Blog
Leadership at a Time When People Know as Much About Your Business as You Know About Them
Welcome to transparency, whether you like it or not. This is the time when people have access to unprecedented amounts of information, including deep insights into what your company is up to. And they are using this information to form opinions – opinions that shape their attitudes toward your business; attitudes that drive their behavior with respect to your business. Be they employees, customers, partners, investors, or industry pundits, what you do, how you behave, and why you do what you do all become factors in deciding your company’s fate. Hence, our advice for leaders wishing to...
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When Leadership Aligns, Good Things Happen
Alignment of thought, meaning, and purpose among a leadership team is the new secret sauce of successful businesses. When your executive leadership team agree that, “we’re aligned around a true purpose, are living it in this way, and, are clear we want to do this because it truly matters,” the effect ripples through your organization.As leadership aligns in a more purposeful way, their direct reports have more direction, feel better about helping get the business where it needs to be, and believe their work truly matters. In turn, they help direct the rest of the company so...
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10 Reasons Why Business Should Banish the Word “Brand”
Our rather controversial thoughts on “Brand” 1. It is meaningless Ask five people in your company what the word “brand” means and you’ll get at least seven definitions. As such, the meaning of the word “brand” is completely diluted and lacking in concise meaning. That’s not helpful. 2. It confuses, defuses and abuses One person in your compnay uses the word “brand” and another person interprest it differently, and then everything goes haywire. That’s expensive. 3. It becomes a tyrant It becomes a mysterious entity with a mystical...
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7 Reasons Why it’s Probably Time to Transform Your Business
What’s the matter? We met with some prospective customers over dinner the other day, and started the discussion with our favorite leading question, “So, what’s the matter?”. The floodgates opened. As we listened to the issues tumble out – and sensed the pain, anxiety and frustration they provoke in the company’s leadership – we thought about how so many businesses today face the same basic challenges. For example, how many of these challenges which our prospects are now facing, are inhibiting growth, innovation and motivation at your business? Your...
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Brands That Celebrate Beautiful Human Values Enjoy Well-Earned Respect
Steve Fuller of The House agency in Bath, UK kindly told us about this fantastic video about the rewards of giving. Steve demonstrated generosity by sharing it with us, we are doing the same with you, and now we hope you do it as well with everyone you know and love! And while you’re doing that, think about how your brand could contribute to the social good by promoting human values in lovely ways like this. Thanks Steve! To view “Unsung Hero” please click the following link: https://youtu.be/uaWA2GbcnJU Want a more emotive brand? Learn more here....
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Five Key Differences Between Emotional and Emotive Brands
It’s not too hard to spot an emotional brand. It uses emotions tactically to either make people laugh or to gently tug at their heartstrings. These brands typically only do this through their advertising. Emotive brands are far more rare. These are brands that forge meaningful – and valuable – emotional connections through everything they do. So while someone may happily buy a brand based on its emotional advertising, they are likely to be left bemused when dealing with the emotional brand’s crass customer service people. The resulting brand dissonance will, no doubt, prompt them...
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We All Know the Value of Collaboration, So Why Isn’t There More of It?
When people, departments, offices, and divisions collaborate, beautiful things happen. New product ideas are born. Smarter, more efficient processes emerge. More effective policies are developed. New energy is created. The rewards of collaboration are many, yet the spirit of collaboration is dimmed in many enterprises. There are many reasons for this, all of which add up to costly consequences. Human potential is unrealized. Capital isn’t effectively deployed. Resources are squandered. Growth, development and innovation are stymied. Enlightened organizations counter the forces that...
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The Power of Today
Meaningful brands are lead by mindful leaders. Today our guest blogger and beloved client, Leigh Weinraub, helps executives become more emotionally fit. Read more about Leigh at getyoutmindmotion.com. This post originally appeared on Huffington Post. Ask yourself, “What is today?” Today is a day unlike any other. It’s a one-of-a-kind, never-to-come-again, potentially life-defining window of time that’s only available for the next 24 hours. Today is not like anything you knew yesterday or anything you might discover tomorrow. It’s not a moment you live for but...
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Purpose Becomes Ambition
“Ambition” is the new “purpose” “The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.” – Socrates Workplaces become meaningfully relevant when employees see the point of what they and their employers are out to do: the company’s “why”, it’s reason for being, it’s meaningful ambition. When presented in a credible, inclusive and authentic way, the company’s meaningful ambition is respected, admired and embraced by employees because it aligns to their personal values and answers their desire for meaning. Employees can see themselves within the company’s...
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Why Do Startups Have Prehistoric Ideas About Branding?
Startup Brand Strategy One of the ironies of today’s world is that the leaders of the most innovative startups have the least innovative ideas about what it takes to create a brand and the value of investing in startup brand strategy. The fact is, logos and messages don’t make a brand. At least, they won’t make a brand that will thrive in the world today. Studies prove, and we are talking about a lot of research here — People (as in your customers, prospects, employees, partners and investors) are all looking for more from brands when they invest time and money. They...
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Commerce Without Morality
Fans of Mohandas K. Gandhi will recognize today’s title as one of the “seven social sins” that Gandhi published in 1925. (The full list appears below.) Gandhi wrote that a friend had given him the list. But after he spent decades speaking and writing about the big themes on this list, people just naturally assumed he was the originator. The point for us is not who described “commerce without morality” as a social sin. The point is how deep the concept goes. First, the idea that businesses should be responsible to society is totally not new. We live in an age of constant invention, so it’s...
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The Power of Brands Doing Good
One has to applaud how the Dove brand, under the guidance of Ogilvy & Mather, has become a vivid example of emotionally meaningful branding. They seized a fertile ground – women’s insecurity about their own bodies – and, rather than exploiting it as the industry typically does, set out to do something about it. In this brilliant film, Dove reveals two drawings by a forensic detective to each woman featured. The first is a drawing based on how the woman described herself to the detective. The second shows the drawing the detective drew of the woman, based on how another person described...
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San Francisco Brand Strategy Firm Celebrates Anniversary
This month San Francisco Brand Strategy firm, Emotive Brand celebrated our fifth birthday. We wanted to say THANK YOU to each and every customer, prospect, partner, friend and everyone who shares our beliefs about how to help brands matter more! We started Emotive Brand as a way to approach brand strategy in a different way. • To help transform how brands reach out to people. • To encourage our clients to embrace the idea of Purpose Beyond Profit. • To push the belief that emotionally meaningful brands drive business results. Five years later, it is gratifying to see research by Deloitte,...
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Connecting the Dots That Produce All Around Results
In a brilliant blog post, Tom Asacker posed a series of questions, the answers of which add up to two surprising results. http://www.acleareye.com/sandbox_wisdom/2014/03/theres-your-brand-strategy.html] “So ask yourself, what are we doing to motivate people, to feed their hungers and desires? Are we helping them achieve?
Are we feeding their hungers to be recognized, to be liked and loved?
Are we connecting them with like-minded people and empowering them to empower others?
Are we providing a beautiful, pleasurable, and engaging experience?
Are we providing a sense of control, full...
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Which Comes First? A Strong Corporate Culture or a Meaningful Workplace?
There’s a virtual cornucopia of so-called “culture decks” finding its way across the web today. These glitzy slideshows present the values that supposedly drive each respective company’s workforce. A quick scan of these decks shows that many of the companies are mimicking another. They are using clever language to make things sound really sexy. And of course they employ design that makes your mouth water. These cultural displays are all well and good, however one has to question them on several levels: To what extent are they honest, credible and accurate...
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