Blog
Transforming Business Through Empathy
Empathy and Business? Some say no, we say yes. There are many factors that add meaning and purpose to a brand, and they all stem from a single source: empathy. Empathy is the ability to walk in another person’s shoes. That is, to see and experience the world from a perspective different from your own. Here we explore how empathy plays a vital role in shifting brands from a bland and vulnerable position to one that is robust in meaning and purpose. Empathy as a driver of brand strategy When you’re close-in to a business’s daily operations it’s hard to see how your brand is perceived by the...
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Fast Forward Your Narrative: COVID was a catalyst for change. Is your corporate narrative still relevant?
COVID was a catalyst for change. Is your corporate narrative still relevant? At the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, companies were scrambling to respond to the moment. But as recognition sets in that these changes are here to stay, we must respond to a new movement: one that moves fast, with feeling, for the future. The landscape of brand, business, and culture has been undeniably transformed. So, we must figure out how to communicate in ways that were empathetic and relevant, contextually aware, human, and sensitive. Given our new normal—a constant state of change—today’s leaders, brand...
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A Letter From Our CEO
These are the words I shared with our team at our last in-person meeting before we air-hugged our goodbyes until who knows when. Our carefully thought-out plans for 2020 were instantaneously put on hold as COVID-19 took its grip. Like everyone else, we’re now creating plans for the unknown, but our approach to this pandemic is the same approach we’ve always practiced as a business. People first, empathy always. Every decision we make is made through the lens of: what is the right thing to do for our people? Our employees, clients, partners, friends, and families? I believe there has never...
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Adopting a Human Mindset
Over the past weeks, we’ve transitioned to a new life at home, the place where everything now happens with little exception; a blurred, ever-shifting diagram dividing work, our relationships, family life, and rest. In this way, coronavirus has become the great equalizer. The pandemic has also clarified the differences between how we live our lives and the support we’re able to receive, or not. It has swiftly and single-handedly altered our needs as people. It has forced us to prioritize what matters most and accept what’s out of reach. As a result, we have competing practical needs;...
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Cultivating Empathy: Essential in Uncertain Times
Empathy in Uncertain Times These days, everything feels unsettled. We’ve watched travel discontinue, lively offices expeditiously shift to remote work, restaurants and small businesses shut their doors, cities still and quiet, as the landscape of our global economy shifts on a daily basis. Recognition that this COVID-19 state of living, working, and doing business will not be ephemeral is settling in. We’re seeing first hand as our clients are forced to quickly adapt—make swift decisions, innovate new solutions, and reimagine the way they’ve always done business. It’s clear that the weight...
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Global Growth, Local Success: Your Employer Brand Can Do Both
Level Setting: Employer Branding Is a Must-Have As a brand agency whose work revolves around transforming business by changing how people feel about brands, we’re naturally true believers in the impact of employer branding. We think of employer brand as the practice of ensuring a company’s external branding efforts are supported by a corresponding and complementary internal brand that speaks to current and prospective employees. When companies do succeed at successfully articulating an emotionally meaningful proposition of what it means to work for their company, recruitment, retention, and...
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Do You Guys Do Messaging?
Do You Guys Do Messaging? When clients ask us to share our ‘typical’ brand strategy process, we are careful to respond that there is no typical process as all client needs truly are different. The right-for-this-client scope of work comes as a result of a deep process of inquiry into our clients’ circumstances, budget tolerance, depth and expertise of team, and an assessment of what we think they will need to really make their brand perform in the market. Invariably, the question comes, “what about messaging, do you guys do that?” Indeed, what about messaging? A classic component of the...
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Shedding Ego in The Branding Process
As creatives, we believe deeply in our craft and put ourselves fully into what we make. Our humor, our creativity, our problem-solving gets baked into the product. So, when work is rejected, it can feel like you’re being rejected. Add tight deadlines and multiple projects to the mix, and emotions are even higher. The key to keeping a level head is all about leaving your ego at the door and keeping a healthy authorial distance between maker and product. This is a guide for designers of all skill levels, clients, strategists—anyone taking part in the design process. Assume Good If...
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Positioning Testing: Is It Worth It?
Now that data-driven decision making has become the norm in marketing, it’s shocking when a brand misses the mark so badly. As the Twitter-sphere implodes, everyone is wondering ‘What happened? Why didn’t they test with customers?’ Most brands do rely on some form of testing before launching an advertising campaign…and the ones that don’t pay the price. But what about brand strategy? Is testing necessary before deploying a brand positioning? The answer isn’t one that data-driven organizations like to hear: it depends. For some brand teams, it’s absolutely necessary to pause and gather...
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The Fusion of Strategy and Design
The Best Branding Is More Than the Sum of Its Parts Since its founding in the 1950s, branding has largely been divided into two distinct disciplines: strategy and design. Strategy’s traditional role is to research, understand the competitive landscape, distill the meaning, and establish the market opportunity into a well-formed creative brief. At this point, designers typically take the brief and visually communicate against the strategic objectives. The handoff from strategy to design is not without its pitfalls. Oftentimes, key information gets lost. Strategists can work in intellectual...
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When Designers and Developers Collaborate, Everyone Wins
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...
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Igniting Growth and Pushing the Envelope for SaaS Brands
SaaS Brands These days, it’s a SaaS world and we’re just living in it. From infrastructure and identity to platforms and productivity, Everything-as-a-Service continues to reign supreme. But what does it take to succeed and become one of the SaaS brands that can achieve the annual recurring revenue (ARR) required to drive predictable growth in an ever-crowding market? According to Gartner, worldwide public cloud services are predicted to grow by 17% this year, from $227.8 billion in 2019 to $266.4 billion in 2020, with revenue forecasts for SaaS brands (cloud application services) expected...
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Customer Obsession: How to Put Them Center Stage
B2B Marketers, Want to Drive Higher Revenue Growth? Start Obsessing Over Customers Now. By now, B2B marketers understand first-hand that better customer experience correlates to higher revenue growth. Forrester and others have reports and studies to prove it. Leaders see it happening in real-time. Sure, the competition still matters. But businesses who are focused, and yes, obsessed, with their customers are finding more meaningful ways to differentiate, drive ROI, fuel digital innovation, and rethink how their business should really be doing business in the customer-led world of today. But...
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Feeling the Holiday Spirit: Introducing Emotive Feels
Emotion Is Everything For brands to make an impact on the outside world, they must explore inner worlds. In our line of work, emotion is everything. The most successful brands are those that evoke feeling—that ignite new ways of thinking about the world and our unique place in it At Emotive Brand, naturally, we’re obsessed with emotion. We believe every company can perform better if its brand connects with people on an emotional level. A brand that’s emotive triggers feelings, inspires action, earns loyalty, and lifts spirits. In the overcrowded business world, your brand must resonate...
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Talking Transformation: Brand, Business, and Culture
An Interview with Katie Tamony We sat down with Katie Tamony, Chief Communications and Culture Officer at Alluma, a technology non-profit dedicated to making sure those eligible for benefits and services don’t fall through the cracks. Katie talks to us about leading transformation projects: her role, why these kinds of projects excite her, and what’s critical in executing a transformation successfully. This isn’t the first transformation project you’ve been a part of. Why does this kind of work appeal to you? Building something new out of what has been has always excited me. That’s why I’m...
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