Blog
Branding in Motion: A Roundtable with the Emotive Brand Design Team
In 2019, everything is alive. We communicate in GIFs, message effects, and video chats. Billboards are digital, bus ads are responsive, push notifications are synchronized. Give a glossy magazine to any child under five and chances are they will try to “scroll down” the page with one index finger. The most forward-thinking companies are using motion – whether through kinetic type, animation, or mixed reality like AR and VR – to broaden the emotional impact of their brand. I sat down with the creative team at Emotive Brand to discuss the link between motion and emotion, and how B2B brands...
Read more >
The Surreal World of Brands, Social Media, and Millennial Humor
Battle of the Brands Even for people who spend most of their time online, there are still those moments that remind you just how surreal our current technological moment is. Earlier this month, while mindlessly browsing, I suddenly realized I was six comments deep into a Twitter argument between the social media managers of Wendy’s and Steak-umm. Participating in #NationalRoastDay – an annual tradition of lightly making fun of people and brands – the playful hashtag game quickly turned aggressive when the two companies started vehemently attacking each other’s brand voice and products. Just...
Read more >
Embracing an Agile Workflow to Yield an Agile Brand
A lot of branding firms talk about the importance of incorporating agility into their clients’ brands. The best brands have to stand for something distinct and meaningful – and at the same time, be ready to acknowledge what is happening out in the marketplace so they can adapt and adjust to maintain their edge. There is less discussion about the process of branding and the need to imbue it with a degree of agility as well. Speed is a given – we’ve all been schooled on how clients no longer have time for long, drawn-out branding processes that will yield a new brand in the market within 12-18...
Read more >
How to Deal with the Looming Talent Shortage
Who’s Got Talent? How many times have we heard that robots are coming for our jobs? Whether it’s from science fiction or straight from the mouth of Elon Musk, it’s a dystopia we’ve been anticipating for quite some time. However, based on a recent study from Korn Ferry, a global organizational consulting firm, we may have been misplacing our fears on the wrong targets. In a sweeping country-by-country analysis, the biggest issue isn’t that robots are stealing all the jobs – it’s that there simply aren’t enough human beings to take them. According to the study, by 2030 there will be a...
Read more >
Making the Case for a Rebrand
Rebrands are for Firebrands Not everything in the branding world is relatable. For the average person, chatting about go-to-market strategies or employer brands isn’t exactly scintillating dinner party conversation. But there is one thing that ignites fiery debate and criticism, even from those without any skin in the game, and that is the curious case of the rebrand. I’ve had multiple conversations with people who, though they have never expressed an interest in any other aspect of branding before, suddenly discuss the latest logo change, mission rewrite, or app redesign with a passion...
Read more >
The Value of Investing in Your Brand to Drive Long-Term Growth
Attention Span Is Dead, Long Live Attention Span For years, we’ve been told that our attention spans are shrinking. There is so much information, so many channels and devices vying for our attention, that we couldn’t possibly focus on anything for too long. Combine that with economic pressures, shareholder expectations, and the race to keep up in the digital age, and you get something called short-termism. Fueled by our fixation on metrics, short-termism is a concentration on quick wins to move the needle. It posits an immediate, attention-grabbing impact over strategically driven,...
Read more >
The Role of Research to Develop Personas
New Year, New You It’s January again, and as with every year, many people are seeking to better themselves. The blank slate of a new year is full of endless possibility. Brands are not immune to this pursuit of self-improvement either. Equipped with a renewed budget and a clear head from the holiday break, many businesses are wondering what’s the best way to save time and money, turn insight into action, and find a meaningful place in their customers’ life. If you’re not already, it’s time to unleash the power of personas. Too often, brands are created, products are developed, and campaigns...
Read more >
Happy Holidays from Emotive Brand!
Thanks for a Brilliant Year It’s the most wonderful time of the year. A time when our team frantically rushes to put the finishing touches on all our projects before taking a break to spend time with loved ones. It’s a time when our brainstorms are frenetic, our delivery is lightning fast, and the drinks are strong. So, really, it’s business as usual. We wanted to take a minute to thank our amazing clients for giving us the opportunity to transform their brands. We have the supreme privilege of working with some of the brightest, most driven, whip-smart people all over the...
Read more >
Brand Writing Trends for 2019
There’s a good reason why it’s said we consume content. Because content, like other treasured objects of consumption, can make you queasy if not served properly. Continuing our preview of 2019, today we’re examining the crucial content trends your brand needs to master heading into the new year. If you’re looking to overcome challenges, build a stronger employer brand, or disrupt your visual design, you can start there. Authenticity Over Everything Whenever we discuss how a brand expresses itself, we must always ground ourselves in embracing authenticity. Trust is the yardstick by which all...
Read more >
Design Trends for 2019
Friction Builds Character Friction is one of those words you see in Silicon Valley all the time. Specifically, in technology’s promise to remove it. A frictionless experience is instantly digestible, seamless, clean. The only problem is that in desperately trying to remove the friction from every experience, you can remove the experience altogether. A little friction, intrigue, or mystery is not always a bad thing – especially when it comes to design. As we look forward to 2019, we have talked about trends for employer branding and overcoming strategic challenges. Today, we turn our sights...
Read more >
Employer Branding Trends for 2019
Fun Work vs. Fulfilling Work How we hire changes every year. Is there any page on a company’s website more volatile than its careers tab? At the start of the decade, it seemed like a place for plucky young startups to showcase almost everything besides what the organizations actually did. You’d have to scroll through two ping pong tables and at least one company dog before you got to any open positions. But at the end of the day, fun will only get you so far. Why We Work Now, the tech scene has largely outgrown its dorm room aesthetic. Prospective hires are looking for far more than bean...
Read more >
Great Design Shifts Perception
One of my favorite quotes about identity comes from American architect, author, and designer, Buckminster Fuller. “Ninety-nine percent of you who are,” he says, “is invisible and untouchable.” No matter how much we think we understand, there is always something unseen and overlooked humming beneath the surface. Great design can function in a similar way. A logo or a car engine each has a tip-of-the-iceberg function that appears obvious. But behind every glyph and gear, there is an invisible force that has the power to fundamentally shift how we think about and move through the world. Great...
Read more >
The Role of Voice Technology for Brands
Voice Technology Is Older Than You Think Voice is the newest technology platform on the block. And like all seemingly new things, it’s actually much older than you think. In the early 1960s, IBM introduced the Shoebox, an early effort at mastering voice recognition. This bulky little machine could recognize 16 words spoken into its microphone and convert those sounds into electrical impulses. Basically, it was a voice-operated calculator. Dressed in a tuxedo at the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle, developer William C. Dersch performed the miracle of turning your voice into a search engine....
Read more >
We’re Grateful for Our Amazing Clients
Here in the U.S., it’s Thanksgiving. Which means it’s a perfect time to pause and reflect on what we’re grateful for. We’re grateful for strong coffee. We’re grateful for stronger cocktails. We’re grateful for the passionate, creative, curious people who come to Emotive Brand every day to make brands matter more to people. And of course, we’re incredibly grateful for our growing list of clients that give us their time, expertise, and trust to help them transform their brands. We couldn’t do it without them. As we sign off for the rest of the week, we wanted to do a quick roundup of some of...
Read more >
The Pros and Cons of Launching a New Category
What’s Old Is New Again People have been drinking coffee, listening to music, and shopping for groceries forever. But if you peered into the modern household, chances are these common operations would look completely foreign to someone ten years ago. One might load a coffee pod while streaming an album from their phone, then ask their voice assistant to add something to their online cart. This is the brave new world of brand category creation, and it’s something that we’ve written about extensively. The reason we spend so many words on this topic is that it’s absolutely paramount to...
Read more >