior change. Better brand behavior isn’t the focus. Instead, organizations are actually trying to help their people live happier and healthier work and personal lives.

It’s exciting to see companies living out their employer brands through a greater commitment to their people, and to see them authentically rewarded with more trust and loyalty.

Several trends have brought us to this point, starting with greater competitiveness in recruiting – especially in Silicon Valley, which seems to be innovating the employee-employer relationship as fast as technology these days.

Other factors include better neuroscientific insight into the mechanics of behavior change coupled with proven successes, especially in the area of health. And putting all of that theory into action are new digital tools that can monitor, measure, and support healthy habit formation over time.

From our vantage point at the intersection of brand and business, we’ve identified four best practices for successful behavior change.

1. Open the door with a powerful creative idea

You can chuck a new benefits program over the fence through an email and a new section on your HR page.  Or you can really engage employees through a strategic internal campaign wrapped in a powerful creative idea.

To get to an idea that works, you need to deeply understand your people. How they perceive the problem. Their barriers to adoption – both functional and emotional. What their ideal end state looks like. The language that resonates with them. The cultural context in which they live and work.

Connecting the dots between these data points will provide the emotional insight that informs your messaging. This insight and the resulting creative idea should create a siren’s call that’s so true and powerful, your people open up to it instinctively.

2. Make behavior change activity visible

Once you have peoples’ attention, they’ll be more drawn to a new program if they can see others participating. A sense of momentum triggers both FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and a genuine desire to be part of a collective action.

Think of the poor chump who is the first to give a standing ovation after a performance. Standing alone feels incredibly vulnerable – and foolish if nobody joins in. But once the standing O gains momentum and most people are doing it, the vulnerability shifts to the few people left sitting. A moment ago they were a regular part of the crowd. Now they appear either mean-spirited or clueless.

This principle, called social norming, is classically illustrated by this video of a lone Dancing Guy who convinces a whole hillside of picnickers to stand up and boogie.

For organizations, social norming points to the importance of seeding a new behavior change program with high-profile early adopters. Then make their activity visible, ideally both through external markers like a progress-tracking exhibition or swag, and digitally through workplace social networks, apps, or an intranet ticker showing an ever-growing number of participants.

3. Reward small actions and accomplishments

Gamification has exploded with the proliferation of apps promoting wholesome behaviors, from exercise to saving money to learning a language. Congratulatory badges and notifications have become expected bread crumbs down the path of behavior change.

Employers can leverage this trend by offering consistent, step-by-step rewards and incentives to get people started on a new behavior and then keep them on the path of progress. In addition to digital gamification, rewards can include personal recognition, financial incentives, and perks – whatever feels most true to the employer brand.

4. Break down big challenges

Sometimes behavior change is difficult because mastery requires an intimidating amount to learn or do. The sheer number of topics to master or actions to take can be paralyzing. Financial planning is one example. Losing 70 pounds through diet and exercise is another.

There are two ways to take the intimidation out of behavior change. One is to break down each step into pieces that feel doable. The second is to start with what’s easy. For example, someone might find it hard to create a financial plan that addresses all of their life goals. But starting with something that’s inherently rewarding, like saving toward a vacation, can open the door to a broader conversation.

If the process is then laid out in simple steps, ideally reinforced with a system of rewards, there’s a better chance of an employee getting all the way to the end.

A new frontier for employer brands

Behavior change is hard. Historically, it’s been a lonely endeavor. But we believe organizations can change all that by following our simple blueprint: Harness the power of your community. Break down big challenges into the doable. Offer motivating incentives. And deliver it all through inspiring communications.

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

The Right Ad, Just When you Need It: Talking “Moment Marketing” with Randy Wootton

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Randy Wootton and Moment Marketing 

Continuing our Emotive Brand expert series, we’re interviewing past and present Emotive Brand clients to discover what they do better than anybody else – and how that expertise can be used to embolden your brand today.

In this post, we speak with Randy Wootton, former CEO of Rocket Fuel, a past Emotive Brand client whose positioning project resulted in a major acquisition for the company. In this interview, we talk about the evolution of marketing and advertising today and why brands poised for success are focusing in on what Randy calls “Moment Marketing.”

Below, we discuss his book in-progress and hear what he has to say about one-to-one marketing, audience segmentation, AI, and the future of advertising. Could advertising ever be truly helpful for consumers? Even welcome? Randy says it’s possible. Read his interview below:

Tell me about your book-in-progress, Moment Marketing?

First, let me clarify what I mean by “moment”. When I use that term, people often think about big moments in their lives: the groundbreaking discovery, a wedding proposal, or solution to a difficult problem. But 99% of moments are banal. Moment marketing means you reach the right person at the right time, at the right place, in context.

Last weekend, for instance, I sat on my couch and watched the Raiders with my 11-year-old son. He played a Disney game on his phone. I checked email. It was a perfect opportunity for Disney – or a similar advertiser – to create a wraparound experience. If they could push an ad to me for a 20% discount on my next trip while also placing an ad in my son’s game, chances are the advertising would be a lot more effective than a Disney billboard I pass on the way to work.

If we’re targeting individuals, is that the end of audience segmentation?

I think it is. Segments can be helpful but they also limit you. Think about one of the popular segments: soccer moms. Marketers make many assumptions about this group and target based on age, gender, and location. But segments don’t capture the robustness of individuals. They don’t describe individuals; they don’t tell you that one mom has other kids who do baseball and guitar but hate soccer.

When you track individuals’ actions, interactions with brands, and purchases and then target them one-on-one, you can be much more precise. What’s even better than that, though, is engaging them at the right time, in the moment.  

You have said that consumers could eventually welcome advertising. Really?

Think about Amazon today. When you look for a book, they suggest other titles you might enjoy as well as reviews of those books. When you get this data at the right time, in context, it improves your experience. Consumers aren’t opposed to advertising, they are opposed to bad advertising!

In a world of Moment Marketing, what will stop advertisers from hounding me with ads for the pair of shoes I didn’t buy?

Online advertising today is disruptive and interruptive. Moment marketing requires companies ingest lots of data in near real time and take action in less than 20 milliseconds. That’s where AI comes in. You need insight engines to mine all of this data or you’ll get overwhelmed and drive your customers and prospects crazy. AI can help us discern the relevant data and then deliver advertising at the right time, in context.

Do you think marketers are ready for AI?

Right now, we are still in early innings of understanding the possibility of data. Think about when people first rode in cars. It probably seemed very dangerous. People named cars “horseless carriages” because the only way they could conceive of the future was through lens of the past. We are going to see computers make decisions more and more often. Marketers will have to surrender control and trust results. Otherwise, they’ll stand in the way of progress – and higher conversion.

How does this affect non-digital commerce? Brick-and-mortar stores?

It will be the end of those flimsy circulars we get in the mail, for sure. I see marketers getting really good at combining offline and online. Holiday shopping, for example, will be defined by mobile. When I go Toys R Us to shop for Christmas presents, that’s when I want to know about the hottest toys and receive a discount coupon.

The opportunity to stitch online and offline together through predictive marketing is radical. When marketers understand individuals and context, they create more meaningful experiences. Companies that successfully do this will differentiate themselves in the market and, ultimately, capture more than their fair share of revenue.

Stay tuned for what both Randy and Emotive Brand do next.

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

The Future of SEO Is Voice Search

Posted on by Chris Ames

Between Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google Assistant, voice technology is quickly becoming a daily part of the modern landscape. Beyond creating grocery lists or sending texts, voice search is how many people are now discovering and connecting with brands. To remain relevant — and searchable — brands need to begin thinking about how to include voice search into their overall strategy. After all, whether someone is using their thumbs or their voice, don’t you want to be found?

Voice Search Breaks the Rules of SEO

Sometimes, the most advanced technology takes us right back to where we started. When search engines first arrived, we learned to condense our natural, conversational questions into their most basic elements. We didn’t ask Google, “Hey, what’s the weather going to be like next month?” We typed, “weather Oakland October.” As a result, best practices for SEO were built around distilled keywords.

Flash forward to now. The exponential rise of voice search has completely reversed the game. No longer are we adapting our vocabulary to meet the guardrails of technology. Now, we’ve created technology smart enough to meet the demands of our natural language.

So once again, SEO marketers need to flex if they want to distinguish their brand voice in the chorus of online competitors. This year, 35.6 million Americans will use a voice-activated assistant device at least once a month. That’s a jump of 128.9% over last year. Voice search is a new and vital piece of the overall brand experience. Companies can either choose to optimize this technology now – or ignore it at the peril of both brand relevance and revenue.

Can You Hear Me Now?

If you’re not an active user of voice search, you might be skeptical of its progress. Who among us hasn’t gotten into a pronunciation battle with Siri? Yet the refinement of voice technology over the last few years has been incredible. Most systems now maintain a 95% accuracy rate when it comes to understanding voices in a quiet environment.

This is not a passing trend. This is a tool that’s growing at a breakneck speed. According to Google, more than half of teens and 41% of adults use voice search daily. SearchEngineLand estimates that more half of all queries will be voice search by 2020.

Make Your SEO Sound Human

Voice search follows the rules of natural language: it’s longer, it’s more conversational, and it incorporates more questions. As such, brands will need to focus on long-tail keywords and expand their terms to include alternate phrases.

A benefit of voice search is its strong tie to intent. Based on the kinds of questions people ask, SEO marketers can quickly discern when someone is ready to buy.

For example, a typical customer journey might begin with “what” or “who.” What is a French press? They might follow that up with “how.” How does a French press work? If a customer begins searching with “when” or “where,” it’s safe to assume they are reaching the end of their sale cycle. Where are French presses sold? When are they open?

Voice Search Happens on Mobile

On the design side of things, voice search takes place primarily on mobile. So, when customers land on your website, it better be a responsive site, load quickly, and be easy to read. Have videos on your site? They should be formatted to fit mobile screens. Any pop-ups, drop-downs, or invasive windows are only going to add noise to the UX. While we’re on the topic, voice software can’t “read” images. Make your site easy to read by transcribing anything visual.

If you’re a brick and mortar brand, keep in mind that 22% of voice searches are used to get local information. Structure your important data – business name, address, contact information, hours, and directions – at the top of your mobile page to make things easy for your customer. Rich snippets – the one or two sentences that appear under the main hyperlink in search – are incredibly valuable tools. Don’t waste them.

Don’t Forget About Bing

Bing as a search engine is often relegated to a joke, but pouring all your SEO into Google is a big mistake. Siri uses Bing as her primary search engine. If you don’t submit your sitemap to Bing, you’re putting yourself at a huge disadvantage.

Even if your brand doesn’t have the funds to invest currently, the SEO best practices around voice search can be a very useful exercise. What’s the one question a customer would have to ask to lead them to your brand? If you can answer that, you’re on the right path.

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