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Timing a Positioning Project: How to Set Yourself up for Success

Timing a Positioning Project: How to Set Yourself up for Success

When Considering a Positioning Project: Timing Is Everything A positioning project requires a serious commitment of time and attention from your team, as well as a financial investment. Whether you do it yourself or partner with a firm, you’ll (hopefully) end up with a positioning you can own that differentiates you in the marketplace. The most successful positioning projects we’ve run have three things in common: time, attention, and urgency. So how do you figure out the best time to start a positioning project? We’ve seen positioning projects thrive when: Your business, sales, or...
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What Is Brand Generosity Anyway?

What Is Brand Generosity Anyway?

Why so generous? Brand generosity is in. As consumers become increasingly connected to social media and exposed to marketing ploys and tricks, suspicions rise about the authenticity of brands. Many consumers are looking for a genuine social commitment from the brands they engage with. As a result, building a bond with the people that matter to your business is more important now than ever before. People are looking for brands that give more than what’s expected. They want to feel good about the brands they are buying into, and how those brands are giving back to the world at large. What is...
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Want Better, Faster Design? Bring Your Creatives to Strategy Meetings

Want Better, Faster Design? Bring Your Creatives to Strategy Meetings

Emotive Brand Expert #4: Eve Maidenberg Continuing our Emotive Brand Experts 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 Eve Maidenberg, the Creative Services Director at Stitch Fix. Before that, she was a VP of Marketing at Marqeta. *** Left Brain vs. Right Brain Strategists and creatives are the left and right brains of a branding agency. In every project, you need the right mix of sequencing and imagination, linear thinking...
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Mastering the Art of Emotive Writing

Mastering the Art of Emotive Writing

Emotive branding works because it connects with people on a very real and personal level. But brands have multiple target audiences who are often very different from each other. They may be easily relatable, or they may not. So how does a brand speak in a way that truly resonates with each diverse audience? From an agency point of view, how do we at Emotive Brand approach emotive writing? This question relates mostly to messaging – communications aimed at key stakeholders who are very different people with different relationships to the brand. A typical audience mix might include employees,...
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Emotive Branding: Becoming a Global Movement? A Fellow Agency Share Its Thoughts

Emotive Branding: Becoming a Global Movement? A Fellow Agency Share Its Thoughts

Kindred Agencies Building More Meaningful Brands At Emotive Brand, we work to build meaningful brands that can change the trajectory of a business. Purpose and feelings sit at the heart of what makes our approach different. The awesome thing about sharing our unique methodology of emotive branding with the world is discovering like-minded people and agencies. Throughout our 8+ years, we’ve connected with agencies from across the world. From Amsterdam to South Africa, there are others who believe what we believe about brands – emotive brands drive business. Recently, a kindred-spirit agency...
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Creating the Emotional Connections That Build Beneficial, Meaningful, Brand-Led Investor Relations

Creating the Emotional Connections That Build Beneficial, Meaningful, Brand-Led Investor Relations

Emotive Brand Expert #3: Polly Pearson Continuing our Emotive Brand Experts 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, Polly Pearson, a long-time friend of Emotive Brand, and an Investor Relations Consultant, speaks about helping CEOs better engage with investors. Polly has been innovating and helping companies build value with investors at leading companies for over twenty years. The secret to connecting with investors in a meaningful way?...
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Reducing Stigma Through Branding: A Moral Dilemma

Reducing Stigma Through Branding: A Moral Dilemma

Anti-Stigma Campaigns Need Authenticity Inauthenticity is the Achilles heel of purposeful brands. More than ever, people gravitate toward companies that radiate transparency and accountability. We laud brands that shift our perception to break down stigmas. However, if these sensitive topics are clumsily handled, the backlash is harsh and swift. Failing to sell a luxury item is one thing. But misrepresenting a sensitive topic for financial gain? That’s another. Nowadays, it seems hardly a week goes by without a public apology in response to a tone-deaf branding effort. So, how does a...
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Is an Agile Strategy the Right Approach for Brand Strategy?

Is an Agile Strategy the Right Approach for Brand Strategy?

Dynamic Times Require Agile Strategy We have seen a a large rise of requests for our proprietary agile strategy methodology for brand strategy. More than ever, sudden market changes, disruptive business models, rapid-paced technology, and ever-evolving competition demand agility. As customers change, new competition enters and new categories emerge, so businesses must be able to flex and adapt with the times. Without Agility, Less Impact Agility is becoming more and more of an expectation. And being agile doesn’t mean being hasty or impulsive. In fact, it’s the opposite. Agile strategy...
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New Opportunities for Insurance Brands Today: Disruption Plus Meaning

New Opportunities for Insurance Brands Today: Disruption Plus Meaning

The Force of Digital for Insurance Brands Today According to Network World, we touch our phones an average of 2,617 times a day. There is no underestimating the role of digital today. And with the proliferation of technology, consumers have come to expect a better insurance experience – one that is more meaningful, consistent, and trustworthy. Right now, trust is low and insurers are struggling to move away from the “unfair,” “horrible,” and “outdated” reputation that surrounds most providers today. This means not only embracing new, innovative tech, but using digital to power...
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Machine Learning Is the New, New Thing. But Can It Help CMOs Build Brands?

Machine Learning Is the New, New Thing. But Can It Help CMOs Build Brands?

Can big data build brands better? A few years ago, Big Data promised to radically transform the marketing landscape. CMOs were warned to master it or watch their brands get left behind. Artificial intelligence was the next new, new thing. Now the hot property is machine learning, the data-crunching tool that can find patterns in big data and make them actionable. Each of these innovations is truly transformative — and each has limitations. As machine learning gathers steam, let’s look at what it means for brands. Which challenges can machine learning tackle which still depend on human...
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What Makes a Great Strategist?

What Makes a Great Strategist?

A Team of Strategists Lots of businesses use the title of strategist for roles within their organization. For us at Emotive Brand, we have a very clear and defined view of what makes a good brand strategist. We carefully curate our project teams of strategists with a focus on selecting the skill sets and experience that are best suited for our clients and our projects. The Need for a Great Strategist In today’s hyper competitive, interconnected, always shifting world, businesses need great strategists to really drive their business and brand forward. When recruiting and hiring strategists at...
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2019 Marketing Budget Planning: Questions to Help You Get Started

2019 Marketing Budget Planning: Questions to Help You Get Started

It’s That Time: 2019 Marketing Budget Planning Developing your 2019 marketing budget is nobody’s favorite time of year. But it’s inevitable. Like clockwork each year, it’s here. As an agency immersed in helping businesses deliver the results they need to thrive, we understand first-hand that marketing budget planning can be overwhelming and taxing. Knowing what to include to deliver the results needed seems nearly impossible for many VPs of Marketing looking to drive growth, build brand, drive lead gen, and fuel revenue. We know CFOs can be tough audiences. In fact, many VPs of Marketing...
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Secrets to a Great Employee Brand Story to Recruit Top Talent

Secrets to a Great Employee Brand Story to Recruit Top Talent

Your Employee Brand Is Your Talent Scout There’s a reason that great employees are so often referred to as “talent.” Workers are a dime a dozen, but true expertise is incredibly hard to come by. It’s the thing that propels businesses to their next level of funding, keeps the sales pipeline full, and boosts office morale high in times of unease. No matter how advanced your technology is, people are the backbone of a successful business. Great brands tell stories, and there are few narratives more important than your employee brand story. HR specialists and recruiters have been leading this...
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Getting Executives to See the ROI of Brand Strategy

Getting Executives to See the ROI of Brand Strategy

Emotive Brand Expert #2: Matt Wolfrom Continuing our Emotive Brand Experts 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 Matt Wolfrom, the Vice President of Corporate Marketing & Communications at Synacor. Before that, he worked in a VP role at both PubMatic and ShareThis. *** Business Solutions vs. Branding Solutions There are few things trickier than getting an executive to invest in brand strategy. It’s never the right...
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Looking to Design Better Brand Experiences? Consider the Potential of Experience Design

Looking to Design Better Brand Experiences? Consider the Potential of Experience Design

Big Challenges in Branding As a brand strategy and design agency, we’re deeply immersed with what’s happening in the brand world. Sometimes, we are so focused on building the best solutions for our clients that we have to remind ourselves to take a step back and assess the big-picture challenges facing brands today. Emotive Brand, did just this and attended the Design Gurus Summit and the Digital Design & Web Innovation Summit in San Francisco. Four days, many talks, panels, and iPad notes later, here’s what David learned: Nailing experience design is what may make or break a brand...
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